# Gibson LPJ rescue



## tomee2

This poor thing was on kijiji here in Ottawa at $1000 a few weeks back, then it was $600 or trades - I offered my trade expecting to have to add some cash - nope, trade accept with a direct swap! I met the guy the next day - great guy that really loved the guitar I was trading. I had a good look at the LPJ and he explained that he was told it was a Gold Top Studio, but he called Gibson with the S/N and they said sorry, its and LPJ. I hate it when people get ripped off like that... It was 'refinished' and relic'd when he got it, but he sanded the neck down to get rid of the sticky finish. more on that later...
I figured if the 61 Zebra pickups are OK, then I'm doing OK with this trade. I'm a terrible bargainer but I'm into this for about $350 so not a bad trade...

I knew what I was getting into - I could see it had been painted at least 3 times - silver, blue and then gold, all over the original finish. It looked rough with even a quick look, so I knew it needed to be fully stripped down to really get it back being a half decent guitar. I've refinished lots of furniture in my time, so I know how to do that fairly well.

So, once I got the guitar home and had a really good look at, well, I think the trade was pretty fair after all. It was over sanded on the sides and edges so badly the sides are not straight anymore and the maple top edge leans and rolls over in many spots. To top it off, the 'aging' was poorly done and left clear sanding marks into the maple. I'm not sure when all the sanding was done, but it was done extremely poorly. Taking the original nitro finish off shouldn't have been that hard.

The good part is that it sounds fine - to me at least it's better than the guitar I traded. The 'Zebra 61' pickups, as Gibson calls them, are fine. The hardware, although a bit off looking form being badly 'aged', is decent quality and overall the setup was good and neck and frets are OK. It feels like a Les Paul, which it should..

So, I'm into the first day of striping all that crap off and getting it into something with a decent finish on it, and maybe the right shape.
I'm hoping the pictures turn out OK...


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## tomee2

Some of the major boo boos are with the over sanded neck heel, and the rolled in edges on the front and back. Now maybe the rolled in edge is a 'feature' but I think a Les Paul should have sides that are 90 degrees to the back, and a slight round over to the back. And nice edge at the maple. This is over the top in bad sanding...

and, the fretboard has a little 'woops' in it where it meets the body near the cut away - let this be a warning to all those neck-sanders out there to put the 80 grit paper away and unplug that Ryobi!!


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## tomee2

I started with the Circa 1850 stripper this morning. Paint it on and scrape it off. repeat. Usually each colour coat comes off on it own, which it did here. Gold, then silver, then blue.
After gently scraping, use steel wool wetted with stripper on it, then stripper rubbed off with a cloth. Then sand lightly. By hand.


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## tomee2

The headstock was taped, and the back was stripped also...


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## tomee2

Here's where it sits now. Mostly stripped of the finish, but the residual stain from the factory is really in that maple and it's not coming out. The factory "LPJ14" can be seen again in the bridge route, confirming that it is an LPJ. Neck route says "HY" ?

My plan to make this a clear maple top is gone- I think I'll have to use a dark stain to even out the color on the top and on the neck. No plain maple neck either. :-( Originally it may have been a black or dark brown because what's left in the maple is purplish hue that is not coming out without a lot of sanding, as the guy who did the neck found out.... So I'll try to do something like a transparent black front, with a reddish brown back. Not a dark back, I really don't like that. The plan is to use the Emtec EM6000 water based lacquer from Lee Valley:
Emtech™ Water-Based Lacquer - Lee Valley Tools

If anyone has tips or pointers on this stuff, I'm all ears. My plan forward is shellac sealer, pore filler, shellac again then sand back. Then let it sit and think about what's next...


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## cboutilier

Man, they trashed that poor guitar


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## tomee2

cboutilier said:


> Man, they trashed that poor guitar


Yup. But IT'S A LES PAUL with BURSTBUCKERS... hard for a sucker like me to pass up.

It hits the spindle sander tomorrow night to get the sides a bit straighter. I'm hoping that makes it looks a bit better and that it's still shaped like a Les Paul afterwords...


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## Lord-Humongous

Nice! Are you sure that those are Burstbuckers though? I had an LPJ and the p/u's were uncovered (like yours) and they were not BB's. My Studio Faded has BB's and they are a lot milder than the p/u's in my old LPJ. Great deal for you though! Have you considered making it a gold top again (but properly) and maybe with a dark back? That would look sweet!!! And since it's probably a heavy guitar anyway, what about a Bigsby? Or maybe a bridge with Piezo's for an acoustic sound? Since it's already been had at, I think it's a great candidate for something interesting like that...!


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## tomee2

Lord-Humongous said:


> Nice! Are you sure that those are Burstbuckers though? I had an LPJ and the p/u's were uncovered (like yours) and they were not BB's. My Studio Faded has BB's and they are a lot milder than the p/u's in my old LPJ. Great deal for you though! Have you considered making it a gold top again (but properly) and maybe with a dark back? That would look sweet!!! And since it's probably a heavy guitar anyway, what about a Bigsby? Or maybe a bridge with Piezo's for an acoustic sound? Since it's already been had at, I think it's a great candidate for something interesting like that...!


The 2013s had the plastic covered 490R and T, the 2014 are BBs according to Gibson.
1961 Humbucker: A Classic Reborn

Construction looks the same as the BB1 and 2 I have on a shelf, except for the 4 wire cable, and the black/white bobbins. PAF sticker, and the lain looking white sticker with dates on it. And someone put covers on these at one point and soldered right next to the sticker, turning it black! Then they were taken off... not sure what the blue felt markings are...
I'm undecided about putting the Z61s back in , or the BB1 and 2. I essentially bought this guitar to put the BB1 and 2s into!!

It's actually not that heavy as these have the swiss cheese holes - my friends 2007 LP Classic was slightly heavier, but a much better guitar! This thing is now about a half pound lighter with all that paint taken off.

No gold top for me - the maple grain is a nice symmetric pattern you get when flat sawn, and the seam is right down the center. The back is 3 pieces and they look pretty nice. I was hoping for a 2000s Raw Power Standard look (there was one for sale here a few months back and I loved how it looked), but with that stain that's soaked into the maple it's going to be a transparent black instead. The back gets a clear finish.

