Ok, now where were we? Whew, sorry about the delay, I see some people got impatient! It's been really busy, and although I've had time to work on the project, somehow I haven't found the time to update you all. Sorry. Anyway, let's get right to it!

If you remember when last we spoke, I was waiting for both the veneer top and the paints and supplies from reranch. They all showed up, a week ago today, and were immediately put to use. The first thing to do was work out how the veneer was going to go on. My first problem was cutting it to shape. I was a bit surprised when it showed up. It was certainly beautiful, but it was also thicker than I had expected and very warped. Normally this isn't a problem, when you are gluing a veneer to a flat surface. The problem with the guitar, if you've ever seen one, is that the top isn't flat, especially where that nifty curved arm rest that Leo Fender designed sits on the top. A good surprise was that each piece was big enough on its own for the top, so I could do one continuous piece. Nice. Here's what they looked like when they showed up-


I was pretty excited when I saw the grain, and got right to cutting it. Now, I'm not sure if you've ever cut veneer before, but it isn't exactly easy. I used a combination of an x-acto knife and really sharp scissors to do the job. I made a template on cardboard first-


Then I used this template to trace out the pattern on the veneer. I actually made the veneer about 1/4 inch larger all the way around. Okay, I tried to make it about 1/4 inch, but it was tough going. After the veneer was cut, I needed to actually glue it the body. This is where things got kinda dicey. After applying glue all the way around, the veneer started to curl up immediately, which is normal, but the stuff was so thick, it didn't want to lay down. I had thought ahead a bit and cut out 2 pieces of 3/4 inch MDF to use on the top and bottom of the guitar, to allow me to sandwich the guitar and apply pressure with a whole bunch of clamps. By the way, MDF is Medium Density Fiberboard, a really nice and heavy wood fiber composite that's great for general shop use. My workbench actually has an MDF top and it's straight and flat as can be. Anyway, I put the top on and sandwiched the guitar between the MDF pieces, and then threw about a thousand clamps on it. I had to leave the arm rest cutaway sticking out so that it could be glued with its own little MDF piece. After it set for about 2 hours, I came back to take a look. I'm glad I did, the warped veneer was not laying down. I had to put on more clamps and increase the pressure. In the end, this only partially worked, and actually was enough force to cause the veneer to split in some spots. When I finally took the sandwich apart the next day, it looked like hell. There were splits and tons of bubbles in the veneer. I don't even have a picture because I was so friggin frustrated at the whole thing. Well, I decided to go ahead and try to fix the top, so the first step was to get the top cut to the right size. I used the same trick that I used making the cover plates, the flush-trim bit on the router table. The body was used as the guide for the bearing to roll on, and the blade trimmed the veneer back to the side of the body...theoretically. If this sounds dicey, it is. The veneer has a tendency to split along the grain, so I went very slow. It actually turned out pretty good, and I simply hand-sanded the rest down. The final step in shaping was to put a slightly rounded edge over the whole body, using a round-over bit on the router.

At this point, I was tired of looking at the top, and decided to tackle the problems. First of all, I had quite a few places along the edge where the glue didn't hold, and the veneer split, sometimes leaving entire sections of the top missing. I had to cut out exact pieces that were suitable, and glue them into place. Once that was done, I needed to take care of the sections of the veneer that had bubbled, and believe me, there were quite a few bubbles. What I did was to take a very fine syringe and fill it with glue, and inject it through the veneer where the bubbles where. I would then use pieces of MDF covered with cork (so as not to damage the veneer) to apply pressure and let them dry for a few hours. The areas around the pickup and bridge cavities were especially bad. This took a couple of days of work, but it actually worked. I was able to pretty much get the entire top flat. The areas that had cracked were actually filled with the woodworker's life saver: a bit of sawdust mixed with glue. By using sawdust from the wood you're using, it matches the color. And as long as the crack isn't too big, you can't tell the difference. I was able to fix them all except for one, which you'll be able to see in the pictures. I was able to live with it, though. It was either live with it or use an iron to heat the whole thing up, melt the glue, pull off the veneer and start over, and I really wasn't too interested in that.

