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QC-themed guitars

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celticgeek:
I actually think that they are pretty cool.

AdrianVW:
Another pic-update: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=732665166926312&set=a.440701562789342.1073741827.100005485058666&type=3

This one is more of technical interest than artistic.  If anyone else is interested in building their own guitars, this demonstrates the trickiest (not actually difficult, but if you get it wrong you no longer have a guitar project) step in making a good one.  Guitar necks come in three major varieties.  1. Bolt-on, the cheapest and easiest to work with, and if you make a mistake, or need to fine-tune the angle of the neck for a perfect action, you can make changes.  2. Set-in (glued), where you get only one shot at it, but it's considered a mark of higher quality.  3. Neck-thru, where the neck and the central portion of the body, all the way to the strap peg, are the same piece of wood, normally seen only on the most expensive of guitars.

For my first kit, an SG, I picked the bolt-on as one of many details that acknowledged my own inexperience.  Bubbles deserves better, though, so here she is, with the checklist complete.
1. Make sure, in advance, that your clamps can extend wide enough to get around everything they need to, and deep enough to reach the center of the neck from the available angles.
2. Have a two-level rest ready, the relative levels depending on your guitar (this LP's body is thicker than an SG's, for example, so the neck curves up a larger distance from the bottom of the body, and its support needs a slightly higher elevation), WITH a gap for the clamps to extend into.
3. Have hot water and rags handy, one of those rags already wet to wipe off your finger after slathering the glue, the others there to clean up whatever squeezes out before it can permanently affect the wood.
4. Work out the sequence of events in your head before taking any step that cannot be taken back.
5. Make sure you're caffeinated, but save the cannabis for celebrating afterwards.

AdrianVW:
Bubbles, semi-final version as far as the finish is concerned, and the project is also officially on hiatus at this point.  We've got a place confirmed to move to, now, but I'll be ordering a hardshell case tomorrow to keep Bubbles safe until I can resume work in earnest.  None of the progress shots really did the plan justice, since tape had to hide the whole from view.  The upper middle will look... a little less bare, later on; the pickup mounting rings are painted the same shade/finish as the black lines and will act as a continuation there.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=733625696830259&set=a.440701562789342.1073741827.100005485058666&type=3

AdrianVW:
With Bubbles on hiatus for a bare minimum of three weeks, I can turn my mind (and maybe this thread) toward other ideas.  Those mentioned above still apply, but none of them have grabbed my interest hard enough to invest in yet.  Conversely, I have a hankering for the next style of kit I build, but no character or other theme to match it with.  Working with an HHH carved LP has been interesting, but the other thing to catch my eye was a flat-topped, very THIN LP kit.  Bubbles Lite, in the current project's terms.  Who, or what, in the QCverse would best match that style?

AdrianVW:
Looks like the Bubbles project is canceled again.  A bad stain-job on raw wood, I could correct.  Faint gaps in the lines of mask-and-spray patterns, I thought could correct, and my first step in doing so was yesterday.  This morning, though, I peeled off the tape and found out that brushed-on spraypaint was doing the same thing the water-based stain was, creeping under the masking tape and causing blotchy stains, but this time of black paint on top of pink, somewhat less correctable.  Anyone need some firewood?

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