Nice ideas with the Bigsby and all, but no trems for me.. I'm and 'old' man beginner player.


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## ezcomes

the 'aging' is terrible...but it looked kind of cool

looking forward to seeing its resurrection!


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## nnieman

tomee2 said:


> Here's where it sits now. Mostly stripped of the finish, but the residual stain from the factory is really in that maple and it's not coming out. The factory "LPJ14" can be seen again in the bridge route, confirming that it is an LPJ. Neck route says "HY" ?
> 
> My plan to make this a clear maple top is gone- I think I'll have to use a dark stain to even out the color on the top and on the neck. No plain maple neck either. :-( Originally it may have been a black or dark brown because what's left in the maple is purplish hue that is not coming out without a lot of sanding, as the guy who did the neck found out.... So I'll try to do something like a transparent black front, with a reddish brown back. Not a dark back, I really don't like that. The plan is to use the Emtec EM6000 water based lacquer from Lee Valley:
> Emtech™ Water-Based Lacquer - Lee Valley Tools
> 
> If anyone has tips or pointers on this stuff, I'm all ears. My plan forward is shellac sealer, pore filler, shellac again then sand back. Then let it sit and think about what's next...


The laquer is awesome, you cant really go wrong.
Excellent burn in.

Ive been spraying it with a cheapo critter sprayer from lee valley and getting acceptable results.
Watch the humidity lately, It seemed to take a long time to skin off- but the humidity around here was pushing 90%.

You could try a hand rubbed style burst on the front
Gibson's classic sunburst
You could hide a fair amount of sins with that.
Or stain it dark, that would actually look pretty cool.

Great job so far!
You've got your work cut out for you!

Nathan


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## RBlakeney

I have an lpj that I gutted the pcb and put a different set of pickups in and it's the guitar I leave in the living room and probabaly play most often for some reason.


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## tomee2

nnieman said:


> The laquer is awesome, you cant really go wrong.
> Excellent burn in.
> 
> Ive been spraying it with a cheapo critter sprayer from lee valley and getting acceptable results.
> Watch the humidity lately, It seemed to take a long time to skin off- but the humidity around here was pushing 90%.
> 
> You could try a hand rubbed style burst on the front
> Gibson's classic sunburst
> You could hide a fair amount of sins with that.
> Or stain it dark, that would actually look pretty cool.
> 
> Great job so far!
> You've got your work cut out for you!
> 
> Nathan


You mean the $25 plant bug sprayer?? If that works I'm doing it. My plan was to brush and wipe on which takes time but also leaves brush marks that have to be sanded out. 

I found an excellent write up on that water based lacquer and it sounds like it's ideal for this application. Having each coat melt or chemically burn into the previous is absolutely needed. Thanks for the tip!


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## tomee2

Ok I’m so wrong! Lee Valley actually has a spray gun called Critter... sells for $60. 
They also sell a small HVLP gun for $130.


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## StratCat

tomee2 said:


> Here's where it sits now. Mostly stripped of the finish, but the residual stain from the factory is really in that maple and it's not coming out. The factory "LPJ14" can be seen again in the bridge route, confirming that it is an LPJ. Neck route says "HY" ?
> 
> My plan to make this a clear maple top is gone- I think I'll have to use a dark stain to even out the color on the top and on the neck. No plain maple neck either. :-( Originally it may have been a black or dark brown because what's left in the maple is purplish hue that is not coming out without a lot of sanding, as the guy who did the neck found out.... So I'll try to do something like a transparent black front, with a reddish brown back. Not a dark back, I really don't like that. The plan is to use the Emtec EM6000 water based lacquer from Lee Valley:
> Emtech™ Water-Based Lacquer - Lee Valley Tools
> 
> If anyone has tips or pointers on this stuff, I'm all ears. My plan forward is shellac sealer, pore filler, shellac again then sand back. Then let it sit and think about what's next...



This is like animal rescue and i’m wondering where to donate...


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## tomee2

So I was googling about what finish the LPJ has and how to refinish it and I came across this:






I'm certain that it's the same guitar that I now have. So it had a matte nitro brown back and neck, that got sanded off and replaced with thick brown Varathane???

At 4 minutes in he starts sanding off the blue and silver and you can see how that turns out. so sad.
it's 3 parts!


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## greco

Thanks for a great thread with so many pics.
I'll try and watch the first part of 3 ...but I hate sad endings.


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## tomee2

So I got it onto the sander.. It's still shaped by a Les paul, just a mm or so smaller all around. OK, maybe 2 mm in a few spots. It was so roughly sanded before that that I had to sand until I got to the edge of the maple where it meets the mahogany, but I cannot sand to meet the top of the maple. In a few spots that was almost 5 or 6mm in from the sides. I need to round off the back and feather in the top edge of the maple. I also need to keep it shaped like a Les Paul.
I worked it on the sander in long even movements never sitting in one spot for long at all.
The bit near the neck is left..this would be much easier with the neck off. I swear that it's harder to refinish these then it to make them...but I cannot really say because I've never made one.


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## Budda

Wowza.


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## tomee2

All the unsanded parts that look all crazy wavy are left because it rolls in there way too much. I need to make the rollover uniform along the bottom edge and on the maple top, then those should go away. I hope...

I took some measurement to see where it sits relative to posted measurements for a "Les Paul" It's still close - smaller then a vintage correct body but looks to be in line with LPs from the 90s. The last pic is with the camera on zoom from about feet away. Does it still look like a Les Paul?

lowest wide point is 322mm
narrow waist is 181 mm
top wide point (switch to horn) is 238mm
end of fretboard to bottom 356mm
and 438mm longest point along the back

I ordered the Bartlett plans too - came across them searching for numbers and I can't believe this guy is a) in Canada b)really good at building guitars, c) sells full size prints for only $20 or so. I went to Staples few years ago and they wanted something like $45 to print out a Strat plans (I walked away..)

