Gearhead
Usually the 'veneer' is several mm thick so it might be worth having the body thicknessed instead of sanding it down.
The glue I would recommend is white glue (also called cold glue) since it is cheap, easy to work with and will only dissolve with steam and not with water.
PRS style binding is best done with plain Maple strip rather than masking off the side of your top; the whole reason why he went for the strip in the first place is the difficulty you'll have finishing the edges of the figured Maple.
2k will work (Fender also used the automotive paint available at the time) but I am not sure what you would use as the intermediate layer between your stains and the clear coat. You need a bit of layer thickness there to enable you to sand the body smooth without sanding through to the bare wood and ruining the stain effect. If you use 2k clear coat for sanding sealer it might turn out to be a challenging sanding job...
Neon-Gecko
We use 2K on most of our guitars and it works out fine. We even use it as a sanding sealer as we have found that nitro sealer shrinks and causes the graining pattern to pop through to the polished surface over time. No surprise there really seen as nitro cures through evaporation, while 2K cures mostly through chemical reaction.
Just a side note on 2K curing times, 2K cures far slower on timber than it does on metals and such, so spec or data sheets are pretty useless to go by. Depending on the ambient temperature and humidity, normally 2-4 days between coats are needed to cure before sanding with 320 grit. Don’t ever try to artificially heat the work surface in a heated spray booth, as the natural saps and resins within the wood tries to escape, causing the paint to blister.
2K will work fine with most water based stains. The first two sealing coats are applied pretty thick (180 ml per body total mixed vol), even to the point of it getting runs. We then sand back down to raw timber in places.
The idea here is to seal the lower lying pores of the grain, with out bulking up on the paint. The final few lighter coats of sealer 2K are normally applied to seal any stubborn pin holes, you can even use an artist brush and dab on a little paint here.
Once sealed and smooth, shoot colour as per normal and polish it up.
Clint-Green
Thanks Gearhead!
Awesome, cold glue is what I was originally going to use, I was just worried that it wouldn't do the job; so a thinned coat of 2k or sanding sealer shouldn't cause it to lift then? I know you said that water wouldn't cause it to lift but what about the thinners in the base clearcoat or sanding coat? Which sanding sealer would you recommend?
Thicknessing the body is also something I've considered. If I recall the StewMac site states that the veneer is basically 1mm thick although a couple of the user reviews complain that the sheets are sometimes considerably thicker than that. Could I just take it into Timber City or something like that with the original finish still on there (after I've measured the veneer's actual thickness of course) and ask them to take a few mils off the top for me? I have also been thinking of leaving the little section between the neck pickup and the neck as is, since the neck has an overhang from fret 22-24 and it sits nice and snug on the current finish (if that makes any sense).
As for the PRS binding, I think I will wait and see how the edges turn out once I've glued and trimmed the veneer flush before making my final decision; I was originally going to go with a poor man's burst and might still do so if the edges look like they won't give a nice finish for the "binding".
Sorry about the 20 questions, I really want to get it right first time and as I've said I'm a complete newb ?
Clint-Green
Thank you for the reply, Neon Gecko, some great info here, guys, I really appreciate it!
Because I was worried about thinners affecting the wood glue my first plan was to shoot a thick, neat coat of 2k (no thinners) as a sealer, let it cure then flat it out nicely (I would imagine no thinners would = pretty uneven) and then spray my consecutive coats. So you think I could thin out the sanding coats anyway?
Gearhead
The idea of thinning a first coat is to penetrate the wood and create a gradual change from soft wood to hard coat. The downside is that the wood, especially figured wood, however fanatically you have sanded it smooth, will get uneven. After the stain you do not want to sand any wood so there will be nothing left to do but build up layer thickness on the clear coat to sand down. This is not something you do with thinned coat, since it will slow you down dramatically. You just cannot build up layer thickness with thin paint without causing runs.
Clint-Green
So in other words I should do one thinned coat and then a few un-thinned for sanding?
Neon-Gecko
mmm, tricky one that. I'd maybe go for a reduced thinned coat to start with. Normally 20% thinner is mixed into 2K. Try 10% instead and maybe apply the first lot with a brush to work it into the pores. Try and get it on as thick as possible, leaving 10 minutes flash time between coats and get around 3 - 4 coats on. If it runs slightly, it'll sand out before the next application.
I'm with gearhead on not sanding through to the wood with figured, stained woods.
Clint-Green
Awesome advice, thanks so much, man! So just to confirm, the thinners shouldn't affect the cold glue? Just want to make 110% sure...the veneer cost a fortune, I'll cry like a baby if it lifts or I sand through it :/
Gearhead
Thinners will not affect hardened cold glue, otherwise it would not be used by so many luthiers. Your biggest issue with cold glue is that it is not hard itself. This makes it difficult to cover up gaps between the top and the body slab; get you top to really really sit well on the glue face (you can never have enough clamps) and prep the faces well without leaving dents bumps scratches.
Clint-Green
Thanks Gearhead...it sounds logical of course but one can never be too sure ?
