Step 8 - Now Let's Bolt This Thing Together

It was touchy there at the end, but I was able to actually play it last night before going to bed late(r). That's the end of the story though...

I was able to get a nice shiny finish using 0000 steel wool and several applications of Maguier's Scratch-X. Here's what I ended up with:



The brown tint is due to the lighting, it's actually white. I topped it off with several coats of carnuba wax.

From there, you follow the directions. I put the string eyelets in before bolting on the neck, however, to avoid any neck damage. I was able to borrow a nice plastic headed hammer from work so nothing got scratched. Except the body, that is. GRRR! I dropped a tool on the edge of the body and earned a nice ding. Too late to fix without major surgery and it doesn't show unless you're looking for it. I wasn't happy, but I built this guitar to play, not hang on the wall, so it's bound to get some scars. Anyway, here's some progress pictures.





Carvin only stripped about 1/4" on the ends of all the wires you're supposed to connect, which isn't really enough. I have stripped back about 3/4" on the bridge's ground wire, just to be sure it makes contact. You can also see that I added some of the leftover tape to the top edge so I had good contact between the body and the back of the pickguard.


I soldered all the wires together as directed then used the wire nuts to cover everything up. Ease the pickguard on and screw it down, making sure you don't pinch any of those wires.



One of my changes was these chrome knobs. I think they look better than the faux Fender ones that came with it.


After, that it was string up, tune up, and play a while before bed. Tonight I set the intonation, which was perfect from Carvin with the exception of the high E string. I also adjusted the pick-up height according to the directions. Here it is resting in the classic tweed case.



I've really enjoyed this project, and since I got the Zoom G2.1U Effects pedal this evening, I'll be putting the pickups through their paces real soon. If you've read this whole blog because you're thinking about getting a Bolt, don't let the few problems I've had throw you off. The guitar sounds absolutely wonderful, and the range of tones you can get boggles the mind. I thought an SSH pickup would give me three or four new tones, but the switch combinations allow eight different pickup tones to come out of the same guitar. It's versatile, sounds excellent, plays great, and all the hard luthier stuff is already done. If you play guitar and have a modicum of woodworking skills, you can produce a great guitar.

If you have any questions, leave a comment or post on www.carvinbbs.com. If I'm not there, someone will be able to help you out.

Step 7 - Body Coat & Pickguard Prep

It took a little longer than I figured to restain the body. A few areas didn't want to take the stain so I had to put on several coats & wait for them to dry. If I had it to do over again, I wouldn't go with this stain, as it's difficult to work with in this application. It worked fine on my test piece, which was a scrap of raw pine I had laying around, but I think the sanding, grain filling, and ash combination made it difficult to get decent coverage. From what I've read and seen, an alcohol based stain or dye added to tung oil works great. No way to get the white I wanted that way as far as I know, although reranch.com carries a Fender blonde that would have been close.

Here's the first finish coat. I'm using Deft clear gloss since that's the only nitro product I could find around here and I've read a couple of build notes where it was used. I built the spray booth out of the box the Carvin case came in. Just doing my part to help the planet by recycling ;)


I also took the plastic cover off the black perloid pickguard. It took a bit of finagling around to get it all off, as I had to loosen or remove several screws. I hope I got the pickups back where they're supposed to be, height-wise. Guess I'll find out when I start playing.

While I had it apart, I put on some chrome knobs I had laying around. I'm not impressed with the stock plastic Fender-styled ones that were on it. Who needs numbers anyway? As I was looking at the circuitry on the back I noticed this capacitor between the volume and tone pots:



For those of you who aren't electricians, the capacitor is the green, chiclet looking component in the middle of the picture. You can also see the heavier wire soldered to the bottom of the volume pot on the right. That's the circuit ground, which ties all the components on the pickguard together. Notice that the cap leads are real long and almost touch the ground wire? Yikes! Shorting one leg of the cap to ground is a recipe for trouble. Granted, this circuit is going to live inside the guitar where it's unlikely to move around, but when I first looked at it, the cap leads were almost touching. Shipping and handling of the pickguard could easily do that.