I also spent wayyy too much time lately reading through the Preeb LP build on TDPRI and the Barlett build on mylespaul… very inspiring, and lots of little tricks to learn from these experts.


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## tomee2

Oh, and this thing feel super light now - I should weigh it. And when you tap the body it rings nicely, not dead at all. The neck is really pingy sounding, like a good baseball bat kind of tone.

Neck size: 22mm deep at 1st fret and 24mm at the 12th, so a nice in-between size neck. I think one of the past sanders might taken a bit off the thickness to get that black color out of the back the neck so I don't know what these were like when new but Gibson says "50 profile"...


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## nnieman

That's looking so much better already!

Yes that's the sprayer I use
Critter Air-Powered Spray Gun - Lee Valley Tools

It works okay, definitely a fair amount of sanding.
I start with 220 (lightly!!), 400, 600, 800 then 1500.
Then rubbing compound, then polish.

Nathan


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## Guest

I missed out on buying this Ex Nihilo SG/LP.
Figure one day I'll attempt making one out of a LP if I ever found a project like yours.
Looking forward to your finished creation.


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## tomee2

nnieman said:


> That's looking so much better already!
> 
> Yes that's the sprayer I use
> Critter Air-Powered Spray Gun - Lee Valley Tools
> 
> It works okay, definitely a fair amount of sanding.
> I start with 220 (lightly!!), 400, 600, 800 then 1500.
> Then rubbing compound, then polish.
> 
> Nathan


Ok thanks for the tips, and the encouragement! Although I have a small compressor I'm not sure it's big enough for spraying, so I sprung for that electric HVLP sprayer. That and I need to paint our deck and shed before summer ends so that's my excuse! My hope is the sprayer will work well enough to minimize the sanding. Maybe. 

Overall it now looks a lot less like a badly made Chinese fake and more Les Paul like now.


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## BSTheTech

Great project. I’m enjoying the thread.


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## davetcan

Inspiration perhaps?


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## tomee2

davetcan said:


> Inspiration perhaps?


Yes! I really like that look. Raw Power? But I don't think I'll get this maple top clean enough to get there. I'll try a bit more sanding to see if that dye comes out but I'm not expecting it to. I also don't want to mess up the top curve by over sanding. It's the only part of this guitar that hadn't been messed with ( and the front of the headstock).
Is that Yamaha stereo down there? CA600?


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## tomee2

laristotle said:


> I missed out on buying this Ex Nihilo SG/LP.
> Figure one day I'll attempt making one out of a LP if I ever found a project like yours.
> Looking forward to your finished creation.


 That's a crazy guitar but almost like it's what the SG should've been being the design replacing the LP bursts. Very cool.


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## davetcan

tomee2 said:


> Yes! I really like that look. Raw Power? But I don't think I'll get this maple top clean enough to get there. I'll try a bit more sanding to see if that dye comes out but I'm not expecting it to. I also don't want to mess up the top curve by over sanding. It's the only part of this guitar that hadn't been messed with ( and the front of the headstock).
> Is that Yamaha stereo down there? CA600?


Close call on the old stereo - Yamaha CA 800  picked it up in a pawn shop over 20 years ago when I needed something for the music room. It's never let me down.

The guitar is a very limited run from 1993 called "The Natural". The Gibson rep at the time told me there were only a very few sold in Canada. In all the years I've been playing, and buying, I've only seen one other pop up for sale and that was on The Gear Page about 10 years ago.

edit - just found this on Reverb. Very close serial number to mine but the top is nowhere near as nice. In my opinion of course.

1993 Gibson Les Paul Standard - Natural Finish w/ OHSC! grlc1824

This one is better

1993 Gibson Les Paul Standard (Limited Run) Natural


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## 1SweetRide

What a mess. Poor thing.


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## Lord-Humongous

If you are digging the Bartlett threads on MLP, you might as well dig up the ExNihilo threads too. He's done a bunch of excellent LP's in addition to the SGLP's (such as posted above).... (and PS. isn't the 'Canada' guitar that Paul Langlois played during the last Hip show a Bartlett?)


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## tomee2

davetcan said:


> Close call on the old stereo - Yamaha CA 800  picked it up in a pawn shop over 20 years ago when I needed something for the music room. It's never let me down.
> 
> The guitar is a very limited run from 1993 called "The Natural". The Gibson rep at the time told me there were only a very few sold in Canada. In all the years I've been playing, and buying, I've only seen one other pop up for sale and that was on The Gear Page about 10 years ago.
> 
> edit - just found this on Reverb. Very close serial number to mine but the top is nowhere near as nice. In my opinion of course.
> 
> 1993 Gibson Les Paul Standard - Natural Finish w/ OHSC! grlc1824
> 
> This one is better
> 
> 1993 Gibson Les Paul Standard (Limited Run) Natural


Ok so recognized that Yamaha because I have one! Great amps, built extremely well. Japan in the 70s was hard to beat for home electronics. 

"The Natural" is great looking, but I'm not going to get that with this LPJ. That dye is deep into the wood.


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## tomee2

Lord-Humongous said:


> If you are digging the Bartlett threads on MLP, you might as well dig up the ExNihilo threads too. He's done a bunch of excellent LP's in addition to the SGLP's (such as posted above).... (and PS. isn't the 'Canada' guitar that Paul Langlois played during the last Hip show a Bartlett?)


I'll have to look them up! But I'm years behind in these build threads, and going through just Gil Yarons threads is taking up all my reading time these days. (Preeb on TDPRI).


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## tomee2

I've been rereading a book by Bob Flexner called "Understanding Wood Finishing". I bought it 20 years ago to try to learn how to refinish furniture and how to 'stain' my wood projects. He wrote a lot of articles for Fine Woodworking and other magazines in the 80s and summarized it all in this book. I see it as THE wood finishing reference book. Anyone finishing wood should have it. The current version is 2010 and now includes info on water based finishing. I see there's a kindle version too, and it's cheap. 
So far everything I've been seeing people do to guitar finishes is covered in this book, but not explicitly for guitars. He shows how sanding effects the end results and what wash coats and pore filling do, and most importantly what you need to do to get a strong durable finish on any kind of wood. 
So I'm taking my time before getting back to this. This week I've got shellac flakes soaking in alcohol and I'm test spraying scrap wood with the emtec finish. And trying to figure out what to do about that over sanded neck heel.


