I've got to say, this build has been eye-opening. I remember thinking "Deadline of May 4th, I wonder how many I can finish in THAT time frame?"
Ha ha.
Thankfully, I'm in the home stretch and I think I'll make it under the deadline, especially as I have a rare afternoon to myself (I hope) to spend in the basement. Over the past two weeks I've been able to...
...start finishing work on the neck. Hitting it here with some sanding sealer...
...before moving on to the laquer. The body has been sanded and prepped for color, hopefully (fingers crossed) a butterscotchy-blonde.
After sanding sealer, I put down a very light coat of an off-white, then moved to a caramel-like color. After a few coats, not too shabby for my first time. A good learning experience, anyway!
There's still some grain showing through and the joints on the three-piece body showed up a little more than I had hoped, but overall it's got a relic'd look I kinda like. Accidental relic-ing, I suppose. Since I jumped into this kinda impulsively, I vowed to use stuff I had lined up for other builds, but I tripped myself up in a couple ways. For example, my neck taper is not very steep at all (1 3/4" at the nut to 2" at the heel), which means the string spacing on the bridge I have simply won't work...the E strings are hanging off the fretboard about 1/16th of an inch. I'm also using a standard strat-style pickup at the bridge, but made a space for a tele-style pickup. I'll be troubleshooting all of this this afternoon, I hope. My plan to fabricate metal parts actually would have worked well if it weren't for me not having any tools to really effectively do it. To make it by the deadline, that means I have to rethink a control plate and neck plate. A pickguard could help if it's custom done...let's see.
Lightly trace the body on some cardboard...
Use my template on top to line up control cavities...
Now use my pickguard template to roughly line up the neck cavity, lower horn and control cavity. Cut it out for a rough fit...
Now, a prospective mock-up of what could be, Lord willin' and the Creek don't rise...
Plenty left to do...I'll be jamming it out listening to the Pirates take on the Braves, I guess. Win, lose, or draw, even if I don't finish by the deadline, this has been a blast. I don't know if full-size electrics are in my long-term future (I'm pulling 60+ hours a week at work) but it may mean a return to cigar box guitars if nothing else. I've definitely been bitten by the bug.