Maple Thinline Telecaster

[Prashun Patel]

I've thoroughly enjoyed this thread.

I'm sure you know that the color will deepen and brighten once topped. What are you going to top with? Beware any yellowing that'll turn your blood red into tomato sauce (not that I personally think either will detract from the appeal)...

[Mark Crenshaw]

I've thoroughly enjoyed this thread.

I'm sure you know that the color will deepen and brighten once topped. What are you going to top with? Beware any yellowing that'll turn your blood red into tomato sauce (not that I personally think either will detract from the appeal)...

Thanks Shawn. I plan to top coat with Behlen's Nitrocellulose Lacquer. It does have an ever so slight yellow tint to it, like all solvent based lacquers but nothing like varnish or shellac would have. Any tinting it might do I think will be lost on the vibrant red. I've never seen any negative results from using it...even over white.

Peace,
Mark

[Jim Kountz]

Wow wow wow wow. Did I mention..............WOW!! Mark this thing is going to be amazing, one of a kind. You've outdone yourself here!!

[Keith Christopher]

Wow wow wow wow. Did I mention..............WOW!! Mark this thing is going to be amazing, one of a kind. You've outdone yourself here!!

I agree with Jim completely here. This is an AMAZING process and thanks for sharing it with us. The excitement of completion is upon us.

[Mark Crenshaw]

Wow wow wow wow. Did I mention..............WOW!! Mark this thing is going to be amazing, one of a kind. You've outdone yourself here!!

I agree with Jim completely here. This is an AMAZING process and thanks for sharing it with us. The excitement of completion is upon us.

Jim. Keith,

Thanks for the kind comments and for following along. As this project has moved on, I've found that I like telling the story almost as much as building the guitar. I'm grateful for SMC and the opportunity to share.

Peace,
Mark

[Mark Crenshaw]

Well, I finally forced myself to deal with all the little details that have to be wrapped up before I start clear coats. Nothing serious. Just those nagging little things that pile up during a build.

One of them is the fact that winter has set in and my wife not only wants her car parked in the garage, but mine as well...in case she needs to drive it while I have her Rav4 doing "guitar" stuff.

Here is what my little corner of the garage becomes when the cars are inside...I'm sure many of you can relate. Even now, it serves double duty...notice the box of Christmas lights on the bench.





I think she had a bit of sympathy during the holidays because she bought me a lovely, and I mean lovely, padded matt to stand on when I'm at the bench. She also bought me a digital weather station so I can monitor inside and outside temps as well as humidity. Funny, she used to complain that I spent too much time in the garage. Now it seems she wants me out there.

[Mark Crenshaw]

OK, on to the guitar.

When I was applying dye to the body, I got so involved in getting the color I wanted that I forgot to bring the control cover along in the process. End result? It doesn't match.



Before giving up on it, I thought I would try to match it up by sanding it back and adding some cherry red before applying the final color. It's a long tedious process...apply color, wait for it to dry, check the match, apply color...and so on. It didn't work. Or, I gave up too soon.



Either way, I decided to go with a white cover. My technique for cutting these is pretty straight forward. I elevate my template off the table with a spacer made of maple, rough cut the blank material on the band saw...


Then, after attaching the material with double stick tape, using a flush trim bit, I run the router around the template...pretty simple and it works great.

[Mark Crenshaw]

Here's the cover after matching up the holes from the wooden cover and counter sinking the outside.



Other details that needed tending were a couple of spots on the binding that absorbed more dye than I could scrape away. These were areas like the patch where the binding ends came together under the neck pocket, a couple of places where there were scratches from initial scraping of the binding. So, I broke out the airbrush and with a bit of Oxide White tint in clear lacquer, masked them off one by one and touched them up.



Well, here it is along with the neck, ready for clear coats.

[Mark Crenshaw]

I also went thru the "final details" stage with the Texas Tele...you might remember this one from last summer. So now I have them both ready to go, all the hardware is in, I have bone blanks for the nuts, and fingers that are just itching to play them both. These have been with me for months but it's going to be like getting 2 new guitars at the same time.