Neon Gecko, I've joined your BvanS Facebook page and taken a look at some of the photos; some KILLER work there, man, very nicely done!
Neon-Gecko
Clint Green wrote
Neon Gecko, I've joined your BvanS Facebook page and taken a look at some of the photos; some KILLER work there, man, very nicely done!
Thanks mate, just holla if you need more info...
Clint-Green
Thanks dude, will do...I'm pretty sure I'll have a bunch more questions before my project is done ?
Airguitar
Years ago there was a place in Germiston that sold veneers in all kinds of exotic woods. I can't remember the name but maybe google it??
Clint-Green
Thanks Airguitar...there are a few that pop up on Google but I can't find any that appear to be suitable for a guitar top. I suppose it would be best to actually go to these places to see what they have to offer but I'm all the way in East London (Eastern Cape). Anyhoo, my stuff is on it's way, I'm hoping it'll get here later this week or next week...can't freakin wait, I'm dying to take a few days' leave from work and get this project started!
Neon Gecko, what would you recommend more, 2k or polyurethane? I suppose the 2k will dry a lot quicker since as mentioned before it cures through a chemical process and not just from the evaporation or a solvent which can take weeks...? I know that there's a lot of debate about whether certain finishes affect the tone on an electric guitar or not.
Neon-Gecko
We prefer 2K as it is readily available though out the country, it comes in millions of colours and a host of finishes, such as solid plain colours, Pearls, metallic’s through to some awesome colour changing, heat reactive, glow-in-the-dark and more!. We have yet to find a steady supplier of spray-able, clear polyurethane so we don’t even consider it..
Any finish will affect tone, but the idea is to keep the finish as thin as possible. For instance we strive to keep our finish thinner than a sheet of A4 copy paper (that's sealer and colour included). If we can see a thicker film than said A4 paper at the neck pocket, it all comes off and we start again.
Clint-Green
2k it is then ? From what I've read, the sanding sealer (or in this case, the coats of 2k being used as sanding sealer) is pretty much all sanded off anyway. Neck pocket and pup cavities will be masked off so I'll be able to see from there exactly how thick my finish is.
On a side note, I'm also going to move the volume knob down about an inch because my pinky keeps catching it when I'm speedpicking on the bottom e string, so I will plug the original hole with a piece of dowel, fill with some epoxy and sand flush before glueing on the veneer. I plan on clamping the guitar face down to a piece of plywood or scrap pine when I drill the holes for the vol, tone and toggle switch to stop the veneer from ripping.
Your advice has been invaluable, bro, thank you so much!
Clint-Green
Ok, got my parcel from Stew-Mac today (damn, that was quick!)...
I was well excited until I opened the box and saw that the veneers are about 7mm thick!! What do I do now?? It's going on and Ibanez RG570 so I need it to be pliable enough to bend over the (strat-style) arm contour. Can I take it to Timber City or somewhere to have it thicknessed or something like that? One of the boards is also not flat, it's quite cupped. I'm crapping myself about taking a machine to it because these things cost me almost 900 bucks including shipping, VAT and duty...
Help!!! S.O.S!!! Mayday!!! ???
Airguitar
I'd advise against taking it to timber city as their thicknessers work very hard and could rip the wood. Try to find a carpentry place that will take care and reduce it slowly over several passes. In fact it would be best to keep as much maple as possible and maybe thickness down the body top instead.
Clint-Green
The only problem is that I need the veneer to be thin enough for it to bend to the arm contuour at the top of the body (where your right forearm rests on the front of the guitar). I am considering sanding it (yep, it's going to be a lot of work but will probably be my safest option) to about 1.5mm. I will also need to plane the edge where the veneers will join so that they are true, as they are not 100% straight. I found this on the net where they sanded a 3mm veneer down to 1.5mm after planing the edges true:
http://www.guitarmagazine.co.uk/articles/refinishing-your-guitar/page2/
The big issue now though, is how to get the warped piece nice and flat before I plane and sand...
Gearhead
The sides you must rout with a straightedge guide for the router. You can plane if you are handy with a planer, but I would recommend routing figured Maple because of the grain running in and out of plane every couple of mm.
With the thickness it is now, you must steam the bend in before glueing. If you sand down to less than 4mm or something thereabouts, you will not have enough stiffness to clamp the top flatly and if it is not flat, you will then need to sand it flat. With 1.5mm you will then not have enough thickness to sand at all.
Clamp two pieces of wood on both sides of the bend area, one above and one below on either side, four in total. The clamps give you leverage to hand bend the wood and the blocks of wood make sure the bend is parallel (well, they do if you put them parallel) as opposed to conical. The process of bending I mentioned in another thread last week. You can bend forward until you hit the angle of your body blank, if you overbend you can also bend back. By applying the heat evenly across the surface between the blocks, you make sure you get a constant radius.
It might be worthwhile practicing on some other pieces of Maple or even other woods to get the hang of it. Bending is not hard at all, but experience is essential.
