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.