Weekend of torture

Let me just start off by saying that my fingers are completely numb which is good because they are also raw from sandpaper rubbing on them all weekend.  I think I spent a total of about 11 hours this weekend sanding down the guitar, but finally I am pretty much done with all the sanding for now.  I used 150 grit sandpaper initially, and then went back over everything with the 240 grit, and finally 400 grit.  The surface is now really smooth to the touch and should really make the grain pop when I apply the Danish Oil finish.  I may hit it with 1000 grit before I apply the oil but I haven't decided yet.  It was a grueling weekend, but I'm really happy with the result.  I don't think I'll be taking on another project like this for a long time, but I know that every time I pick up the thing and play it, I'm going to really enjoy it.

Next up is finishing up the Rosewood inlay which hopefully I can do this week. Now the good stuff:

Finished with the 400 grit sanding

Started sanding the lower body

Finished sanding all the skin..still have hair to do

I will say, that when looking at the picture above where all the skin was finished and the hair had not been sanded yet, I kind of liked it with the hair unfinished.  I like the contrast between the smooth skin and the tool marks in the hair.  I ended up sanding down the entire thing, but I'm considering texturing the hair somehow so it stands out separate from the body.  Not sure what kind of texture or how I would make it, but I'm just thinking about it.

Working on the hair

Closeup so you can see how smooth it gets

Sanding...sanding...sanding

It's been a while since I posted but I've been working on the guitar a lot.  I try to work on it a few hours during the week, but most of the work is done on the weekends.  I've started the sanding process and I gotta say, it sucks.  It's just not a fun task and it takes an incredible amount of patience to do it properly.  I started off by purchasing a cheap orbital sander to remove the polyurethane coating from the uncarved areas of the body.  That was a great purchase and it saved me hours of tortuous work sanding down the coating.  Using the sander, I was able to pretty much remove all the poly-coat in about 1 1/2 hours.  Here's me with the orbital sander:

Once the poly-coat was removed, I started the process of manually sanding down the carved areas.  I don't have any pictures of this yet, but needless to say it is super slow going.  I want to make sure to remove as many tool marks and scratches as possible because those will show up big time when I apply the finish.  In fact, so far I've really only finished sanding the areas around the carving and the deep flat areas.  However, those are the hardest part.  The hair & body will be much easier to sand because they aren't flat.  The contoured shape will actually make it easier to sand down.  Here are some of the tools I'm using to do the manual sanding.  Basic stuff (sand paper - many grits, sanding pads, mini-files/rasps, fingernail files, steel wool, sanding sticks, and a few others):

I've also made many trips to Woodcraft and talked to a guy named Jerry that works there to get advice on how to finish the guitar.  He gave me a lot of good ideas and the final verdict is this:

• Sand it all completely smooth, up to 600 grit
• Brush on a shellac diluted 50% w/ denatured alcohol - this will seal up the pores in the wood and help prevent blotching when I apply the oil
• Apply two coats of the Watco Danish Oil with Medium Walnut dye.  The Danish Oil is basically a mix of boiled linseed oil, varnish (polyurethane), and mineral spirits (1/3 parts each).  This will give the wood a darker tint, a little more brown.  I don't like the yellowish look of the wood, so I wanted it to be a little more brown and this should help with that.  I'll sand between coats with 600 or 1000 grit sandpaper
• Apply Danish Oil Natural (Clear) as a final coat

I chose the Danish oil finish because it leaves the wood with a natural look instead of the film look that polyurethane leaves.  I tested this combination out on a scrap piece of wood and I think it looks great.  

Another thing that I've been working on is making an inlay for the back of the guitar.  I made a logo using the letter "D" for my initials.  I bought a piece of 1/8" thick Honduran Rosewood from Woodcraft that I'll make the inlay out of.  The rosewood (see pic below) is a dark wood so it will contrast with the guitar body nicely.  So here is where things didn't go so great.  I spent a bout 4 hours on Saturday working on the inlay, all for nothing...I ended up breaking it and ruining it.  So that sucked.  I didn't have the right tools for the job.  I tried cutting out the pieces using my Dremel and a 1/8" drywall bit, but it was just too hard to make the cuts and the bit was too big to get into some of the small areas.  So, alas, I'm going to cheat and hopefully use a CNC mill to cut the pieces.  I bought a 1/16" carbide end mill bit to do the cutting and I've modeled up the logo in SolidWorks, so it should be easy to get the perfect cut.  I was originally going to have the inlay made by a professional Luthier out of Abalone or Mother of Pearl, but I  decided on the rosewood inlay instead because I wanted to make it myself.  I'll post pics later on when I finally get the inlay pieces cut.

