Doing Things Wrong

Red-on-Red Burst

I smoothed down the brushed poly on this body and was dissatisfied with the result. The shape, with binding and German carve, is rather complex to sand, and the brushed-on finish required an excessive amount of sanding. The foam brush made no difference. Another bad idea from talk_ass, which is an endless spring of bad ideas. I will never again try to brush on a finish - there is no reason, I have excellent spray facilities.

So I made a mix of equal parts stain and poly, masked off the binding, and shot the sides opaque red, feathering into the center, where the grain is still visible. When this is dry, I'll do the same around the front.


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I took this 'Bird down from it's usual place up on the wall to take some measurements, and I noticed that it had grown fangs along the ( otherwise excellent Mighty-Mite ) neck that were not there before. Sharp fret ends is something I see people piss and moan about all the time. It is going to happen. It's not that the frets weren't dressed properly at the factory, the problem is that most guitars are made in warm humid places like China, Mexico, Indonesia, and Tennessee in the summer. Wood swells with moisture. When they are brought to the USA and placed in a dry heated winter house, the wood dries and shrinks a tiny bit, and the fret ends protrude. Everything about fretwork is a matter of thousandths of an inch, even the tiniest discrepancies are obvious. So this is not a defect, it is something that is simply going to happen, and it is easy to fix.