Telecaster build - in the buff

Been doing a bit of polishing and wet and drying the past few days. It's not complete yet, but I took the front of the tele body up to the polishing compunds to see what it would look like.

It's going to look pretty good:



There were still scratches in it (you can see them in the picture, particularly obvious around the binding at the bottom edge of the guitar), so I've since gone back to 1200 grit to try to get rid of them, however, very much looking forward to seeing the whole thing buffed up!

Telecaster builds - clearcoats, decals, polishing

I've been spraying clear coats on and off for the past couple of weeks. Basically, lots of this:

I'm at the point now where both the strat and the black telecaster body are more or less ready to polish. 

The body is sanded down using 800 grit paper. You could probably start with 600, or even 400 but I'm extremely worried about sanding through the clear coat, so prefer to go slowly:

Over time, the orange peel on the body starts to flatten out, from this (on the back):

To this:

To this:

The shiny spots are the low points of the orange peel - you gently sand until all the paint is down to this level, and consistently 'dull'. 

The picture above is almost there, still a few areas to go. I was particularly cautious around the bridge holes in the body - and moisture in holes will be absorbed by the (bare) wood, which could swell and crack the finish.

I also did the sides (again, not fully complete here): 

Finally, I put my decals on the headstock. The faces of the headstocks were flattened out with 800 grit paper, and the waterslide decals cut out and positioned: 

The decals need a few seconds in warm water to detach from the backing paper, and can then be positioned onto the headstock using a paintbrush and more water to let them move around: 

The two are positioned:

These necks will then have another load of clear coats over the top to 'blend' the edge of the decal in, rendering it invisible. 

There's still a lot of sanding and polishing to go, which is a pretty boring job. I have a personal tolerance of about 20 minutes at a time ;], so I'll tackle the bodies over the coming weeks.