I had to move the heel back on the second guitar. The new position was traced, and the heel shifted back using files and rasps as before (and straightened up a bit - it was a little wonky to begin with...):
On both guitars I then milled out the holes for the tuning machines' bushings. This is the Stew Mac drill bit for this job:
Which yields the following:
The bushing will be pushed in later using a vice / press once the finish is on.
I did some final shaping of the necks and started sanding both the necks and bodies down to 240 grit in preparation for grain filling. Pictures don't really look very interesting, but here's a section of one of the bodies at 240 grit after a lot of elbow grease:
The bodies are both ash and will need their grain filling - I want a very smooth, flat finish in the paint. The maple necks will not. In the past I've used thixotropic grain filler, which is akin to painting with than sanding mud - somewhat unpleasant... This time I thought I'd use two part epoxy (Z poxy finishing resin, I originally saw this recommended by Jon Sullivan of Sully's guitars):
This looks like this when mixed:
And then this once spread over the guitar:
This actually looks like a pretty nice start for a finish on it's own for a bare wood body - it's got a bit of a vintage tint to it.
The body shown needs overnight to dry fully, then probably a second coat. Then I'll likely bring the other body up to the same point before posting again.
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