Nothing new.

Today is June 14, 2009. I have not done any guitar work for almost two years. Trying to get back to it.

Final touch ups.

The neck, where it attaches to the body, had some rough spots, so I scraped them down with a razor and brushed on some light, diluted coats. I will polish that area and start assembly very soon. A couple of issued have snuck into my life, so I have been preoccupied in dealing with these things. The guitar is just a side right now.

Polishing this thing now,

When I returned, I went to work on the Fangyoti guitar. So now I am back to this guitar.
I started with Micro Mesh. It worked nice. I wasn't going for the perfect look, so I jumped right into the buffing. Started with Prefect-It II rubbing compound and then Imperial hand Glaze.
I found that just using 0000 steel wool on the neck and the rubbing compounds worked as good s going through the various grades of paper. The speed of the buff helped to. The neck is easy, the body is a bit slow.
I'm not done yet, but getting close. Still some small scratches, but acceptable to me. Lots of elbow-grease.

Off to England...

It's been a hectic week. No guitar work. Be back on the 8th of October.

New brush works great.

OK, I found a brush I had for a while. I thought I'd give it a try. It is a 3/4" Japan brush. I used it with some thinned KTM-9 on the neck and it flowed very smooth and dried fast. I will try it on the sides. Hmm, this might restore my faith in this stuff.

Finish sanding is a pain in the ass.

I allowed a long time for drying, while I worked on The Fangyotee guitar. All was set to go. I was sanding with 1000 grit as recommended. But there were deep grooves from the foam brushes. What I mean is, everything was smooth except for a small groove where the brush had left an indentation. It did not settle in the groove like I hoped. So, in order to smooth out the guitar, I had to remove too much finish to level it out to the level of the groove. I sanded with 600 to cut through faster, but that was just making it worse. I was taking way too much finish off. I decide to apply more finish with a fine hair brush. I mean I loaded up on the brush. I need this finish thick, in order to not have sand-thrus. Live and learn. Without a proper spray set up, brushing with fast drying finish is a lot of work. Tru-Oil is looking real good right now. I can't believe I am off to England again and this thing is still not done. Once I am done with these several guitars being repaired, altered and refinished, I will only make one per year. This is really getting old. I need a break.

Amost done except for some sand-throughs.

I sanded with 400 grit and then went to 600. 0000 steel wool was better at getting the orange peel off. The areas of sand-through were at the neck heel and on the rear area by the tuners.
It was hard to hit that and builkd up the finish there with the spray, so I will stay with brushing. I can load up where I need to without any runs, that occurs with spraying. I touched it up with my fingers. After I finish sanding, and before final polish, I will brush some finish on the edges as insurance. The Bob Hendrickson rosewood acoustic was finished with brushes and had no sand-throughs. Maybe operator error, but the proof was in the result. I like brush as it's what I was raised using.