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## tomee2

Bartlett plans came on Friday, so I compared the outline to what this LPJ is at, and it's not as bad as I was worried about, so I sanded it a bit more. After a coat of shellac I could see there were deep sanding marks in the top from the bad relic job, so I used 80, 120 and 220 grit paper in an orbital sander to sand the entire top. Once it got going, the dark stain came off with about 30 minutes of sanding. I deepened the dish a little too while I was at it.
1st 2 pics are before sanding, then during sanding. The Olfa blade is used to scrape the stain from near the neck. This little area took as long to get stripped off as the entire top took to sand. 

I've since put about 4 coats of amber shellac on it mostly to protect it from getting dirty - might leave it at this for now.


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## tomee2

After a few light coats of amber shellac, 0000 steel wool, then a light polish with rubbing compound.
The dark spots in the maple got darker when the shellac was put on. I think they're bits of stain left over inside the pores that won't come out with sanding. The heel also has dirt or black stain in that won't come out. It'll need a darkening to cover that up. The back is not red, it's dark brown.
Very tempted to put on a bit more shellac, polish it up and call it day...and return the Emtec6000. Opinions?

(The pictures make some parts look better then they are, yet other parts look worse...frustrating. The dark spots are more prominent then the pics show. The top is not as nice as it looks. The back looks better then the pics. The heel is very dirty looking, not really seen here... No wonder skilled people get paid to take photographs! )
​


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## nnieman

Honestly....I kinda like it as is.

I would be tempted to keep going with the shellac/clear with the laquer.

Nathan


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## vokey design

Very nice progress, glad to see a trashed instrument return from near death


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## dradlin

Have you seen this conversion by chance, this guitar would be a great candidate for something like this...

'56 Goldtop from Les Paul Studio conversion project.


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## cboutilier

dradlin said:


> Have you seen this conversion by chance, this guitar would be a great candidate for something like this...
> 
> '56 Goldtop from Les Paul Studio conversion project.


That was inspiring


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## tomee2

dradlin said:


> Have you seen this conversion by chance, this guitar would be a great candidate for something like this...
> 
> '56 Goldtop from Les Paul Studio conversion project.


Wow, that is amazing! I had not seen that...almost wish I hadn't! Putting ideas into my head.. Binding would certainly fix the oversanded maple top problem - just route it all away! But I'm not that skilled, although I could practice routing for a binding on some scrap. Binding the neck would also fix the little fretboard 'woops' at the cutaway. I was planning to glue in a small rosewood patch there to fix it, but binding would fix that too. I'll think about it...maybe in the future?



nnieman said:


> Honestly....I kinda like it as is.
> I would be tempted to keep going with the shellac/clear with the laquer.
> Nathan


I'm leaning in that direction. I found a picture of the LP that Paul Kossoff played and it was stripped of it's finish and had some marks on the top, and this is getting close.
The shellac is so easy to put on, and it sands smooth very easily. A top coat or two of the EM6000 would make it durable.

After looking at it closely tonight, I found many small sanding swirl marks that I can't feel with my fingers but can see with the right light. So I have to take the shellac off, which is super easy with lacquer thinner, and re-sand with 180 and 220. I had planned to remove the shellac anyway as I need to route the back edge to 3/16" to make it even.

I also ordered a LVLP (not HV) from amazon for $45 - and I've returned the electric sprayer to Lee Valley. The LVLP gun apparently sprays at about the same rate as a spray can, but being able to control the color will be really helpful. I'm not doing production work, so a slow sprayer isn't going to hold me back, maybe better actually to make me go slow.


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## tomee2

vokey design said:


> Very nice progress, glad to see a trashed instrument return from near death


Thanks!


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## tomee2

Got busy with other things (kids in sports...) so this got put on hold. Also, had to order a 3/16 round over bit for the router - I ended up buying a 4 piece set from Amazon for $22.
The sanding left the back edge roundover too sharp, and the uneven edge also meant the colour was off in places, so the only solution was to reroute the back edge. I tried 1/8" first but that was too little, so I did 3/16" which is 'vintage correct". This then left the back edge with fresh exposed wood compared to the back and sides that have remants of stain and shellac in them. So, I sanded the edges down and feathered them into the round corners. Then I put more coats of shellac on it all. Then I got the chemical stripper out and stripped it all off, and resanded. This evened the colour out a bit more. 
I then attempted to mix up some pore filer, or grain filler. I bought some water based stuff (Timbermate?), and added water and some dark brown dye stain to it. I rubbed this onto the back and sides, but it was very hard to get off so I ended up washing it off with a cloth and warm water. So the pores aren't fully filled, but the tone and color is more even between the edges and the back. At this point I sanded it more and I've put several coats of light amber shellac on it and sanded it all back to 600 grit paper. 
Waiting to spray it with the new sprayer when I get time, and the weather is good. This weekend if the timing is right. I need to practice with this little sprayer first.


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## tomee2

Some pics of it a day or so ago. If I have 10 minutes I sand it, wipe it clean, then wipe on another bit of shellac. But even with all this shellac put on and sanding off, the pores are still open and any spray on finish will sink into them, so I need to try to do the pore filling again.

The heel is better then it started, and I decided I'll tone the back of the neck a dark brown as I don't like the dirty maple look.
The heel is close to the back edge because these are not as thick as Standards - the body is about 1/4" thinner then a Les Paul Standard, Classic etc..., so probably similar to other Studios. This might explain it being a bit lighter, although I think these are weight relieved also. The maple top is full thickness though, so that's the same as the Standards.
The edge right behind the heel I had to round over by hand - I put a metal ruler against the neck to protect it from sanding and then sanded it over with a block.
I also resanded the top a bit more to get a few sanding marks out, and got the dark patches reduced more. The bit near the neck is still an issue but might leave it as is. I hope that by the end of Sept I'll be putting it all back together!


