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Posted: Wed Mar 31, 2010 12:01 pm
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Ceri wrote:

(I've given up trying to photograph the red of this body. I'll make a supreme effort to learn from all the advice I've been given and take decent pics when the instrument is finished. For now, once again this is not remotely what the red and the grain seen through it actually look like. Those wondering what the heck I'm on about check about 150 pages back in this thread for my bizarre problems photographing the color red... :roll: ):
Image



It's amazing what you can do when you have insomnia...I just read all 76 pages of this thread in the last two nights. And no, it never made me tired! On the contrary, I almost didn't go to work because I was only on page 45 yesterday morning and wanted to know the conclusion!

The last image just looks stunning to me! With the neck and body together.

With all the other wonderful compliments you have received in this build Ceri, may I humbly add mine?

All the best,
T


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Posted: Wed Mar 31, 2010 2:15 pm
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tyronne wrote:
With all the other wonderful compliments you have received in this build Ceri, may I humbly add mine?


tyronne, you may! :D I am deeply and humbly honored. Thank you very much... :oops:

To Niki and Twelvebar, may I suggest this, from much earlier in the thread. I guess if we're going to do it we'd better do it right:
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To Kong: dunno mate - what this always said to me was; "a bit camp, and with a bad back..."
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...Anyroadup. Today you get one of my very own Trade Secrets. I'm sure I'm not the first by a country mile to think of doing dot markers this way - but still I've never seen it done by anyone else before. So for what it's worth...:

Here's our neck with the fret slots cut. Before cutting them you may have noticed I pencilled in a center line and now we can use that to establish the position of the dots. I've done that and carefully marked where they are to go with the point of a steel scribe. Nice deep holes to help guide the drill bit in a moment:
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I'm using a piloted drill bit (a brad point bit, some call that) for maximum accuracy positioning the hole. No second chances with this:
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If I remember right Fender use 6mm dots (whatever that is in inches) and that is the size of bit I'm using. The thing we need to be a bit nervous of here is the point of the bit going through and striking the trussrod. Still, I need the holes deeper than usual, for a reason that will shortly become clear:
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The 12th fret dots are 27mm apart, center to center, on my MIA and MIJ Strats, so I shall follow that spec too. That's about 1.06 inches - that was an odd number to choose, back in the day, wasn't it? Here's the drilling done. No mishaps:
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Turned out what I did next wasn't necessary - but I didn't know for sure at this stage so I did it anyway on the precautionary principle. I'll explain what I mean shortly. Anyway, I filled the holes made by the pilot point of the drill bit with regular wood filler:
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Then the side markers. My piloted bits don't go this small so it is just a regular one. Worked fine, though. Again, deeply punched guide holes help make the bit go exactly where we want. A fraction off would be very obvious to the eye with this. That's my steel scribe at the bottom of the pic:
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OK: what this has all been leading up to. I didn't want to do fancy binding or inlays on this neck because I thought that might be a bit too tarty on top of the faux binding on the body. But I wanted to do something to link the neck to the body in an individual kind of way, so I thought, howsabout wine red dot markers to match the lacquer?

Possibly there is a seller somewhere of different colored dot markers - but I haven't found 'em. Black, pearl, abalone or clay are the options I can source. So we must make our own (you'll be very surprised to hear... :lol: ). How I do this is with casting resin:
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Anybody who has ever made something from fibreglass knows this stuff. It is the bit of a surfboard, car body or whatever that isn't the glass fibre. The resin that holds it together and makes it rigid. This resin has many uses beyond fibreglass. For example, paperweights with things cast inside them are made from this polyester resin. And it is often used to make clear thick table tops, where people don't want to use glass. It may look like Perspex but it is more likely to be this stuff.

In that pic you also see the little bottle of catalyst, which makes the resin set, and a tub of polyester resin pigment. That claims to be opaque but I've not used this one before and wasn't sure that it would indeed be completely opaque when used as thinly as for dot markers. That is why I filled the drill point holes earlier, in case they showed through a slightly translucent dot marker in an ugly way. Turns out I didn't need to worry, as we shall see.

I can't give a full training course in using casting resin here, but information is easy to come by for anyone as wants to try it - there's many, many other uses to put this stuff to, after all. My particular supplier provides all kinds of booklets with all the instructions we might need, and I'm sure the same goes in other parts of the world too:
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So. We need to mix up two small batches of polyester resin, one for the front markers and one for the side. Here you see two small plastic mixing cups each with 10ml of resin measured into it (what's that in fl oz - 0.35? Metric is so often easier for these things...). The one on the right is as it comes out of the can. Looks slightly blue-ish, but it will set "water" clear. Important to use a pin to just tickle those odd bubbles out of it; those could spoil our work if we leave them in there:
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To the cup on the left I have already added the colorant. Up to about five percent by volume without interfering with the resin's curing: but in fact I needed much less to get a good strong color.

