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I start with 80 grit. That will make quick work of saw marks, tooling marks and other scratches. The key it to remember to progress through the grits and don't move on until all of the scratches left by the last grit are gone or it will take FOREVER.

I also recommend leaving everything ROUGH until you get to a step that you need a smooth surface to go off of. You will undoubtedly get little nicks, scratches and chips during the building process. It's best to leave everything rough, do all your damage, and then finish it off one time instead of having to go back later and fix all this stuff in the final surface.

So the progression would be:

1) sand with 80 grit until all the tooling marks are gone. Use wood blocks/dowels and whatever else as a sanding block...don't hand sand anywhere unless you absolutely have to...you will regret it later when you try to level the finish. When you're done with the 80 grit, you should have a nice 80 grit scratch pattern over the entire guitar, and every tooling mark/deep scratch should be gone. At this point, treat the guitar like an egg. Don't put it down on anything except a towel (or I use anti-skid foam that I keep clean and free of any debris). Putting the guitar on tiny stray bit of wood chip or whatever can leave a dent or scratch and have you starting all over again. At this point, you're no longer woodworking...you're finishing and unless you want it to take forever, be very very careful and work clean.

For hand sanding, I go
2) 120 grit to get rid of the 80 grit marks
3) 180 to get rid of the 120 marks
4) 220 to get rid of the 180 marks
5) 320 to get rid of the 220 marks

For powered sanding, I find it works just as well to do 120 straight to 220.

And at that point, it's usually ready for finish. You can actually stop at 220 for purposes of laying down a finish, but I find that the slightly smoother surface of the 320 helps the initial coats a go on a bit smoother, making it easier for my to judge whatever color I'm applying, especially bursts.

Keep the paper clean and unclogged. Bits of stuff stuck in the sandpaper will leave deep scratches. Sanding goes very quickly if you take your time right in the beginning, pay attention to the details, don't damage it as you go along, and don't move on from that 80 grit until you're really truly satisfied that the surface is right. I swear, half the time I spent finishing on my first few guitars was fixing damage I introduced during the finishing process.

Look on ebay for some used seymour duncans. I have always liked the jeff beck for a bridge and the SH59 for the neck.

I have some caparison humbuckers and a single coil laying around somewhere as well. They came out of my Horus. IF I can find them I'll send em your way...

Hey guys,

So I'm getting ready to build the neck and I have a few concerns I want to clear up before I get started. First of all, are there alternatives to a fret saw that I can use to cut out the frets? I still have not calculated and measured the frets. My book talks about using the 12th root of two method. Does anyone else have a better way? Any valuable advice for neck and fretboard building?

They say the JB is literally one of the best humbuckers ever made, period.

I don't think you'll be disappointed with those 2 pickups.

Hi Eli,
Some progress photos would be nice to see.
Dan

3/8"

Eli, I wish I could tell you that I don't think you'll have a problem with your fix but...

I think you're gonna have problems with it. First wood putty like Elmer's is meant for smaller patch jobs. With large holes you will get shrinkage, cracking and adhesion problems unless you slowly built it up layer by layer. The problem is the outermost portion will dry before the inside, so as it slowly dries on the inside (if it ever does) it will lose mass and pull on the already dried outer part of the putty. I would expect it to fail before too long.

Second even though you could use a body filler like bondo, there's a great likelihood that you'll adversely affect the resonance and therefore the sustain of your guitar. Putting a disimilar material to wood so close to the bridge would likely have a dampening effect, though I don't know enough about tremolos to say how much.

My advice would be to cut out the middle section of the guitar and replace it with new wood. It sounds extreme but I really think that would be the best thing for strength, quality, and stability over time. I'm sure other guys will chime in...

Actually, I'm probably going to just scrap the whole thing and throw this guitar in the trash. I don't think I'll try to build another one either. You guys were right.