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## nnieman

It’s looking good!

Nathan 

If I was going to tint the next I would use dye from wood essence instead of stain.
My go to neck finish is shellac, it dries hard and feels great.

Nathan


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## tomee2

nnieman said:


> It’s looking good!
> 
> Nathan
> 
> If I was going to tint the next I would use dye from wood essence instead of stain.
> My go to neck finish is shellac, it dries hard and feels great.
> 
> Nathan


Good advice! . Yes, I like the shellac a lot! This is my first time putting it on a guitar (it’s standard stuff to put on after stripping furniture and before you repaint or varnish it). I’m very tempted to just leave it all in polished shellac because it looks and feels good. 

What I got for ‘stain’ is the water based dye from lee valley. A bit pricy at $13 for each color so I got brown mahogany and amber yellow. The stuff is strong so basically I have a lifetime supply of it. I need to try it all out on scrap wood. I found some pics of 70s Gibson’s with maple necks that have a dark back headstock and heel but light brown on the neck - I’m shooting for that look.

And I’m undecided about the electrics. The stock pickups are 4 wire so if I spent $50 on push pull pots I could do the jimmy page wiring. Or, stick with basic 50s wiring. 
To start I’ll reuse the circuit board after fixing the out of phase problem. Past owner had to retire a plug and got it wrong, or the pickups were messed from the factory not sure. But it was out of phase in the middle and I didn’t like it.


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## knight_yyz

a trick you could try to remove more stain. Wipe the guitar down with water to raise the grain, wait one hour and sand . Repeat. Repeat. Every time you wet the guitar the grains get longer, sand them back. Try again with denatured alcohol in case it's alcohol based stain. You'll never get it all, but you will get some of it. 

What shellac are you using? You may have to dilute it with alcohol to force it to grain fill. If it's Zinseer out of the can at #3 it's a bit too thick to pore fill. Dilute it 50/50. Use a folded blue shop towel for application. 

I saw a cool trick on youtube the other day to make a relice'd TV yellow. The guitar was sanded down to wood then 4 or 5 coats of very thin white paint. Then grain fill over the thin paint job. Looks very streaky. Then paint the yellow over the grain filler. Killer relic tv yellow


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## knight_yyz

Forgot to mention that if you are using shellac you could go old school and use pumice to fill the pores. Lay down a layer of shellac, make up a small mouse and grind the pumice into the guitar with the mouse


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## tomee2

knight_yyz said:


> a trick you could try to remove more stain. Wipe the guitar down with water to raise the grain, wait one hour and sand . Repeat. Repeat. Every time you wet the guitar the grains get longer, sand them back. Try again with denatured alcohol in case it's alcohol based stain. You'll never get it all, but you will get some of it.
> 
> What shellac are you using? You may have to dilute it with alcohol to force it to grain fill. If it's Zinseer out of the can at #3 it's a bit too thick to pore fill. Dilute it 50/50. Use a folded blue shop towel for application.
> 
> I saw a cool trick on youtube the other day to make a relice'd TV yellow. The guitar was sanded down to wood then 4 or 5 coats of very thin white paint. Then grain fill over the thin paint job. Looks very streaky. Then paint the yellow over the grain filler. Killer relic tv yellow


Good advice on getting the deep in stain out with the sanding and raising the grain. At this point there’s a good amount of shellac on it and there isn’t much grain to raise. I’m using shellac flakes mixed with methyl hydrate in thin mix, maybe 2 tablespoons flakes to 200ml alcohol.
I’m going to try the pore filler mix I’ve got one more time to see what happens. Then sand and seal with shellac and then try to spray the EM6000 lacquer.


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## knight_yyz

Make sure the filler is really thin. And a plastic scraper.

@tomee2 Good call on the flakes but I think you need to add more flakes. 8 ounces liquid needs 28 grams of flake for a 1 pound cut. 2 teaspoons to 200ml is very light on the flakes. 236 ml is 8 ounces so you need to weigh your flake. You're not pore filling anything with almost pure methyl hydrate

Zinseer 3 pound cut will have 84 grams of shellac per 236 ml


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## knight_yyz

I just remembered. I use 8 ounce Mason jars. I recently made a 2lb cut and the flake took up about half the jar for 56 grams. So if you have a 250 ml container fill it 1/4 flake and then add 240 ish ml alcohol. I have a small scale so it was an exact measurement. For you it will be ball park. If you get this after grain filling, try it as your base coat.


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## tomee2

Spent the day trying to spray the dark back onto the neck. Almost got it. I'll have some pics up later. 

Knight I took your advice and thinned the pore filler with some of the em6000. Both are water based so they mixed well. I smeared it all in last night and rubbed it off after 5 minutes of drying. It came off the surface and stayed in the pores. Woohoo! 
I also added more flakes to the shellac late last night and it goes on thicker now. I put a coat on this morning after pore filling last night and sanding the body. It all looks pretty decent now. Thanks for the advice!


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## knight_yyz

No problem ! Glad you got it por filled. Very important if you want a gloss finish


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## tomee2

As of 10 minutes ago. It’s been an ordeal to get it looking like this! If all goes well it’s Clear em6000 over everything tomorrow then it hangs for a week.


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## tomee2

This finish really sinks in as it dries. Right now the serial number stamp is barely there but after each coat it always come back. The back of the headstock has about 4 light coats and the heel has 3. I was going to leave the middle part lighter but it looked better with just a slight fade off in the middle. 
This finish goes through an orange peel phase after about 15 minutes, you can see a bit of it. After an hour it’s gone. I’m going to let this sit overnight before I take the tape off.
BTW I wore a canister mask, but there is no smell to this stuff. Nothing. Latex house paint has more smell to it.


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## tomee2

knight_yyz said:


> No problem ! Glad you got it por filled. Very important if you want a gloss finish


Yup. I want a smooth gloss finish, but not from a thick coating. It’s getting there...


