Tele project coming!

[Katastrophe]

I bought a rosewood Mighty Mite neck off the bay and decided to replace the rosewood fretboard with an ebony board. I really like ebony for a fretboard and I wanted 22 frets which I could not find so now I can make my own.

I also decided to put abalone dots in it. These can be seen in the small clear plastic bag. The ebony board is a StewMac pre-slotted board.

I haven't decided yet how I am going to take the original board off. Probably just plane it off to make sure I get a good flat surface for the new board.

This is gonna be really cool. I can't wait to see how it turns out!

[M29]

Thanks Kat!!
I have taken on way too many projects right now but hopefully I can keep this going in a timely manner.

[Ch0jin]

Wow! Projects like this make me wish I had a shed, or garage, or, well you get the picture..

You're a braver man than me planning on doing abalone dot inlays. I assume thats going to take some serious precision craftsmanship.

[M29]

Hi Ch0jin!

The dots are not too bad. Just have to drill a hole and glue em in. With a proper drill bit they fit good.. The problem is in not letting the drill get out of control and coming out the back of the neck............

[Katastrophe]

Thanks Kat!!
I have taken on way too many projects right now but hopefully I can keep this going in a timely manner.

You have to. I live vicariously through your woodworking skills.

[Bloozcat]

M29 has two essential skills for success:

The ability...

And the will to try...

[M29]

Thank you for the kind words guys. What was that Ian said about Ellie in Jurassic Park as she was leaning into the mound of Triceratops poo...She's tenacious!

If you do enough of something you will get good at it. I learned a lot of wood work from my dad but I still had to do it for my self. It takes time and somethings ya have to do over, boy did I ever , but it gets better as you go on.
I remember working on the first guitar I made back in high school, 1971. I was gluing the fretboard on and with all my experience (17 years old). I thought I would just line up the one edge of the board with the edge of the neck, this way I would have less to sand on the other side. Well...That made it easier to sand but the fretboard was cut with a taper. This put the frets at a slight angle and were no longer square with the rest of the guitar. I learned a good lesson that day. This was done without my dads assistance..........Yeah ya mess up a few and ya learn........ Always work off a center line with a guitar.

I have a question for you all.

I don't know if I will be able to get all the poly off this Mighty Mite neck and I am afraid I might have adhesion problems when I re-clear it with lacquer.
Blooz or anyone that has ever put a finish over polyurethane, do you find that it is very hard to get lacquer or other top coats to stick to it?
I have done a few projects now where I sanded down the poly and put lacquer over it, only to have the lacquer chip off if you barely bump it against something. I think the poly is so hard it is tough to get anything to adhere to it. Do you know of any clear primer that will adhere to poly and that the lacquer will adhere to the primer?


Thanks.
M

[Bloozcat]

If it's just the standard, thin poly finish that's on most MM necks, you can easily sand it off. I've done that on three MM necks and then had no problems shooting lacquer afterwards. It's easy to tell when you've got all the poly off. The sanding residue starts out a milky white color and then turns to plain maple sanding dust. It doesn't take very long to do. Then you simply shoot the bare wood with a lacquer sanding sealer and then the lacquer (or vintage amger tint dye, then clear lacquer).

The other alternative is to cover the poly with clear shellac as a base coat for the lacquer. You can't shoot lacquer right onto poly, but shellac being an organic compound is pretty much a universal undercoat. But, the whole reason for using nitro lacquer is so that you can get a nice thin but hard finish that buffs out to a brilliant gloss. So why spray it over poly and shellac first?

[M29]

Thanks Blooz,

In this case I will sand down to the maple but on other finishes I have put lacquer over poly because I got tired of sanding the darn poly. Like on my LP project I got almost all of the poly off but it seemed like it was so far into the wood that I could not get it all off. That was mahogany though which is more porous. Maple has a tighter grain which might help to keep the poly from sinking into the grain as much.

I was curious on adhesion to poly for other projects as well. I have found it hard to get poly to stick to poly, such as furniture and flooring. It was a general question that I probably should have explained more.

Thanks for the shellac tip Blooz!!