Well I haven't had much to post lately because my guitar is in a different country to me and is currently residing with the finisher. This will change next week as I will be able to pick the guitar up on Thursday and hopefully get it finished, strung up, and photographed over the Christmas / New Year holiday period.
Something i've done in the meantime was to make a(nother) duplicate bridge but this time from from Ebony. It was mostly to test out the weight difference. I didn't realise until i photographed them right now that the wings aren't identical and I can probably remove a few more grams from the Ebony bridge if I do that. Right now the Rocklite one sits at 19.0g and the Ebony bridge at 24.8g. I was leaning towards using the Rocklite one but if I do decide to slightly increase the size of the wings on the Ebony bridge and end up with 23.5ish, i think I may end up installing that one. They both still need finish sanding and oiling though, that will be done this week.
I've also been planning the next build (of which i'll start another build thread for) and that should be starting in the first week or so of January 2019
Excitingly I also received a few pictures from the finisher yesterday which I shall share with you. This thing is going to be spectacular.
Due to the delay in the finishing process I have decided to look into doing my own finishing in the future, I now have access to a spray booth so I invested in a gun, and am testing the Crystalac Brite Tone water based products.
I decided to build a Telecaster to test the spraying on as a) i don't have a telecaster and b) if the lacquering goes wrong I can sand it all off again virtually without issue. It was supposed to be a simple slab ash body but I couldn't bring myself to do something so plain. I went with an ash body with a flame maple cap, I included an arm rest, binding, belly cut and heel access cutaway, and then went for an outrageous roasted flame maple neck and a Pau Ferro Fretboard.
My experience with the Crystalac products has been ok so far, after a few dodgy spray attempts with the sealer (my technique) I seemed to have improved enough to get a decent finish, especially on the front.
But after 6 total attempts (spray and sand it all off) to do the back, that's still a mess and after the last effort I discovered why. It turns out the workshop / spray booth heating does not run all the time and drops not just below the recommended minimum temperature (18-20C) but almost to freezing point overnight. The last 2 attempts seemed to have gone on great in the booth but by the time it dried/cured (5-6 days and still wasn't dry, its supposed to be touch dry in 30 mins and resprayable in 2 hours), it was looking very patchy. I eventually took it home and when I went to move it the next morning i found it had cured hard and thus I discovered the problem. I am now going to be investing in an electric powered oil radiator to keep in the spray booth and i'll leave it on almost permanently while the spray process is ongoing when i get back to that in the new year. (if it was my spray booth i'd be investing in a heating system but its not and the owner doesn't want to do that). Live and learn.
And now to the whole point of this post, the pictures.
Ebony and Rocklite bridges
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David Emm, on Flickr
Ebony and Rocklite bridges back to back
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David Emm, on Flickr
The RIDICULOUS redwood top
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David Emm, on Flickr
The super nice Leopardwood back
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David Emm, on Flickr
The stabilised maple end graft just jumps out
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David Emm, on Flickr
and the flamed maple and mahogany neck isnt bad either
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David Emm, on Flickr
Telecaster body pre- pickup /cavity routing but with 2 sealer coats on.
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David Emm, on Flickr
body with pickup and control cavities routed. i'm eventually hoping for a piano black back...
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David Emm, on Flickr
The crazy roasted maple neck with oil finish on it
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David Emm, on Flickr