Ok, the next step is sanding, so the entire body was sanded again down to 320 grit, attempting to make it as smooth as possible without sanding through the veneer, which can happen quite easily. With things sanded, it was time to get started with the spraying! The first thing that went on was the blue dye on the veneer. I did some test strips from the leftovers, both with the blue dye and the black paint, which you can see here-


I love the blue color, and I really liked how it looked with the black. This gave me an idea about doing a "Blueburst" style of paint job, where the black would creep over the edges on the top, and gradually fade into blue. The first step involved using what's called a 'sand and sealer'. This is basically a lacquer that goes on first to help level the surface and fill the grain. If the grain isn't sealed, the color and top coat can actually sink back into the grain over time. So this was pretty simple, just spray it on, let it dry, sand it out and spray again. I gave each side about 5 coats, which should be plenty. Next came the blue dye. I sprayed a few passes and let it dry a few hours, and continued to do this until I was satisfied with the color. The next step was probably the most nerve-wracking of the whole painting process. I had read that the first fender strat sunburst colors were actually sprayed on, and they just used a "shield" to block one color while they sprayed the others. The trick is not to lay the shield directly on the body, creating a clear line between colors, but to prop the shield on top of the body, and spray from an angle, so that the spray pattern creates a gradual transition. Let's look at the shield-


Yup, it's the cardboard template used for the original shaping of the veneer. If you look close, you can see that it has screws placed in it. These are all in at the same height, and they prop the template up on the body. I just trimmed it down a bit, so there's a border showing, and proceeded to spray the black around the body, trying to keep the same angle all the way around. I was actually pretty happy with how it came out, considering I had never done it before.

The next part was the easiest part of the painting job, the back and sides. Both the top, back and sides got about 15 coats of paint, so that the grain was covered, and the finish was smooth and glassy. The final step is the clear coat. The weapon of choice here is nitrocellulose lacquer. This is actually more important than most people think (or care to know). The finish has a lot to do with the overall tone of the body. Nowadays, most guitar companies, unless they are recreating a "historic" or "vintage" instrument, use a polyurethane finish. In the early days, nitrocellulose was the choice. It lays down incredibly thin coats that allow the instrument to resonate much better. The trade-off is that nitrocellulose is pretty damn sensitive. I've heard of finishes rubbing off by just scuffing it with your bare hand. Nitro also can take months, if not years to completely cure once it's been sprayed on, whereas poly is chemically cured, so it's fully hardened in just a few hours. Polyurethane is much more protective, but often keeps the guitar from resonating as nicely as it should. For instance, I have a great hollowbody guitar that is finished in poly, and at times it almost sounds plasticy, like it's incased in lead. There must be a hundred coats of poly on it, and it can be heard. Nitrocellulose really allows the guitar to ring, and is one of the many reasons that early pre-CBS strats (1954-1965) are so desired. That's why those guitars look beat up after only a few years, the finish starts to wear away. For example, there was a color introduced in the 50's called Fiesta Red, that is a pretty light red color. Most Fiesta Red strats from the early days faded to pink within just a couple of years. Consider this picture:

This is a shot of Eric Johnson I took last month at a show. The guitar he's playing isn't pink, it's a 1961 Fiesta Red Strat that has faded to pink. Pretty cool. Polyurethane doesn't allow that. So, I wanted to use all nitrocellulose lacquer on this project, so the 'sand and sealer' was nitro-based, the clear top coat is nitro lacquer and even the black color is dye dissolved in nitro lacquer. So, the final step is the clear coating, which is where I'm at right now. It's going to take about 4 days total for each side, spraying a couple of times a day and letting it dry overnight. I started with the back and sides, and am almost done with them. The top hasn't been started yet. After I finish the clear coat, it's just some final passes with ultrafine grit sandpaper and polishing! Let's look at some shots.


