Monday, August 3rd, 2009:

I'M BACK!!!!! YAY!!!!

Well, today was the day I'd been eagerly awaiting — the day when I could finally "finish" the finish! It's been a week since I sprayed the last coat of finish. It pretty near killed me to wait, but I was good.

I spent this morning rubbing out the finish. What I ended up doing was first leveling the finish with P600 grit gold sandpaper. Then I dry-sanded with Micromesh, from 1800 to 12000. (Previously, on all my guitars, I have wet-sanded with the Micromesh, but I'd read on various forums that this new EM6000 finish sometimes does better with dry-sanding, so I decided to try it.) I think from now on, I will dry-sand, instead of wet-sand, as it went just as easily (and it's a lot less messy).

I did happen to sand through a couple of places on the binding, but all I did was to put a few thin coats of the EM6000 on the little sand-through spots and, a little while later (it didn't take long for the coats to dry), I just used some Micromesh to sand and polish them up again.

After that, I used the buffer (I have a Caswell Plating 1100 RPM buffer that I got a few years ago for only $99!) and some Menzerna fine compound to buff the guitar. Finally, I polished it up with Meguiar's #9 (swirl remover), #7 (deep glaze), and #10 (plastic polish).

To be honest, I wasn't really sure what was the best polishing procedure to use — I went on the different forums and found that different people all had different methods — so I just did what I did. It seems to have worked out nicely:

  

 

 

INDEX:

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  1. Planning
  2. A Little Change in Plans...
  3. Back Braces
  4. Carving the Back Braces & Cutting the Top Braces
  5. The Rosette / Tapering the Fingerboard
  6. Bracing the Top
  7. Carving the Braces / Gluing the Soundhole Braces & Bridge Plate
  8. The Finished Top and Back!!! / Cutting and Bending the Sides
  9. Fixing Cupped Sides / Making Spreaders & Clamping Cauls
  10. Neck and Tail Blocks
  11. Sanding the Radius into the Sides / Gluing the Kerfing Strips / Side Reinforcements
  12. Fitting & Gluing the Back
  13. Fitting & Gluing the Top
  14. We Have a Soundbox Now!!!
  15. Bending and Routing for Bindings
  16. Gluing the End Wedge & Bindings
  17. Scraping the Bindings
  18. Beginning the Neck
  19. The Neck, Continued!!!
  20. The Neck, Day 3
  21. Peghead, Tuners, Dots, & Frets!!
  22. Peghead Inlay
  23. Backstrap & Gluing the Fingerboard
  24. Carving the Neck / A "Duh!" Moment / Side Dots / Preparing for Finish
  25. Pore-Filling and Sealing
  26. Spraying the Top Coats
  27. Finishing the Finish / Gluing on the Neck
  28. Gluing on the Bridge
  29. Set-Up / It's All Done!

 

 

 

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After that, I took a little break for lunch. Then I moved on to gluing on the neck. I first bolted on the neck, checked the fit of the neck again (it was still good!), and put masking tape around the fingerboard extension. I removed the neck, and put some paint stripper on the area within the masking tape. When I do this, I remove the finish with a 1/2" chisel, wipe the area with a dampened paper towel to neutralize any stripper residue, and let it dry.

 

 

 

 

 

  

When it is dry, I lightly sand the area before applying Titebond to the fingerboard extension. I bolt on the neck and clamp it all up. That's where it is now.

I'm a bit tired now. I think I'll wait till tomorrow to do the bridge.