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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Here I am getting ready to cut fret slots. I have marked the fret locations along the centerline, just to confirm that everything is right. Below that is my fret slotting guide. It is a 1" piece of aluminum, precisely drilled with a series of holes based on the standard mathematical formula for fret locations, which you can look up, or use one of the online calculators. I made a spreadsheet of it. The holes are numbered along the top, with the corresponding scale length below. The interesting ones are: (rounded-off)

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