This is the back almost completed. The flash created some weird artifacts, but you can see what's going on pretty well. The finish is glass-smooth, and really looks pretty good. Here's a shot of the top, with no top coats yet-


So...that's where we are so far. Am I happy? Yeah, pretty much. I mean, is it great? No. But it's pretty good, and I think that's just fine for a first attempt. Stay tuned and we can see how it all comes together-

-Jeff

Sit tight, kids, I'll have a big update tomorrow. Have a lot of work done already, and am in the painting stage of the game. See you-

So...
Read something interesting last night concerning the current "What the hell wood is that, anyway" situation. (Soon to be a reality show on Fox). Tom Wheeler in his most righteous, ass-whooping book, "The Stratocaster Chronicles" says this concerning the early years of Fender (1955-1965):
"Alder remained the standard body wood with the same exception as before: Ash was used for blone-finished guitars. A few oddball strats were built with mahogany, and a very few were made with poplar, thought to be more or less interchangeable with alder in most repects except for, on occasion, poplar's unappealing green strips."

Aha!! So poplar has been used before. Although this means nothing in respect to Peaveys built in the late 80's, it makes my guess of poplar seem a bit more plausible. As I said before, I don't know of any other tonewoods that have a greenish cast to them. Puzzle solved? No new supplies yet, so probably no new work until Monday. Stay tuned-

Jeff

Okay, day two and little more work done today. There really wasn't much to be done, just needed to make the other cover plate for the electronics panel. If you remember from yesterday, there was a glue-up done last night on some quartersawn white oak. If you're not sure what quartersawn means, it's a way of milling the wood in relation to the grain pattern. I stole a diagram from Ed Roman's guitar site, check it out:


So you can see that if you look at the end of a quartersawn board, the rings all look parallel. So what does this mean? Well, for one thing, it's tons more expensive to get quartersawn lumber because you recover far less total lumber from the same stock compared to flatsawn wood. Secondly, having the rings run parallel to each other exposes the pretty grain patterns. In quartersawn white oak, this is commonly referred to as "medullary ray fleck pattern". Yeah, it means pretty grain. The other difference is in the strength and stability. 1/4 sawn is stronger and will not warp or cup like flatsawn. 1/4 sawn white oak was used extensively at the turn of the century during the arts&crafts, craftsman and prarie architecture movements. I tend to love this period in american design, so I use 1/4 sawn oak for lots of things. If you like Frank Lloyd Wright-designed furniture, then you like 1/4 sawn white oak. Anyway-

Here's the glue-up before we start working. Notice I traced the shape of the cover plate. You can also see the difference between the 2 pieces, which will probably show up after it's done, but that's ok.

The burn marks are from the initial cuts made on the table saw. They should sand out just fine. Ok, I thought I might describe a little better the process for cranking out the new cover using the band saw, stationary belt sander and the router table. Here you can see that I've rough-cut the pattern close to the line on the bandsaw, and then used doublesided tape to affix the original cover-


The next step here is to use the original cover as a guide in cutting the new cover. This is done on the router table, using a flush-trim laminate bit. Here's a shot of the router table with the bit in it. If you squint you can see that there's a roller bearing on the top of the bit, and the blue part below has a straight blade for cutting. The idea is that you turn on your router, and the original cover rides along the bearing as the blade cuts the new cover below. That way, you get a pretty exact copy of the old cover.