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## tomee2

So last nights spray ran, one little blob on the side. So I sanded the run down with 400 and scuffed the rest of the heel back. It all needed sanding because there were little bubbles in it. I think I ran the gun dry last night and sprayed foam on to it. 
So I made a new mix. No water just dye and lacquer. What I used yesterday had about 10 percent water and I think that’s a mistake. This little gun has a 0.8 oriface and all the reading I see 1.4 being used so I thought I had to thin it a bit. 
Turns out it sprays fine with no thinning BUT the spray pattern I set changed. Unthinned it only sprays a little round pattern not a fan shape. I’m using a little nail gun compressor at 40 psi and it should be 30 to 35. Maybe I’ll get a better regulator one day. 

I also changed spray strategy. I put 3 or 4 light passes on and left it for 15 minutes. I did this 4 times, then only sprayed where it needed it. In the end the color is uniform and I don’t think it’ll run.

I’ll have to take the tape off, clean up any errant drops and lightly sand everything back with 400 and 600 paper. Then clear, maybe tonight but probably later in the week. I wouldn’t mind letting this dark coat set hard enough to be able handle it without putting little bumps in it.


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## tomee2

A few things. 

Gun cleanup is water. I just wash it out, fill it with water and spray until water comes out then disassemble and rinse and dry. 

I was cleaning the gun between coats yesterday, but today I left the gun alone for the 15 minutes between light coats and it was fine. I think if it sat for an hour you’d have a clogged gun. 

The color is brown mahogany and it’s just like all that glossy brown furniture from the 70s. Dining sets, coffee tables all that reproduction antique stuff that used to be really common. I think it suits a Les Paul with a maple neck. .


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## tomee2

Took the tape off, and there were no problems so I taped the fret board only and dib 2 coats clear. Looking much better! I’m expecting to do 2 more tonight then let it sit and harden for a day, then sand.


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## nnieman

It’s looking great!
I love the colour


1 coat of laquer should be 3 passes.
1 mist coat - wait 15 mins.
1 heavier coat - wait 15-30 mins
1 wet coat - as much as you can put on without drips (will take some trial and error).

Nathan


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## tomee2

nnieman said:


> It’s looking great!
> I love the colour
> 
> 
> 1 coat of laquer should be 3 passes.
> 1 mist coat - wait 15 mins.
> 1 heavier coat - wait 15-30 mins
> 1 wet coat - as much as you can put on without drips (will take some trial and error).
> 
> Nathan


Thanks! So I've got about 3 colour coats and 1 clear so far. I also wasted 2 coats on the neck that got wiped off. 
No spraying today, too cold and wet. 
I've got about half the can left so enough for maybe 4 coats if I follow your schedule. Hope that's enough because I'm reading about builders putting 15 coats on to make them happy. Yikes.


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## nnieman

tomee2 said:


> Thanks! So I've got about 3 colour coats and 1 clear so far. I also wasted 2 coats on the neck that got wiped off.
> No spraying today, too cold and wet.
> I've got about half the can left so enough for maybe 4 coats if I follow your schedule. Hope that's enough because I'm reading about builders putting 15 coats on to make them happy. Yikes.


Doing it the way I said you need 2 or 3 coats.
Definitely not 15.

Nathan


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## tomee2

I feel better about this trade now! Still lots of detailing to do, but this is 12 hours after the final spray, no buffing or sanding yet.
Off to work, but I’ll describe the process by the weekend, with more pictures. (I did strip the neck and redo it).


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## greco

tomee2 said:


> I feel better about this trade now!


Looking great! 

Comparison for those of us that had forgotten the look of the original.


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## knight_yyz

Looking good!


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## ezcomes

Nice!


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## tomee2

Thanks! It looks better in the pics then in person. Lots of little dust bits and a few runs but overall it's smooth and shiny with only a little orange peel in parts. 
Last week I ended up redoing the neck. I pulled the tape off after a clear coat and a small chip of colour came off. I tried to touch it up but it just got worse and worse as I tried to sand the touch up smooth. In the end I sanded it all off except the heel. 
So I repainted the neck Friday. I taped off the fingerboard above the fingerboard-neck glue joint. I then retaped it for the clear coat above that so the edge of the fretboard is clear coated.
Clear coat was in 2 stages, one spray Saturday then sand back at 400 grit on Monday night, then sprayed again the final coats Tues night. This worked well but wasn't planned that way. I wanted to do all of it sat but right after doing a spray, in the garage, the central vacuum got turned on, and it exhausts into the garage and blew dust everywhere.


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## tomee2

So it got covered in dust and I let it dry. Then I was forced to sand it all down smooth, which was good. The very smooth surface gave a smooth result on the second spray. It's still not great, but with a cleaner space and maybe a better spray gun I can see getting to this point and needing only to buff it out being possible.


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## tomee2

Plan now is 800 to 1200 grit to get the dust off, then a new thing for me: wet polish with oil and pumice followed by rotten stone. Lee valley has both so I'm willing to give it a try. For now I'm letting it sit for the 100 hours, or more, it's supposed to sit before sanding.
Now it's time to get the pickups and pots sorted out, get a knob and switch tip, and maybe a pick guard.


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## greco

tomee2 said:


> ...right after doing a spray, in the garage, the central vacuum got turned on, and it exhausts into the garage and blew dust everywhere.


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## tomee2

Oh ya. I jumped off the couch and yanked that hose out as fast as I could! No real harm done and next time it gets unplugged when spray.


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## RBlakeney

This makes me want to sand down my lpj


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## nnieman

It looks great!

The last guitar I sprayed.... as I was spraying my 6 year old dumped the bucket from the dust collector to play in the sawdust ‍♀

Nathan


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## tomee2

While waiting for the finish I decided to look at the pickups. This guitar has 4 wire quick connect pickups, with a circuit board. The previous refinisher, in his video described some sort of problem with the pickups and he rewired the neck pickup up with a large amount of extra wire and heat shrinking.

When I played this guitar for the 20 minutes before taking it all apart, because I couldn’t stand the smell, I noticed the neck and bridge were out of phase.
So tonight I get out the meter and measure the DC resistance, about 7.5k for the bridge and 4K for the neck! A dead coil? What’s going on here? Out of phase and a dead coil, perfect.