I've read several posts on the Carvin BBS describing problems with the pots, either cutting out or being scratchy. I'm wondering if Carvin gets any returns where this is the problem. I'm not saying this is the cause, but it's not the best way to build things either. It would be easy to solve in assembly by using a piece of wire with insulation to solder the pot grounds together. I fixed mine with a small piece of black electrical tape between the leads.




Well, depending on how quickly the Deft dries and whether I get sidetracked, (I hear there's a football game on today!) I'm should be doing final assembly real soon.

Step 6 - Sperzel Tuning Keys Installed

As you can see, the neck is finished. It looked good this morning so I'm done with the tung oil. Three coats is all it took. I removed the masking tape and used some steel wool to clean up the tape line and smooth the back of the neck, bolted on the tuners and put the truss rod cover back on. I'm happy with the neck.




I'm not happy with the body though. The tung oil doesn't want to go on real smooth. The finish always has small bumps where it got on too thick and didn't penetrate well. I also don't like the color, it's too brownish orange and not even. Trying to fix the problems just makes things worse, as this sand-thru indicates.

You can see the color just isn't very even. I'm going to sand the whole thing back to bare wood and start over. It'll be the same white stain, but finished off with the clear lacquer this time. Both dry very quickly, so I still hope to be playing on Monday.

Oiling Continues, The End is Near

Tonight I rubbed down everything with 0000 steel wool and put on another coat of tung oil. It was real smooth after the steel wool treatment. This is the 3rd coat of tung oil and I think it will be the last coat on the neck, as it's looking pretty good. I'll see in the morning.


Here's the 4th body coat. It's looking better all the time. Watch the edges with the steel wool, I had a minor sand-thru. The 3rd coat needed smoothing and I got carried away near an edge. The body's taking on more of the oil's color, kind of a light orange-brown. You can still see the grain, which is what I wanted.



It shouldn't be too much longer now. Maybe one or two more body coats, a little drying time, and final assembly. I should be playing it Monday at the latest.

Headstock Lacquer Finished, Oiling Continues

No pictures tonight, as there's nothing really new to show. I figured six coats of clear on the headstock was enough, so I took off all the blue tape. It took just a little sanding to clean up the tape line. I wiped down the neck with denatured alcohol to remove any tape residue and started wiping on the tung oil. I'm being careful around the lacquer and it's still kind of fresh so I decided not to tape the top. If I got tung oil under the tape I wouldn't know until I finished, when it'd be too late to wipe it off anyway.

As for the body, Carvin recommends putting one coat of tung oil on the inside spaces of the body, so that's what I did this evening. It'll be hanging for the rest of the finishing.

More later when something else happens.

Step 5 - Headstock Lacquer & Body Tung Oil

Now that I've worked out the whole tung oil/lacquer question, I've put the custom label on the headstock. If you're wondering, the font is called Dymaxion Script. I was looking for a good 50's looking script font and found it over at www.dafont.com. It's a free ttf font, so if you like it, head over and pick it up.

The label material is laser printer polyester peel and stick from www.papilio.com, although I bought it off ebay. Much cheaper that way, someone's always selling a pack of it. I printed several different fonts and sizes to see which one I liked best and which one fit the headstock as well on plain paper first. Don't forget to put the truss rod cover in place while you're sizing it up.

Once the label's on, the first of several coats of Minwax clear semi-gloss lacquer goes on. Supposedly, enough layers will hide the label's edge. I'll keep at it until it does or I figure it's got enough coats. Once there's enough, and it's good and dry, I'll carefully mask the top and start tung oiling the sides of the headstock and back of the neck.

First tung oil coat on the body. I wiped it on with a paper towel, looking for a thin, even coat. According to the can, tung oil has to dry for 12 hours. It's going to be several coats before it's done, so I'm looking at a lengthy process. Not much sense posting pictures of paint drying, so I'll be back when there's something new to show.

Second Stain Coat & A Chemistry Lesson

Second stain coat is on, and I'm happy with the results. Just needs to dry overnight and I'll buff it out with 0000 steel wool to smooth the surface, then it's on to the tung oil.

Speaking of which, tung oil and lacquer do not mix! That's our chemistry lesson for the evening. Tung oil softens the lacquer, removing the nice smooth finish you've worked so hard to obtain. I suppose I could have read the directions on the tung oil can that said in big bold letters: Not recommended for use over existing finishes other than penetrating oils. But what fun would that be? At least now I know to mask the headstock or be very careful when I tung oil the neck. I'll be putting the label on and shooting clear lacquer over it first though.