Life is good!





Peace,
Mark

[Mark Crenshaw]

As I move on to the clear coats for this project, I have decided that I would like to have a spraying environment here at home vs elsewhere. I have access to 2 shops, but both are very large and would be difficult to heat...and both have open flame gas heaters which means I would have to heat the room, shut off the heat, wait for fumes to thin out, then refire the heaters.

So, I've been doing a bit of brainstorming. I've found several temp spray structures that can be build for next to nothing and broken down when not in use. The problem I have is being able to use them in my garage during the winter without stinking up the house.

Here's what I came up with...comments and suggestions welcome.

I have a 2 HP dust collector and I thought I could use it to evacuate the fumes from the garage by building a custom manifold to replace the bags and including a 2 stage charcoal filter...so as not to anger the neighborhood.

Here is the model I have...




Here is my plan...looking at it even now, it might be better to place the filters between the tent and the intake of the dust collector to protect the impeller from build up.




I would need to set it up and test to find out if things are balaned air folw wise...if the side of the tent suck in, I can add a fan to the top of the tent to bring in more fresh air.

Am I dreaming here?

Peace,
Mark

[Joe Leigh]

I'm no expert here Mark but I know that professional spray boths use explosion proof (NEMA12 ignition protected) exhaust fans and explosion proof electrical fittings. I would not use that dust collector unit to extract flammable fumes from your spraying area. It is NOT rated for use in a flammable area.
Maybe someone else with more expertise in this area will chime in. If not I implore you to do some research before attempting this.

Joe

[Mark Crenshaw]

I'm no expert here Mark but I know that professional spray boths use explosion proof (NEMA12 ignition protected) exhaust fans and explosion proof electrical fittings. I would not use that dust collector unit to extract flammable fumes from your spraying area. It is NOT rated for use in a flammable area.
Maybe someone else with more expertise in this area will chime in. If not I implore you to do some research before attempting this.

Joe

Hi Joe. Thanks for the input. I am definately looking into the safety side of this. It's just an idea at this point.

The one thing that got me thinking this direction is the rating of the motor on my DC. It's rated TEFC (Totaly Enclosed Fan Cooled). But I have since read that doesn't mean explosion proof. I could move the DC to the outside of the garage and probably be OK. I'll have to read some more and see where it goes.

Thanks for your concern...I appreciate you speaking up.

Peace,
Mark

[tyler mckee]

Ive seen guys use a couple of box fans with furnace filters strapped to them, set up to force air into the booth with a couple of exhaust vents. Don't have to worry about blowing yourself up. I suppose you could even throw on some flexible ducting and run the exhaust fumes outside

[Jim Becker]

If you're going to do the solvent based lacquer thing, you need to really do the fume evacuation right. Not only is there the obvious explosive issues, there is also the "severely detrimental to one's health" problem (also applies to pets, neighbors if in an attached building, etc), especially in a home environment. If there is any way you can get spray booth time at a facility that's already set up for the job, that would be my choice...it's darn expensive to do a proper spray booth in a home environment.

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That all said, those two guitars look outstanding! I'm looking forward to seeing them after clear coat and ready to rock 'n roll!

[Mark Crenshaw]

If you're going to do the solvent based lacquer thing, you need to really do the fume evacuation right. Not only is there the obvious explosive issues, there is also the "severely detrimental to one's health" problem (also applies to pets, neighbors if in an attached building, etc), especially in a home environment. If there is any way you can get spray booth time at a facility that's already set up for the job, that would be my choice...it's darn expensive to do a proper spray booth in a home environment.

--------

That all said, those two guitars look outstanding! I'm looking forward to seeing them after clear coat and ready to rock 'n roll!

Nitro lacquer has been my finish of choice but considering the dangers to health and environment, I have considered using a water based solution like EmTech EM6000 or Enduro water based lacquer. I've seen some stunning results from EM6000 and they have recently reformulated to provide a slicker feel like nitro lacquer.

Going with water based solves alot of issues and seems to be stronger and clearer than nitro.

Peace,
Mark