Buddy's Kit Build Journey - Show off yours as well!

BuddytheReow said:
Spray poly, no? Wipe on poly, yes. You can find it in almost any hardware store and I've had great results with it. Who knew an old t shirt got me such a smooth finish!
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I've used wipe on poly a few times and was consistently surprised about how thin and professional looking you could get it with very little effort.
 
I sprayed my green Tele with a turbine sprayer and Varathane ultimate. There’s a huge thread over at Talkbass on Varathane and how to use it in a sprayer.
 
Here's my Tenderizer build I put together back in the 90s (I was in a band called Tenderloin at the time). The body and neck are from Tak Hosono's shop, I did the stain & assembly and a friend sprayed the clearcoat for me. Not sure what I was thinking about when I ordered these parts. The body is mahogany with a very thick quilted maple top. Maple neck with a purpleheart fretboard. For some reason I got a very thin, flat compound radius neck which would have been great if I was a shredder but I am not. Also the funky heel cutaway that insures I can't swap out a different neck. Strat pickups so it sounds like a Tele or a Strat or neither. It sounds pretty good though.

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BuddytheReow said:
For the overall finish, I've chosen to attempt to stain the body and keep the neck a clear coat of some kind. In my head, I've wanted a purple body and a maple neck. From my first kit build, I have some TruOil left over that I will coat the neck and fretboard. The body itself is giving me a little bit of anxiety since it is basswood. From my research, basswood sucks up finish like no other, makes stains come out blotchy like pine, and has a relatively boring wood grain pattern. For the stain portion, I need some practice. The best way, IMO, is to try it out on some body blanks to see what works or doesn't work. Those cost roughly $50 a pop on the cheap end or will take forever (assuming 1-2 months) to get here from China. But, it's got to be basswood. A lumber yard would probably be the most ideal place to find a slab, but I don't have one near me. Home centers don't really have what I'm looking for. What I DID find was some basswood planks from my local craft store (Joann's Fabrics) for $7. Not the perfect solution, but enough to get me in the ballpark and some trial runs on stain. See what I mean on the wood grain?

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To counter the blotchiness of stain, it's a good idea to pick up some pre stain wood conditioner at your local home center. I've been happy using it on a number of pine projects. It's not perfect, but it will ABSOLUTELY make a difference in the overall finish if your wood doesn't stain very well. I learned the hard way on my first kit build trying to stain a neck and it turned out horrible. Had to sand the whole thing down and start again.

If staining this comes out too crappy I can always change course and try some automobile grade rattle cans for a cool, sparkly purple (Duplicolor).
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It’s good you’re aware of the obstacles in staining basswood. Working with the thin sheets is a great start, and other than showing you what will happen at the endgrain should get you far along the stain selection and technique process.

Im going to suggest a different option. Rather than staining the basswood, you can build up color by tinting the Tru-oil. The first few coats are a bit like stain, in that the color penetrates to the grain, but after that, you are building up layers of oil (very very thin, I think I’ve ended up with around 25 coats on the two I’ve finished this way). (I thinned most coats with a few drops of mineral spirits.)

Most colorants do not mix well with Tru-oil though. I used very small amounts of artists oil paint in mine. After tests, I mixed up a few ounces of the tinted oil and used that, rubbing each layer in with a scrap of old cotton sheet. Every few coats I would lightly sand with ~600 wet dry wetted with mineral spirits. (Eventually this became 1500 grit.)

The first guitar I did this too (my baritone Tele) I was gobsmacked at what the finish was like. Here‘s some progress shots showing the Strat finish as the color builds. After 3 years, (granted, they’re not being banged around much) the finishes are really holding up nicely. Both necks are roasted maple, so while finish wasn’t necessary, I burnished them, and did two or three thinned coats of Tru-oil and followed with a wax.

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I’m so glad this thread was made. I e been wanting to build my own partscaster for awhile now. When I’m ready I know where I’m going to get some ideas!
 
steviejr92 said:
I’m so glad this thread was made. I e been wanting to build my own partscaster for awhile now. When I’m ready I know where I’m going to get some ideas!
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Do it! Initially, I planned on doing everything but the set up, then decided that I'd risk the few hundred $ in tools (about what a fret level full set up would cost) and if I couldn't get it playing as well as my other guitars, I could always give up and bring them into a good luthier. Best money I've even spent. (well, I guess that's an exaggeration, but I've used those same tools on many of my other guitars, and have been setting up friends' guitars, very often shortly after they play one of mine.

As much as I love playing through pedals and amps I've built, playing a guitar I've built is on another level to me.
 
G.G. said:
Also the funky heel cutaway that insures I can't swap out a different neck.



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You could get an undrilled neck to replace that one with. Just make sure you've got it lined up correctly and well clamped, and using the body holes to start the neck holes, it's pretty straightforward.
 
Alan W said:
Do it! Initially, I planned on doing everything but the set up, then decided that I'd risk the few hundred $ in tools (about what a fret level full set up would cost) and if I couldn't get it playing as well as my other guitars, I could always give up and bring them into a good luthier. Best money I've even spent. (well, I guess that's an exaggeration, but I've used those same tools on many of my other guitars, and have been setting up friends' guitars, very often shortly after they play one of mine.

As much as I love playing through pedals and amps I've built, playing a guitar I've built is on another level to me.
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Thats exactly the experience im looking for! Im torn between a tele or a jazzmaster body!
 