I had to read up on this a bit - it could be reversed wires or a flipped magnet. I get out the compass and sure enough the magnet N and S is opposite for the neck and the bridge. I have a burstbucker 1 2 set on the shelf and they are the same magnetic polarity, so that must be the answer. But the tape looks untouched, so flipped at the factory by accident? And what about the 4K ohm reading?
So I take all the wiring off and get to bare wires, 5 of them. Black (ground shield) black, red, green, white. I measure each coil at about 4K, and when I put them in series, about 8k. Phew, the pickup is ok.

With some digging I find out that Gibson 4 wire pickups with quick connects come as a set with the bridge magnetic polarity reversed! So the magnet flip is factory original. And To compensate, the quick connect wiring is unique for the bridge and the neck! Google search shows a pic where the order of wires is different, the first pic, and more searching brings up the 2nd picture, a nice explanation of the wiring.

So, what happened was he used a bridge connector on the neck, which wires it up with the same electrical wiring as the bridge but without the factory flipped magnet the bridge has, that he didn’t know about, the output voltage was out of phase. And, to top it off, he swapped the black wires, which ends up taking the output from only one coil, the red wire was grounded and the output came off the white.
Now I have to solder these tiny wire up, properly.

(Edit! I just learned that I misunderstood my compass! A compass points to north, but the North Pole is magnetic south. So, the bridge magnet is flipped not the neck. Screw coil is south, and compass points to it for neck, but points away for the bridge. I changed the post to reflect this)


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## tomee2

Mock up with pickups... 

The extra wires... neck 7.8k, bridge 7.5k. Pretty low, but they have alnico5 magnets..

Circuit board detail. Middle of the 5 wires is the output wire. Left 2 dots are connected to ground, right 2 dots connect the end of one coil to the start of the other.
Neck and bridge have these wired up differently. 
This factory Gibson setup allows for taking any pair of coils in series or parallel and have them cancel noise. A swap to a circuit board from a higher end studio or standard and I would have more then the standard 3 settings.


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## tomee2

Magnet test. Middle is BB1 right is neck, left is bridge. BB1 and neck are the old Gibson standard with screw coil is south. The screw coil for the Zebra 61 bridge is magnetic north.


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## tomee2

Done!
Well, almost. I still need to fix the neck pickup wiring, but I couldn’t wait any longer to put it together. I also want to put covers on the pickups and get a cream pick guard and switch plate.

Indoor pictures in the basement so the lighting isn’t great. Maybe more tomorrow with good daylight.


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## Kerry Brown

Amazing!


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## knight_yyz

Great job!


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## tomee2

Thanks for the kind words!

The final steps were wet sand with 1500 using a small rubber block to flatten it out a remove orange peel, but not on the round over or the edges. Then I rubbed it with rotten stone dust and water to start polishing, this time on all surfaces. This got it smoother but not glass smooth. So I tried a Maguiars fine finish polish for that show car shine with a lambs wool pad on the sander for final polishing. This worked but it then looked and felt like a thick layer of cheap plastic. I was not too happy last night but took pictures anyway.

This morning I cleaned it with a dry cloth and by tonight it looked and felt totally different. Is it possible the car polish had a solvent in it that had to gas off?

Anyway a few more pictures. The rear covers got wet sanded to 1500. The tailpiece was badly distressed so it got sanded from 400 to 1500 then polished with Mother’s metal polish. The brass or copper under coat shows through but it’s fine and works. Everything else is basically as it came.
2 new knobs and a switch tip from NextGen here in Ottawa completed it off. The knobs are exactly the same as the 3 it came with (one knob got damaged coming off. Live and learn!) 

It plays great, although I wish the tailpiece sat lower but I can’t expect a nice low STP on a low end LP. The bridge sounds great, so I can see why Juniors with just the bridge are well regarded.


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## tomee2

It’s shiny but I don’t think it’s as good as a factory Gibson nitro finish. It doesn’t have that “hard candy glass” look to it, if that describes it. It’s most noticeable on the headstock, that looks a bit foggy or cloudy. Maybe it just needs to age and harden a bit more, or needs more time being polished.
(And yes, I need to learn how to string up a Gibson! I’m spoiled by those slotted vintage Klusons on the Squier Telecaster. )


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## tomee2

davetcan said:


> Inspiration perhaps?


I had this in mind the whole time. Once I got that brown sanded off the maple I knew I could get it looking like the LPJ version of this. .


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## davetcan

tomee2 said:


> I had this in mind the whole time. Once I got that brown sanded off the maple I knew I could get it looking like the LPJ version of this. .


Well you did an awesome job!


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## pipestone62

Wow, great job, looks killer


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## StratCat

Fantastic! Great accomplishment. The person you bought it from would be shocked!


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## Rozz

I just binge-surfed this entire thread. The finished top reminds me of an R-8 Plain top minus the burst. Awesome job Tommy.


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## nnieman

That’s looks awesome

Great job and excellent save!!

Nathan


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## tomee2

davetcan said:


> Well you did an awesome job!


Thanks!


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## tomee2

StratCat said:


> Fantastic! Great accomplishment. The person you bought it from would be shocked!


I think he would be! The guitar I traded is now up for trade again by him on Kijiji, I won’t be trading this for anything anytime soon, if ever.


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## greco

tomee2 said:


> The guitar I traded is now up for trade again by him on Kijiji


It would be fun to send him some pics of his (now refinished) guitar and make an extremely outlandish trade offer.


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## tomee2

Rozz said:


> I just binge-surfed this entire thread. The finished top reminds me of an R-8 Plain top minus the burst. Awesome job Tommy.


Glad you enjoyed it! Comparison to an R8 is quite a compliment, thanks! 
I’m not sure I described it, but when I got the brown stain off the top I did put on some 100 paper on the orbital sander and ran the edge of the sander into the dish, to deepen it. Exnilo described this in his build and it worked well. After 100 I worked back up to 320, but always sanding the dropped edge more than the top. It might be a few 10ths of a mm deeper but it seems to have worked well.


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## tomee2

greco said:


> It would be fun to send him some pics of his (now refinished) guitar and make an extremely outlandish trade offer.


