Hi Phil,
sorry it took me a while to give an update… I decided to let the lacquer cure while we were on holiday and do the buffing and final assembly later.
Here are some pics… of the end result… I call the look ‘light ginger burst’… quite please for my first attempt at an LP…
To get to this, I first lightly washed the maple cap with potassium permanganate to emphasise the flame and give the maple a slightly ‘sun-light aged’ base colour, then sanded. I then dyed the entire top with water based light amber coloured dye. I then applied 2 thin coats of shellac and sanded again before spraying gloss nitro over the top, with a little more amber tinted nitro towards the edges. The back and sides are dyed in a mix of cherry red and black (to darken it) water based dyes. The back of the body is grain filled using transparent filler that I tinted with the cherry red /black mix, followed by 2 thin coats of shellac as barrier and sanding. The back and sides of the body and back of the neck were then finished in satin nitro…. Buffing and polishing of face of headstock and top done entirely by hand just using wet & dry of increasing grits as well as 3M micromesh, before using Meguiars automotive compound and ScratchX to mirror finish.
The pickups are the ‘Super-Dry’ humbuckers by Mark Foley of Fatboy Guitars UK (Replicas of Maxon/Greco DryZ humbuckers of the 1970s). The wiring harness has all the usual bits, including CTS Switchcraft, as well as bumblebee caps.
All metal hardware is nickel. The tuners are Grovers, the bridge, studs and tailpiece are Faber. All plastics are Gibson OEM.
I see you now do a hollow arch top 335-style body as well??? Might be a project for the winter/spring if I can get a good price on it. Always wanted a cherry red 335…
All the best,
Lutz