Beautiful piece of Honduran Rosewood for the inlay logo

Cutting the logo using a Dremel 1/8" drywall bit = not good

Self explanatory

Well, that's it for now.  I'm hoping to have the bulk of the sanding done this weekend, and then I'll start applying the shellac and Danish Oil.

I can see the finish line...unfortunately it's so far away

Well I haven't posted updates in a few weeks because I haven't been working on the guitar much at all.  I was out of town or busy the last few weekends and working a lot during the week days so I haven't felt like carving.  However, today I didn't have any commitments so I spent a long time working on the guitar.  By a long time, I mean like 6 hours straight...no breaks.  I was in the zone.  So here are some updated pics of the progress.  As far as I can tell, the main carving is now complete.  There will definitely be some touch-up work to be done, but I will do that along the way as I begin the sanding.  I know there are a couple of areas that don't look that great, but I'm getting to the point where I'm ready to be finished carving this thing and start playing it :)  I learned a lot about carving, and hopefully the next one will turn out even better.  But all-in-all, not to shabby for my first attempt.

There are two more things I want to do before I start sanding this bad boy.  First, I want to soften the border on the edge of the guitar with a radius so it is more comfortable to play and also so the edge won't chip.  Second, I want to increase the depth of some of the relieved flat areas on the carving.  I want to break up the low flat areas with curved surfaces so it flows a little better and has a more organic look.  I'm not looking forward to sanding this thing at all.  It's going to be a slow and messy process, and unfortunately since the guitar has the poly-coat on the uncarved areas, I'm going to have to sand the entire thing, not just the carved areas.

Ok now the good stuff:

Almost finished carving

Slow and Steady

I've been spending an hour here, an hour there working on the guitar...basically whenever I have a little bit of free time.  It's super slow going, and a little frustrating but now I think it is starting to take shape so that is kind encouraging.  I've made a few mistakes, but nothing major and I've been able to recover pretty well after a bad cut or slip of the gouge.  I'm getting more comfortable with the tools and I have a much better understanding of how the wood will react depending on which direction I make my cuts from.  Here are some updated pics:

From a few days ago...started shaping the lower body

This is from today (07/16/2011)

put on the pick guard & bridge just to see how it looks

Let the games begin

I spent a few hours yesterday starting the hard part of this project: carving the details of the body.  I'm taking it nice and slow, mostly with my #5 20mm gouge in small shallow cuts.  I figure if I'm screwing up, I'll be doing it slowly enough that I can see it and take measures to correct it.  It is definitely a slow process and I can now see that this is going to take several weeks to do it properly, especially if I can only spend a few hours a night on it.  Here are some pics of the small amount of progress so far.  You can see I'm starting with the leg in the foreground, slowly shaping it and rounding it off.  My plan is to start to angle the left side of the body back towards the background, and then I'll begin adding detail and depth to the individual features.  At least that's the plan...for now.  I also pulled out the Dremel and cut around the jack plate on the right side and then cleaned it up with the hand chisels.

Slow progress

Well it's been at least two weeks since I even touched the guitar.  I've been too busy on the weekends and just too tired during the week to work on it.  However, this weekend I got some free time so decided to work on removing the poly-coat finish over the area of the body that I'll be carving.  This was a pain to remove and took about 3 hours just to do the hair/body.  I used my gouges to basically shave the 1mm thick layer of poly-coat (or whatever finish is on this thing).  I could have sanded it, but I don't have a power sander and doing it by hand would have been terrible and messy.  Plus, I'm having to re-draw each section as I remove the top finish layer since that is where the outlines are.  Not fun.  But now that this chore is finished, I can finally start to do some actual carving.  Once I get finished carving the entire thing, I'll use a power sander to remove the poly-coat from the non-cosmetic surfaces such as underneath the pick guard and the back of the guitar.  I want to have raw wood exposed on all exterior surfaces before I begin applying my own finish, otherwise it will be uneven and maybe even discolored wherever the poly-coat is.

Here are some pics of the progress from today:

Removing the poly-coat by hand

Darker areas still have the poly-coat

A

1st Practice Carving

As promised, here are some pics of the practice carving I did.  It turned out OK in my opinion...not great but I think I have enough confidence to fix some of the mistakes on the real thing.  I didn't sand it or anything so it still has some rough edges and splinters.