In the previous post about guitars I told you about building my own guitar. This one is about the finishing
of that guitar and 2 other guitars
The AtlasCaster
I've forgot to take some pictures from the first guitar (The AtlasCaster). The plan was to leave the guitar natural and only apply some glossy finishing. The first thing I did (without reading the manual) is applying some grain filler to the guitar. This obviously made it too white.
After actually reading some manuals on the internet I sanded off most of the filler and applied 1 layer of danish oil to the guitar. This really brings out the colour of the wood itself. The manual of the danish oil states that I need a minimum of 3 layers to have it permanently sealed but since I'm applying a high gloss finish after this I've decided that more layers is unnecessary.
After letting the danish oil dry I've applied 4 layers of nitrocellulose high gloss lacquer from an aerosol can. This is then sanded down with some 800 grit sanding paper and then polished with some car wax.
The red Stratocaster
The next guitar to receive a finishing upgrade is my brothers stratocaster. This stratocaster is made from a brandless guitar kit and actually the first built. After building this guitar was stained mahogany red.
After finishing the AtlasCaster with a glossy finish my brother decided the guitar should be candy apple metallic red. My brother sanded almost all the stain of and applied the grain filled (this time I was right) and after that some candy apple red metallic nitrocellulose aerosol paint.
The Les Paul model
At the same time as the red Stratocaster I've also refinished my Les Paul guitar kit This guitar was also stained with the mahoney red stain but I've only applied one layer.
I've sanded down this guitar only a little bit and applied some grain filler after. After the filler I've applied a whole can of nitrocellulose black paint and sanded all the texture down.
Since the guitar is completely black and I've painted over the white binding I thought it would be cool to add some gold lines around the edge. To add these lines I've used some gold gel pens. I drew 2 lines around the whole edge of the guitar (excluding the neck) and added some extra lines at the knobs and the switch on the guitar.
After drawing the lines I sprayed on a whole can of high gloss lacquer again and sanded that down with 800 grit sandpaper. After polishing I found that the lacquer looked scratchy so I ordered some 2000 grit sandpaper and sanded and polished it again. Now it only looks slightly scratchy under bright lighting but that seems unavoidable with a black nitro finish.
What's left to do...
The only problem left with the Les Paul model guitar is that it sounds crappy (because it has 2 for 5 dollar grade pickups, it sounds fine acoustic) so I ordered the Seymour Duncan hot rodded set. While browsing the website I also ordered a Fender custom 69
and a Seymour Duncan SSL-5 pickup for my AtlasCaster. Those should arrive in a few days so then I will upload some sound samples from both guitars.