Bricksnbeatles said:
Early on in highschool i decided to build a Hardtail Strat, and found a good deal on a Sonic blue body from warmoth, which as a big Beatles fan, was an ideal color for me. I went with a tortoise pickguard, and when I drilled for the single volume and single tone controls, I realized it was eerily similar to Rivers Cuomo’s warmoth Strat, and since I was into Weezer too, I decided to lean into it with the choice of mismatched pickup colors. Wound up getting the strap to complete the look at some point too. Excuse the fact that the photo is from 9 years ago— i apparently don’t have many pics of it, and I couldn’t be bothered to take a new pic of it, and it looks the same today other than the fact that it has a string tree and a few battle scars.
Next to it is a little glimpse of the Eddie Van Halen frankenstrat replica that I made somewhere around the same time frame— end of middle school I think. That one was actually my first build, and my first foray into soldering and subsequently pedal building.

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You must have really cool parents to have been able to do cool stuff like that in middle school
coltonius said:
One big thing I’ve learned is that I don’t need fancy pants Fender necks to make a good build. From what I’ve experienced firsthand, I’d be perfectly happy with a Vintera Road Worn neck at a fraction of the cost of the American Originals. Not only did they cost a fortune, the amount of work they needed was embarrassing (for Fender)! I expected nut work, but one of them needed a majority of the frets to be re-glued. On a neck that cost as much as a whole-ass MIM Player series guitar.

I would love to build a Troublemaker Tele with Gibson appointments and P90s. After that, I’d love to build a Tele with a Certano Bender for B and G, like this one (not mine):

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I've been meaning to fw a certano B and G bender for quite a while. My main guitar has a Rolling bender on the B string. The lever is a little too short and I'd love to add the G as well
 
Harry Klippton said:
You must have really cool parents to have been able to do cool stuff like that in middle school

I've been meaning to fw a certano B and G bender for quite a while. My main guitar has a Rolling bender on the B string. The lever is a little too short and I'd love to add the G as well
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I THOUGHT I was hearing a b-bender in your last demo. Either that or you have “Gollum-fingers” 😂
 
Harry Klippton said:
You must have really cool parents to have been able to do cool stuff like that in middle school
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My parents are definitely pretty rad, but I did all of that stuff in middle school by collecting a shit ton cans for recycling, painting houses, and mowing lawns, just saving for a looooong long time.
Harry Klippton said:
I've been meaning to fw a certano B and G bender for quite a while. My main guitar has a Rolling bender on the B string. The lever is a little too short and I'd love to add the G as well
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I want a bender so badly. I listened to way too much Byrds and FBB in the 2010s
 
Bricksnbeatles said:
My parents are definitely pretty rad, but I did all of that stuff in middle school by collecting a shit ton cans for recycling, painting houses, and mowing lawns, just saving for a looooong long time.

I want a bender so badly. I listened to way too much Byrds and FBB in the 2010s
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Yeah I don't mean just financially. I wasn't allowed to do shit when I was a kid but we're not gonna talk about that 😂
 
So, continuing my build journey I was at a crossroads. Do I start on the neck or the body? I actually chose the fretboard first to take off all the sharp edges on the fret ends with a small file. It's not a fret specific tool, but it got the job done and bought it last year I think at Lowes for $10. I took my time and tried really (*^%^*& hard not to scuff up the fretboard itself. That's a question for a later day. It's very repetitive, so patience here is rewarded considering I've got both ends of 20+ frets to go through. It took me about a half hour or so and I'm happy with the result. Now I don't have to worry about torn up hands while I play. I think it may be worth my time to buff/shine the frets or at least the ends, but all I've got is some high grit (2000 I think) sandpaper and some 0000 steel wool. Would this work? Probably not as much as I'd like, but it will make a difference aesthetically.
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BuddytheReow said:
So, continuing my build journey I was at a crossroads. Do I start on the neck or the body? I actually chose the fretboard first to take off all the sharp edges on the fret ends with a small file. It's not a fret specific tool, but it got the job done and bought it last year I think at Lowes for $10. I took my time and tried really (*^%^*& hard not to scuff up the fretboard itself. That's a question for a later day. It's very repetitive, so patience here is rewarded considering I've got both ends of 20+ frets to go through. It took me about a half hour or so and I'm happy with the result. Now I don't have to worry about torn up hands while I play. I think it may be worth my time to buff/shine the frets or at least the ends, but all I've got is some high grit (2000 I think) sandpaper and some 0000 steel wool. Would this work? Probably not as much as I'd like, but it will make a difference aesthetically.
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Do you have a good straight edge? Adjust the truss rod until you get the neck as straight as possible then check if the frets are level.
If this is a Warmoth neck (I can't remember if that's the route you went) you can likely get away without leveling. But any other brand it's likely you'll need to level, crown and polish.
 
MichaelW said:
Do you have a good straight edge? Adjust the truss rod until you get the neck as straight as possible then check if the frets are level.
If this is a Warmoth neck (I can't remember if that's the route you went) you can likely get away without leveling. But any other brand it's likely you'll need to level, crown and polish.
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You can get some cheap tools that are just as effective for this as the expensive stuff.

Notched Straight edge

Fret rocker is an invaluable tool to hone in on high frets.

Fret crowning file

Fret sanding beam

I will say that fret work scares a lot of people but it shouldn't. It's not that hard once you understand the mechanics of what you're trying to do.
There's no big mystery to it.

I will also say that fret work can make or break a guitar and how you experience it. I good fret job on a cheap crappy guitar can make it play like a million bucks. And a crappy fret job on a super expensive guitar can make you wonder why the hell you bought it and how much you can flip it for on Reverb....(ask me how I know...... :ROFLMAO: )
 
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