Here's a Fun One--Spalted mango, bloodwood, and canarywood

[Ken C]

Thanks Ken, Tony, and David!

Tony, I have sold one and have another sitting in Elderly's music store for sale now. I was going to give that one away, but a buddy convinced me to take it to Elderly and see if they would take it on consignment. They loved it and were happy to, but tough for someone to drop that much money on a guitar from a builder no one knows about. I'll give it a few more months, and if it doesn't sell, I'll pick it up and give it to the person I was originally building it for. Gave a guitar to my Dad, and the rest are here at the house. I was originally building this one to sell, but I am not totally confident in this one holding together. I'd certainly guarantee my work, but the spalted wood spooks me a bit. I'll keep this one around for show and tell! In fact I am hustling it done to put it in an art show sponsored by my work. They wanted to show one of my guitars, and I'd like to debut this one there. I'm also working on a '72 Telecaster with a quilted maple top, but I put that one hold while I wrap this one up. The tele is for my nephew, who will soon be a starving college student, so he gets it at cost!

No doubt this is an expensive hobby! I haven't recouped too many costs yet. The one guitar I sold was above my cost, but I probably only earned $5/hr because the materials were so expensive! I presume my personal collection will continue to grow for some time!

Ken

[Kevin Sjostrand]

My, my, my Ken......oh my.

[David L]

My joy comes from building, not owning. I haven't completed a guitar yet, but as for my other woodworking projects (oh no! is that lutherie blasphemy? Are there actually woodworking projects other than guitars? That's OK because I'm not a luthier, so there!) I spend some much time on each project that by the time I'm done with it I'm sick of seeing it. Maybe I'll be singing a different song when I complete my first guitar. I've tried to figure out how much I could make on various projects after figuring costs for the highly figured woods, supplies, etc, and what I could actually sell them for and, well, let's just say five dollars an hour would be a step up for me so I just give them away. If I built a guitar as fine as yours Ken, I don't think I'd be giving it away!

David L

[Tony_in_NYC]

I read somewhere that a professional luthier was quoted as saying that after you factor in the time spent looking for wood, marketing, etc, etc, he only made about $5 an hour as well. And his guitars, if I remember correctly, were pretty pricey.
I dont think I will ever build these things for a living, but if I can make a little beer money, and I do mean a little, I would be happy. A hobby that pays for itself? Thats a pretty good deal in my book.
And again, that guitar is beautiful. I hope it holds together.

[hummingbird]

That's freaking awesome. Thanks for the inspiration Ken.

[darren]

Ken - this is looking so nice, thanks for sharing it with us. :)

[Ken C]

Time for the first leveling. My approach is to use 400G for the large flat areas and 600G if I am in areas where I could easily sand through. I always use a sanding block; however, at the heel and around the neck, I use a more flexible block. I also never hit the edges. I use plenty of light, so I can always see the reflection of the finish and determine when I have sanded enough. I sand across the grain and with the grain to make sure the surface is entirely level.

I don't just lightly scuff the surface, I want the surface dull everywhere. It generally takes me a full sheet for each of the top, back, and sides, so a total of three sheets of paper. I will typically find a few pores that need filled, but I usually wait to do those until after the next 6 coats as these may be filled by the lacquer. This is the last time I will use 400G. From here on out, I try not to use a grit more coarse than 600G.

Here are a couple pictures of the soundboard and neck prior to level sanding. Notice all the grain undulations in the top, and you can also see a few pores on the neck I missed filling during the pore fill stage:

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[Ken C]

Now some shots of the soundboard and neck after leveling. Notice how the only shiny spots on the top are around the mask for the bridge. I don't worry about this now and will level the bridge area once I do my final sanding prior to buffing. I'm trying something new on this one. I have two layers of thin masking tape for the bridge. I am hoping to peel back the top layer with all the finish, allowing me to level the area while still leaving a mask to keep my polishing compounds off the soundboard. We'll see how this works.

Hard to see in the pictures, but the few pores in the neck seen in the pic above are still shiney. I'll keep an eye on these and if the lacquer hasn't filled them after another 6 coats, I'll drop fill prior to shooting the final 4 coats. Prior to spraying the next coats, I swabbed the surface with a clean cotton cloth moistened with DNA and water. This helps pull the dust and the DNA/water helps the EM6000 burn into the coats I shot a couple of days ago. I wait until the surface is completely dry before spraying.

Ken

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And here is a shot of the body with a fresh coat of lacquer on the leveled finish. Sorry, but I was running out of light!

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[johnnparchem]

I am really looking forward to seeing your guitar completed, and I can not say enough about how good it looks.

[Ken C]

Thanks John. I am documenting the finishing process as we have had lots of questions on finishing and thought sharing my process may help a few folks. If the information ends up being useful, I may repost it to a separate thread.

Ken