I’d say trade back plus $400 cash would do it! But I’m not trading. . Search for Peavey Firenza on Kijiji and you’ll see it. It is a great guitar actually but not my style. Anyone wanting a budget EVH type guitar should look at those and they’re as well made as any US made Fender, but sell for MIM or Classic Vibe money.


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## tomee2

nnieman said:


> That’s looks awesome
> 
> Great job and excellent save!!
> 
> Nathan


Thanks for all your advice! I’ve never sprayed anything, except with Krylon cans, and if I can do this with the EM 6000 and get these results I think anyone can.


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## greco

tomee2 said:


> I’d say trade back plus $400 cash would do it!


I was thinking more like trade back plus $1500.00 cash (include some costing for your extensive labour and materials). You don't have to be serious AT ALL ...just curious about his reaction on seeing the pics.


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## Guest

tomee2 said:


> Search for Peavey Firenza


_one of the best playing guitars i have ever owned, I even prefer this thing to my jp7!
_
I always find it funny when people want to unload their '_best player ever!_' guitars. lol.


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## Rozz

tomee2 said:


> Comparison to an R8 is quite a compliment, thanks!


I loves me some plain tops.


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## tomee2

Fixed


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## tomee2

Got the neck pickup wired in. Those connectors are a pain in the neck! Terrible design. The insulation is not crimped by the block so there is no strain relief on the very tiny copper conductor. If those are pulled out a few too many times they’ll fail, as this one did as I tried to seat it place. Must’ve put pressure on the red wire because it broke off as I pushed it in. Luckily that wire gets bridged to the one next to it in the circuit so I soldered it to that wire on the connector. So a bit of a hack for now, but it works.
Neck is nice and it’s in phase in the middle. Good crisp highs, lots of bass, no hum. All in all it sounds great, or about as good as I can play it.


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## tomee2

fixed


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## greco

tomee2 said:


> How did my post from today end up before one from sept 30?
> Something weird going on here
> ...


Even the pics of your guitar contain some powerful mojo!


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## tomee2

greco said:


> Even the pics of your guitar contain some powerful mojo!


I have no idea what was going on but it seems to be fixed now.


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## tomee2

The finish is still soft. 
Not sure how hard it's supposed to get but the finish is marking up really easily. Lightly rubbing a fingernail on it leaves marks. At this rate it'll look all worn and relic'd in a few months.


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## tomee2

The finish is hardening up, at last. Headstock and neck don’t scratch easily at all, and I sprayed those thinner so It’s got to be that I sprayed the back pretty heavily. I’ve got it in a room with a little room heater going to speed it up.


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## nnieman

I think I left the last one I did handing for 30-40 days.

Not deliberately, I was just busy.
I wet sanded and polished it, bolted it to the neck and hung it back up.

This stuff dried WAY faster than acrylic laquer!!

Nathan


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## tomee2

nnieman said:


> I think I left the last one I did handing for 30-40 days.
> 
> Not deliberately, I was just busy.
> I wet sanded and polished it, bolted it to the neck and hung it back up.
> 
> This stuff dried WAY faster than acrylic laquer!!
> 
> Nathan


Ok, good to know! For sure it’s still curing or whatever it does. The “made in USA 2014” imprint on the back of the headstock was completely covered over when I was done. I was disappointed it was covered over by the finish because it’s one of the identifiers for a Gibson. Anyway, it’s back now! The finish shrank into it and it’s clear as day, and the serial number is completely visible too. So, it’s been 4 weeks and it’s still drying out.
The back is still easily scratched but it doesn’t matter as I can wet sand the back anytime to smooth it out. I already did once a week ago to get rid of a few solder blob “mistakes”. I put tiny drops in the burned out spots and 24 hours later sanded it back to smooth with wet 1500 then 2000 paper. You’d never know the spots were ever there.


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## knight_yyz

I just watched a YouTube video of a luthier doing water based finishes. He says cure one day per coat. So if you put 12 coats on, let it cure for 12 days. that's ballpark though, depends on temp and humidity. High humidity double it.


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## tomee2

knight_yyz said:


> I just watched a YouTube video of a luthier doing water based finishes. He says cure one day per coat. So if you put 12 coats on, let it cure for 12 days. that's ballpark though, depends on temp and humidity. High humidity double it.


Sounds about right to me. There’s several threads on mylespaul and a bass forum discussing this finish and the consensus seems to be several weeks or more for a full cure. That’s what I’m seeing too.


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## tomee2

Just read that real nitro sits and cures for a month or two as well so this isn’t out of the expected I guess. Can see why Squier Epiphone etc use those UV catalyzed stuff for finishes - cured in minutes and out the door I think?


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## Silvertone

Yeah - nitro takes forever. It actually never fully "cures". I generally wait until I can't smell the finish closely around the guitar. That could be 6-8 weeks. It's probably safe to to buff out earlier but I've only done a few guitars for myself, so I was in no rush.
Nice rescue BTW.

Cheers Peter.


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## tomee2

I rewired it today. I set aside an hour or so, it took 5! But it was good day, so I’m glad I did it.
I decided to make a plastic plate to hold the pots, like the metal plates Gibson uses on Classics older Standards etc. That way I could use a tag board for the switch and out put jack connections. A bonus is that it bends, so the pots sit flat against the maple top not all at the same angle, which looks weird. The shafts needed one spacer nut each, and the ends stuck out exactly the right amount for the knobs to sit low, lucky me.
I also made a new jack plate from the same plastic, which came from my failed first attempt at the cavity plate. The plastic is white ABS from a driveway tar pail. I heated it up to flatten it, and sanded the printing off, so making the plastic bits took a while.
The soldering is much messier then I’d like. My iron is a big 60 watter, but I think I need a bigger one for the back of the pots.
Pickups are now BurstBucker 1 and 2, with covers. 0.022 caps. 500k linear volume, 500k log tone pots, 50s wiring. Parts were from nextgen here in Ottawa.
I can report that everything works as intended and the switching is not messed up, which was a huge relief. I hope I can now leave that damn rear cover on it for at least a few years!


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