When we're ready to go we add the catalyst in exactly the right quantity to trigger the resin to cure. Too much and the result will be brittle; too little and it will never quite set properly, remaining sticky on the surface. That is easy with big quantities because the catalyst comes in a bottle with a drop dispenser which is nice and accurate. However, one discovers from bitter experience that tiny amounts of resin like this require proportionately larger amounts of catalyst to produce a set, because little heat is generated by such a small volume and that heat aids curing in bigger quantities. We have to compensate for that by adding more catalyst:
Image

My little bluffer's sheet there claims we should be adding five drops to 10ml of resin, but in fact I happen to know we need to make it more like seven or eight. These will be very small amounts indeed that we are casting.

Once the catalyst is in the resin has about 10 - 15 minutes "pot life", that is, working time before it begins to harden. Plenty.

The mixture is quite gloopy, so we simply spoon some up on the ubiquitous Starbucks coffee stirrer and drip it into our dot holes (a week in Sicily without a Starbucks or Costa in sight - how civilised!):
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The resin is liable to a small percentage of shrinkage during curing, so we allow for that by putting in enough that it stands well proud of the surface - like this:
Image

The resin doesn't bond with the polypropylene of the mixing cups so once set it just turns out like a weird desert:
Image

Once the front dots have started to set we can turn the neck on edge and do the side markers in the same way. Consider it done.

And that's it. I'd love to show you the finished dots immediately, but by this stage in this thread you will not be too amazed to learn that we have to leave them for 24 hours to cure properly.

Where's my cocktail shaker?

See y'all tomorrow - C


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Posted: Wed Mar 31, 2010 2:47 pm
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Nice Ceri!!!!
I haven't seen anyone do that quite that way before. I saw a friend use that kind of resin to make a surfboard once. i never played with it though.

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Posted: Wed Mar 31, 2010 2:50 pm
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:shock: Please don't let anyone mistake the resin from the cup for a jello shot 8) This neck is turning out great.


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Posted: Wed Mar 31, 2010 2:58 pm
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Holy fret fright Batman! Did you just make red wine marker dots...OMG...You really are 007 Ceri. This is incredible...no really...no...no...really...this is nutso at this point. This guitar is ...what the hell does a guy have to do in this life to get something like that...wow...you are blessed with a talent that has no bounds. As we are on the Fender boards all I can say is that I hope to own a Ceri Masterbuilt someday just like that. I'd name her after my Grandma and call her Olive and....and...and oh never mind....whoa Ceri that is something special you built.......and I don't even know if I can stand seeing the end of this thread. The end result of this guitar will have me searching for something that does not exist except in your mind.....Fantastic Ceri...simply fantastic....

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Posted: Wed Mar 31, 2010 3:04 pm
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The fret inlays......Genius!

This thread just keeps on getting better and better!

Andy

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Posted: Wed Mar 31, 2010 3:18 pm
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That is soooo AWESOME! Now i really want one of those necks :lol:
Great job Ceri!

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Posted: Wed Mar 31, 2010 3:24 pm
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Twelvebar wrote:
Nice Ceri!!!!
I haven't seen anyone do that quite that way before. I saw a friend use that kind of resin to make a surfboard once. i never played with it though.


+1 I have seen a lot of procedures for the first time all through this build Ceri. Amazing is not a descriptive enough word for your build!! 8) :wink:


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Posted: Wed Mar 31, 2010 5:32 pm
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Speechless. What a great touch, unbelievable...your boundless creativity continues to astound and amaze.

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Posted: Wed Mar 31, 2010 5:32 pm
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I like it Ceri :D

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Posted: Wed Mar 31, 2010 6:00 pm
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Better than VOLCANOS!!!! :)

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Posted: Wed Mar 31, 2010 6:37 pm
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Ceri, this is in a box, posted, and on it's way across the pond:
Image









I expect this:

Image
In 6 weeks.

Thanks in advance;
12Bar
:wink: :wink:

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Posted: Wed Mar 31, 2010 7:12 pm
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Twelvebar wrote:
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I want it! I want it! I die for flame......ship it to me! I will even pay the postage......... :lol: The pickguard is too cool. Love the Merie Haggerd Tele.....oh man!!!

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Posted: Wed Mar 31, 2010 7:45 pm
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Ceri,

Another set of great installments. I was gone for just 2 nights and pow...a missed Ceri post. I think it's turning out great.

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Posted: Wed Mar 31, 2010 9:01 pm
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Ceri,your innate talent for innovation just never ceases to amaze me. It's apparent that any problem that arises is surmountable even easy to overcome for you.

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