Okay, the new cover is cut to size, but it is still a bit too thick and a little rough around the edges. The router is tricky, because if you run the piece across it too fast, it will tear out the grain and splinter, but too slow simply burns the wood. I have a tendency to do it too fast, and of course on one of the rounded corners of the plate I did indeed tear out the grain. Luckily, it only happened on one side, so that becomes the inside-facing side! Duh. A few seconds on the belt sander flattens the cover to the right thickness, and few minutes with the random-orbit sander gets it down to 320 grit. Some final hand sanding takes care of the edges and it's ready to finish. The finish here is a bit different than last night. The lacewood we used on the first cover really just needed an oil finish to bring out the grain. The 1/4 sawn oak really benefits from some color, as it helps really highlight the beautiful grain pattern better than just oil. So I'm using a colored Danish oil, Watco's medium walnut colored oil. (weird part: it smells like walnuts. What's with paints smelling like the food they're named after?) It shows the grain and gives it the same look as the craftsman furniture from the 20's that I was talking about. If you're wondering about the purpose of the oil at all, it shows the grain and helps protect the wood. Here's a comparison from last night. The first pic is the first cover with no oil, the second is after two coats of Seal-a-Cell oil blend.




Okay. The danish oil has dried after two coats, and I put both covers on the guitar to show the difference. Notice that you can tell the difference between the two halves of the white oak plate, but not the lacewood plate. Reason: the lacewood halves came from the same piece of wood, the oak halves are from different pieces. That's one of the killers with woodworking, each piece is different and will react differently to stains. But I don't really mind, it looks like it was actually made, not manufactured, and I like that. Besides, they were the only 2 pieces of white oak I had laying around that would work, so it's all academic anyway!


(You can click on a picture for a zoomed version, which shows the covers better than the thumbnail shot). Notice the 2 different colors of the body as well. You can see exactly where the 2 parts of the body were joined. Notice too how the bottom part almost looks greenish/gray. What the hell is that wood? It's bugging me, because it looks like green poplar, but I know that can't be right. Ash doesn't do that, and I've never seen maple do that either. Besides, the grain doesn't look quite right for maple. Although I remember initially hearing that the body was rock maple, so I'm not entirely clear. Anyway. Curious about what the veneer is going to look like? Me too. I haven't seen it in person yet, but here's the shot that I based my purchase on-

Sweet! That quilting on the right side is amazing. Notice the half-moon shaped cutouts on the right side, and how the grain around there is quite wavy- I'll bet a million dollars that section was cut from around a branch on the tree. Many times, the best grain is found where the branches meet. The sheets are 14"x19", and I ordered two, which should allow me to do a nice, bookmatched top. The killer part is the price. Those 2 sheets together cost me $17. Seriously. That's nothing at all. It makes me mad when I see an unfinished guitar body for sale that is mahogany with a maple top for $200 or more. That kind of body can be built for waaaaay less than $50 around here. Note too that I'm not using a maple "cap" for the guitar, which is usually 3/8 - 3/4" thick. The good builders will do this, and it will certainly affect the tone of the guitar. Why? Well, each type of wood has a different "velocity of sound." In other words, each wood type resonates differently, and that resonance affects the overall tone of a guitar. For example, mahogany produces a very bass-heavy tone, while maple tends to give a really bright, trebly tone. That's why you see tons of custom-built guitars out there that are mahogany bodies with maple caps on top- they utilize both woods to produce a great tone. As one builder told me, mahogany and maple are a "bombastic combination" for guitar tone. Now, a veneer like the one I'm going to use is almost paper-thin, and doesn't affect the tone at all. Okay, enough ranting for now, the next time we chat, I should be getting prepped to start painting-

-Jeff

Howdy All,

Should anyone happen to read this, you're in for a treat. Note the sarcasm. What I'm doing is taking the first "real" guitar that I owned, a 1988 Peavey Tracer, and refinishing it. Granted, this isn't the first time, but this is the first time I'm doing it with a modicum of forethought and patience. The first time I stripped it was in college, and I was sitting around my apartment playing, and thought, "I wonder what this sucker looks like underneath?" So instead of doing a small, innocent patch out of sight, I grabbed some sandpaper and stripped it. The inevitable next question was, "Now what?" To which I had no answer. So it has mostly remained, in its bare naked woodness, as other guitars have come and pushed it to the back of the line. No more!

