No turning back!

[Budman68]

Re: No turning back!

Originally posted by jackson1:

And Dave, i have 6 guitars and counting and some of them is crying out for custom rings and stuff, so i might approach you Sir in the future, to see if you can help me out. We talked last year about this, but i fucked it up, because i was moving house (in panic), changed jobs 2-3 times and closed my email account and lost a lot of emails. I hate when people do that to me (no replys) so i hate myself for it. Sorry, bro!

/Henrik

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I appreciate the apology bro, but I figured with moving around like that, you had your hands completely full and I can definitely appreciate that, so no apology is needed. Take your time my friend, let me know when you're ready. [img]graemlins/toast.gif[/img]

[delt]

Re: No turning back!

awesome, killer job on the neck!!

and for the control cavity, i'd go with fiberglass. it gave me good results so far.

and about stripping the body before re-painting it, you pretty much have to do this, or the new paint won't adhere properly to whatever's left between it and the wood/primer. i learned this the hard way and now i have to re-do the paint job on my rhoads -AGAIN- .......
[img]graemlins/evilimages/icons/tongue.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/mad.gif[/img]

[jackson1]

Re: No turning back!

Decided to countersink the trem cavity so the backplate will flush the body - even though i NEVER used a router before. I was nervous as hell, checking every silly detail 10 times before switching on that router. One slip and the body design is toast. The router cuts like butter through that wood. But i thought to myself -Hey, you're on a roll, hit it!

The result has made me invincible - take a look below. DEAD STRAIGHT! WOO HOO! PHEW! I wonder when something will go wrong in this project [img]graemlins/scratchhead.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]













/Henrik

[sully]

Re: No turning back!

dude, you're a modding machine! looks great so far!!!!

sully

[Dreamland_Rebel]

Re: No turning back!

wow, impressive!

[jackson1]

Re: No turning back!

Originally posted by delt:
awesome, killer job on the neck!!

and for the control cavity, i'd go with fiberglass. it gave me good results so far.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Thanks delt. Fiberglass... in what projects did you use it? I mean, did you fill such a large hole as this cavity? No problems with cracks or material shifting due to temperature and humidity?

/Henrik

[jackson1]

Re: No turning back!

Rear routed my "Rhoads" today! Now i only need to close that front routed cavity with a wooden lid/top and level the surface - then it is ready for the paint shop! The "level the surface" step will be the most difficult so i don't want to think too much about that now, he he.

Here's some pictures from the work today:

A nice big rabbet (?) or edge for the wooden lid to rest on (to be glued later):




Ha ha! Routing out from the back:


THUD!


Routing it straight and nice:


Countersink from the back for a control cavity plate:


All ready to be closed with a wooden lid:


/Henrik

[Budman68]

Re: No turning back!

You are doing a fantastic job bro!! [img]graemlins/toast.gif[/img]

[jackson1]

Re: No turning back!

Thanks Dave! Would you happen to know who can make some cool plates for those custom routed cavities? [img]graemlins/images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

I really enjoy working with that router. My first time with this tool. Most of the above cuts are done without shape templates - i just made some pencil lines and often used a ruler of some sort to support the base of the router. I did extensive "test runs" with the cutter hovering above the surface to see if it was aligned properly. The result is as good as any pro guitar shop route i've seen, so it really is encouraging. Just imagine what you could do with proper templates! Doing body bindings (routed) both side & front on some guitar isn't far away now. A Dremel with the correct cutters and tools will make this possible. I took a really long time to do these routings, but it pays off in the end. That control cavity "reverse" job took me about 3-4 hours in all.

Maybe this subject ain't the most interesting (me, messing with a non-Jackson guitar), however, i enjoy documenting it and there might be a Rhoads guy out there, gettin' psyched up to do a similar conversion job because of this. Actually, i would love to see more self made crazy mods in this forum.

/Henrik

[zeegler]

Re: No turning back!

On the contrary. I think it is very interesting regardless of the brand of guitar. Besides, those Fernandes Vs are awesome.

[The Child Of Bodom]

Re: No turning back!

Hey man u are a god !!!

[hippietim]

Re: No turning back!

jackson1, great work. thanks for sharing your progress as you go - this is fun stuff.

[jackson1]

Re: No turning back!

I cut the top lid for the control cavity today and glued it in. I carved the lid out of a solid piece of hard rock maple, because the body is also maple. I used epoxy glue instead of normal white glue, because epoxy has almost no shrinkage during hardening and is more stable under load and extreme temperatures.
I sanded the lid so that its surface is just below the surface of the guitar. Reason is that i later want to pull some fibre glass filler across the lid surface and surroundings + use some elastic super filler to finish it off. I made a groove (or pit) surrounding the lid, so the fibre glass will be much stronger at that area. More on that later.

Thank God for sandpaper with abrasive backside!:


Snug fit, thank you belt sander:


Groove (ugly as hell) cut to help the fibre glass to get a good grip over a wider gap:


/Henrik

[GiantBaba]

Re: No turning back!

Really good work, man! I'm excited to see how this works out.

[finnman]

Re: No turning back!

Very nice work. Keep the pics coming.
Finn