No guitar work on Tuesday since it's Boy Scout night.

Step 4 - Sand and Stain!

The second round of sanding went a lot quicker, either because I put a thinner coat of grain filler on or because the wood didn't suck up as much filler. I dunno, but it seemed like I got to bare wood a lot quicker. It's smooth as a baby's derriere though.


One thing I noticed is that as I sanded the body I got an extremely fine sanding dust that went everywhere with the slightest breeze. Don't blow off the dust, especially if you're sanding indoors! I had to keep wiping off the worktable, as any little piles ended up crushed and stuck to the body whenever I set it on top of them. When I got done, all the little holes left by the CNC machine were full of the dust, so I (carefully) cleaned them out with a drill bit (fingers only!).

After that, a quick prayer and on to the first round of stain. The first little bit I used a brush, however it dried with some streaks, which I had to sand out. I also found a couple of small grain filler spots that I'd missed sanding. Then I had to fix the sand through spots. Finishing up the stain I used a paper towel to spread the stain, which gave me more control.

As for the headstock, after I shot it with the white, it occurred to me that tung oil might not be able to penetrate the lacquer, which would keep me from getting a close match to the body. I've read that you can, and I've been told you can't, do tung over lacquer, so I'm doing a test piece on some scrap I've got laying about. If it works, great. Worst case, I'll be putting my decal directly on the white and shooting some semi-gloss clear over the whole thing. Either way, the headstock will be pretty busy, and it's gonna be different anyway since it's maple. It's a detail I'm willing to live without.

Step 3 - Grain Raised, Filling is Next

Well, the body took three trips to the sink before the wild wood fibers were all gone. Swamp ash is an open grained wood, so that's to be expected. I noticed that the part of the grain where the fibers were thickest had what looked like fine, parallel scratches. I suspect this is the normal part of the grain that the filler will take care of.

The neck was basically done after the first grain raising, since it's maple. I decided I would go ahead and stain the headstock so I could get a jump on the staining and tung oiling, at least on the neck.

The bad news is the stain looked like crap. I think the problem was due to using a water based stain on the maple, it just didn't penetrate the wood. The good news is it wiped right off with denatured alcohol, even after it was dry. I decided to switch to a white lacquer, since the headstock grain isn't very apparent. I put three light coats on and got a nice smooth coverage. I'll tung oil it to match the body. Once I put the custom decal on I'm going to shoot a few thin coats of clear lacquer to protect it.

As for the body, I got the first coat of grain filler on last night. I'm using an oil-based filler I got from www.reranch.com. When I opened the can, I expected a paste-like wood filler, since that was the consistency of every wood filler I'd ever used and that was what the label said it was. What I got was, well, goop. I'm glad I was wearing rubber gloves to handle this stuff.

This filler goes on kind of like honey. You smear it on, rubbing it into the grain, let it set a few minutes, then scrape off the excess across the grain using a plastic scraper of some sort. I got a pack of three different sized plastic putty knives from Walmart, but you can use one of those fake credit cards you get in the mail. I let it set a little longer after scraping and rubbed it with a paper towel since I'm fresh out of the burlap called for in the directions. Try not to use too much, a little goes a long way. I stuck my finger in the goop and smeared it on until it was evenly spread out, putting a final wipe across the grain.


Once it's dry (overnight) you end up with a hard, chalky substance that's filled in all the little "scratches" I'd noticed earlier. Unfortunately, there's a bit of excess that must be sanded back smooth.


After sanding off the excess I'm back to bare wood, except for the filled spots. Sanding was a real pain in the arm & neck. You've got to remove that gray stuff and get back to bare wood, leaving only the filler in the deeper grain pits. Make sure you've got plenty of sandpaper on hand, I've gone through four sheets of 320 at this point. I used denatured alcohol to remove the dust as I went along, as I didn't want to wait for water to dry or face the possibility of the wood swelling up. It also helps to see where you haven't quite sanded enough.

I don't know if you can see it, but the grain between the growth line and the open field here on the lower horn still needs to be filled. I guess I didn't get it all filled last night after all. One more fill/sand cycle, and it should be time to start staining.