To start, I'm pretty much a stratocaster guy through and through. I have a les paul, a tele and a hollowbody, and I really like them all, but 99 out of 100 times I pick up the guitar, it's the strat. There's just something about it, the way it plays, sounds and feels that's really to my liking. The Peavey is and was a good guitar. The Kahler tremolo was the first "floating bridge" that I had, and it was the apple in my youthful eye. The times called for guitar playing with plenty of whammy bar wanking, and the locking Kahler did the trick. Problem is, I don't use the tremolo bar anymore, and have come to strongly dislike Kahler and Floyd Rose trems. Give me a vintage strat trem or, better yet, a stop tailpiece with no tremolo at all. The deal with the Tracer is that is has a 2-ish piece body, I'm not entirely sure what kind of wood it is, but it almost looks like green poplar of all things. Might be alder, might be basswood. If you can tell, let me know. The rest of it consists of a 2 piece maple neck, rosewood fingerboard, single volume and tone with a humbucker/single/single config and a mini toggle switch for splitting the humbucker into a single. I can live with the humbucker/single/single config, but don't really need the toggle, so it's going to be "lost" in the refinish. The big question is the Kahler. Do I leave it and deal with it, or fill the body and go with an alternative? Tough call, really. Ultimately, I've decided to leave it as is, for a few reasons. The main one is that, while making blocks to fill in the cavities isn't difficult, there are properties of wood that make it seem less than smart. Let's look at a photo of the top first-


Ok, you can see the depression in the body on the far left where the bridge would go. Now, if I put a piece of wood there, it's going to expand and contract across the grain depending on the season, relative humidity, etc. I'm worried that during times of expansion or contraction, the fill piece will pull away from the body, exposing the seams and potentially damaging the finish, especially since there's going to be a quilted maple laminate on top of the body, expanding and contracting at a different rate than the body. Anyway, the bridge stays. Let's look at the back, and you can see the original color.


Yup, banana yellow. Very 80's. The funny part is, when I originally sanded the body, the paint actually smelled like bananas. I'm not kidding. The electronics cavity and the spot under the neck plate are all that's left. I'm probably going to leave a quarter-sized piece under the neck plate the original color, but the rest goes.

So what's the plan? The back and sides will be finished with black, and the top will have a bookmatched veneer of quilted maple finished in a translucent blue dye. The whole thing will be finished in nitrocellulose lacquer. The paints are coming from www.reranch.com, very cool place that duplicates many of the early Fender colors. They are basically guiding me through this. The maple veneer is from www.joewoodworker.com, another very cool place with awesome veneers.

In case you're wondering, I do have some woodworking skills. I've converted our 2-car garage into a shop, and am always working on something or another. So I think having the shop tools will give me a bit of an edge on this project.

The sanding of the body took place yesterday, smoothing the edges and getting everything down to 320 grit. I decided today that it would look nice with something other than cheap black plastic covering the tremolo and electronics routs on the back, so I decided to make some out of some wood scraps laying around. The tremolo rout will use Australian Lacewood, and the electronics plate will be made of quartersawn white oak. I like the contrasting woods, and I think the use of highly figured wood will look good on the black back. So after about 30 minutes in the shop tonight, I now have this:


If I've done my job right, you won't notice the seam running down the middle of the plate, as I had to glue up two scraps to make the plate. I realized how easy this was to make, and that I should be doing this on the side, over the internet, making money on custom plates :) I just made a template out of 1/8" birch plywood, then used a flush-trim laminate bit on the router table to cut the lacewood to shape. (There's probably about one person out there reading this who understood that. Actually, there's probably only one person out there reading this, period). The white oak cover for the electronics also requires a glue-up, and that is going to dry overnight. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have time to cut that one out. Meanwhile, I'm waiting on both paints from reranch and the veneer, and the lacewood panel has a couple of coats of tung oil drying on it. I'll check back in tomorrow. Thanks for reading, and hope you stay tuned. Email or post comments as you see fit-

You can wake up now, it's over, at least for today. Check back tomorrow for more insomnia-curing writing.
-Jeff