Step 2 - Sand & Raise the Grain (Again)

This morning the neck & body were dry, however they were no longer very smooth. The water did an excellent job of raising the grain. I've read that you shouldn't soak the wood, just wipe with a damp rag, but I actually rinsed the body in our deep sink and wiped it down with a damp rag. The grain around the edges took a little longer to dry, but I don't think there were any ill effects. I wouldn't dunk it in the bathtub, but I think a damp rag isn't going to put enough water on the surface to effectively swell the fibers. In case you were wondering whether it's even necessary, here's a picture of the effects of the first raising.
As you can see, I've no longer got a smooth foundation for the final finish. This is why you'd want to go through the trouble of sanding & grain raising. Imagine what would happen when that water-based Minwax white gets on it! The neck, being maple, wasn't nearly as rough, however its grain did raise up a bit. Shouldn't take as many passes to get it ready to stain though, and I shouldn't need to fill the neck's grain.

So, a little more sanding and another rinse to raise the grain. It should be dry and ready for another round this afternoon. Notice that I'm using a sanding block. It's easier on the hands and keeps you from sanding a trough where you want the wood to be flat.

While I was waiting for Carvin to build and ship the guitar, I was doing research and as much prep work as I could think of. One of the projects was screwing a couple of plant hangers to the ceiling of the garage to hang the neck & body from so they could dry. The neck is hanging from a piece of wire coat hanger put through the high E string tuner's hole. The body is screwed to a piece of 1"x2" scrap and hanging from the other plant hanger. Since the plant hangers spin as needed and the wood is the right length, I should be able to do my staining and oiling without having to worry about laying the body on my nice clean (right!) workbench.

I probably won't post until I'm onto the next steps, which will be filling the body's grain and first coat of stain on the headstock.

The Project Begins

I've been studying guitar for about a year and a half and I had gotten up to six different guitars. Two steel string acoustics (a Dean and a Cort), an Ibanez Artcore, a Dean Evo electric, a Martin Backpacker, and the one I started with, a $40 blue ebay special. It had been a while since my last purchase, so, about a month ago I was getting itchy for a new guitar. Those of you with GAS (Guitar Acquisition Syndrome) know the symptoms. You start cruisin' the local guitar shops, see what deals are on ebay, and try to come up with a good reason to add to your collection.

Well, being that my birthday was coming up, I came up with a reasonable (to me anyway) excuse. I spoke to my guitar teacher and he recommended a Carvin kit from www.carvin.com. So after looking at reviews around the net, I couldn't find anything particularly bad about Carvin's products and lots of good info. Even some sound clips and lots of pictures, both on the company website and at the Carvin museum www.carvinmuseum.com. Carvin also sponsors a BBS www.carvinbbs.com where the Carvinites hang out, swap info, and drool over each others gear. Check it out.

25 December I pulled the trigger. I decided on a Bolt kit, which is basically a Strat copy, although lots of folks say they're much better, at least than the Strats you can get now. I don't have a Strat, so I'm just going off what I've read. YMMV. Anyway, the options I got on the Bolt kit were as follows:

Swamp Ash body
AP11 neck and middle pickups (standard)
C22B humbucker bridge pickup (most folks apparently choose this option)
Sperzel locking tuners
Black perloid pickguard
Tweed case

You can also get a Bolt kit with a tremolo, if you're into that kind of thing. So today, the UPS man brought my very own Bolt kit. It was carefully packed and looked great. Here's the body. I'm going to finish it with Minwax white pickling stain and Tung oil.

And the neck. Nice ebony fretboard. I'm going to do the headstock in Minwax white pickling stain to match the body with Tung oil on the back. It's going to have a laser printed clear decal as well.

I'm not sure whether I'll go with the stock black perloid pickguard or figure out a way to move all the electronics over to this blue one I bought.


So, here's the first round of sanding and grain raising. Grain raising involves getting the wood damp so the fibers torn in the sanding & cutting process raise up. Once dry, you sand it smooth and repeat as necessary. I love the grain in this wood.


That's about it for tonight. Tomorrow, more sanding and grain raising, which will continue until everything's as smooth as possible.