Jackson Stars owners, inlay pictures?

[delt]

I caught a nasty cold before I even started the job. At least this is a nice distraction from it.

.... was also wondering if it was any coincidence...

oh, and....

I pulled my MOTO inlays last night, and that was an interesting task...lol!

i... uh sorry but i just MUST ask -- HOW... in the FUCK did you manage that?!?!!? Tried it on a ke3 neck a few years ago - didn't succeed ended up with a spare maple neck backing & a spare truss rod... & of course completely shredded lungs, which have recovered since them (hopefully)

[åron]

Quote:
I pulled my MOTO inlays last night, and that was an interesting task...lol!

i... uh sorry but i just MUST ask -- HOW... in the FUCK did you manage that?!?!!? Tried it on a ke3 neck a few years ago - didn't succeed ended up with a spare maple neck backing & a spare truss rod... & of course completely shredded lungs, which have recovered since them (hopefully)

Pretty sure he answered your query in the next sentence. Between that question and what you said after that, my jaw dropped. You need to work on your patience and attention to detail! :ROTF: We can't yet get replacement lungs on Ebay.

[delt]

<- wuz gonna hit da "edit" buttn & post da zame danks heh

(wuz just amäzd dat sümvon "pülld" it off (pün intändet))

[DrDoug]

Thats the ticket! The Jackson Gods smote me with a cold for my insolence. The damn thing may be turning ugly so I may have to hit the local doc later today. Up late and can't sleep, but that is the story of my life...lol

And yes, I am wearing a mask while cutting! I am also using a small fan to blow the dust away from me (and the work) while cutting and sanding.

Usually I am up late dealing with pain, but that is taking a back seat to this damn cold. About 10 years ago I caught a cold that turned into pneumonia, and I am thinking this one may be going the same way. I will skip the gross details.

I now see two stamps on the butt of the neck that read 'RR3' and '2003.03.10', so now I know when at least the neck was made. The guy I got the guitar from said it was a 2004 model. Early 2004 then...

The glue they use is a white substance that is very brittle. I found that a small wire end brush in the Dremel powders the stuff up fast and neat, and I am scraping the rest out around the edges with the back side of a pointed Exacto blade. I have cut and fit the first four inlays, and I am going to deepen the routs a bit to sink the inlays in a bit deeper. The old ones look to be about .040 inch thick, and the more I sink the new inlays the less I have to file off when finishing.

I am taking notes while doing this (for the later detailed post about it), but one thing that I found that made the removal neat and clean was that I used a new sharp Exacto blade to trace around the old inlays to break the bond between the inlay and wood before removing them. If you don't do this, you may take chunks of your board out with the inlay because of the glue coming up to the surface when they installed them at the factory. Still, I pulled one teeny tiny piece of board out (less than 1/16 x 1/16) on the edge of the 15th fret, but it fits right back in the spot and you can't tell, so I will epoxy it in place when I install the inlays.

The way this is looking so far (good!), I think I will plan a paint job for it in the spring. I am thinking black with white bevels, and toss just a tiny bit of House of Kolor ice pearl in the clear over the white bevels, and purple pearl into the overall clearcoat. Not enough to see outright, but enough to make you look twice to make sure you saw what you thought you did...lol

I am also looking at the logo on the neck and thinking 'Hmm, I wonder if I could trace that out and try to cut a MOP logo...?'. I know, one bridge at a time.

[straycat]

I see your point on the inlay removal technique I'll try that next time.

[DrDoug]

I had to really think that one over and over again before attempting to pull the inlays as I did not want to screw the neck up. While I was reading up on inlays online, I noticed that during installation they point out that they use enough glue to push up around the inlay as it is being inserted. I figured that the sides of the inlay would be glued tight too, so I decided to use the Exacto knife to break the bond at the surface of the board before attempting removal. That way I would minimize the possibility of splintering the fretboard.

The screw method of lifting the inlays seemed the best to try first. When that (and variations of it) didn't work, I sat back and scratched my head for a few. That is when I came up with softening the plastic inlay with the heat gun, figuring that with the plastic being soft and pliable, it would be easy to pry it up out of the rout. So I applied the heat until the inlay was very hot to the touch, then turned off the heat gun and used the Jewelers small tipped regular blade screwdriver, inserted into the hole I drilled, to break the top (low E side) of the inlay loose. I thought that prying on the bottom of the inlay would not work so good as it is thinner and would probably break or stretch out due to the heat.

It still took some careful application of strength to lift the top edge out, and I had to heat them once or twice more while prying around the top half of the hole before they lifted. Then I got out my handy Swiss Army knife and used it to pry the rest of the inlay out while applying heat intermittently while lifting. I kept the backside of the blade (which is a locking one, so I still have all of my fingers...lol) near the long straight side of the inlay while sliding it under and working it down while prying.

The thinner ones will leave the high E side of the inlay in as the glue is stronger than the heated plastic, so I used the heat gun and Exacto knife to remove the thinner sections. I kept all of the pieces of the ones that broke so that I could use the old inlays as templates for the new ones. That solved the problem of cutting the new inlays to the proper dimensions!

I have cut all of the inlays, but frets 3, 7 and 15 did not pass quality control, so I glued them to new pieces of MOP, then cut and shaped them to correct for the mistakes. They all fit perfectly in the slots now, so now it is on to deepening the slots just a bit to sink the new inlays in as much as possible prior to starting the filing process.

My files are typical shop files and are pretty well used, so I am getting a new set of files to work with. I want this to turnout as good as I can get it to. I must have the right touch for this as I have not broken a single cutting blade or MOP piece, even with the Dremel drum sanding process. I did not cut corners or try to save a few cents on this part. I cut each piece with a new blade, and I changed out the sanding drums as soon as they started losing their cutting edge. So I used a total of 13 blades and 5 sanding drums, which is pretty good (and still cheap). I also used high quality German made (Antilope Brand) #6 Jewelers blades, and my Jewelers saw is a Swiss made model, not some cheap piece of crap.

I have taken lots of pics so far, and I will post them in a thread specifically about the project when I am done. I will post updates here, and when I create the thread for the project, I will link to it from here to make searching it easier for forum users and visitors. I am no 'artist', but I am a mechanical/technical nutjob. Putting those skills to work on this has been fun as I like challenges like this. Kind of like when I was thinking about what engine I was going to put in our Mustang and people were telling me that a 351 Windsor would not fit in it. It fits, and damn nice.

Time to kick back for a few and see if I can get some rest. I held off on the doc as the cold seems to be mellowing out now, and the minor sinus infection is clearing up. Now I just have to hope the lungs do the same thing. If not, off to the doc it is. Good thing he is one of my clients as I get service at any time and usually for free (no copay on the insurance), and he loads me up with samples so I don't have to get a prescription filled.

[Special-K]

[DrDoug]

I knew I would get hit with that message sooner or later...lol! I have to Photoshop the pics to resize them as I have tons of them and those with less bandwidth would choke at the size. Then they would want to choke me. I should be able to start the thread for the inlay job on Monday as right now I am doing the drudge work of shaping the inlays prior to bonding them into the fretboard.

I had no luck with a good file assortment locally, thus the hazards of living in a little town in the middle of nowhere. That, and I decided to test sand one of the rejected inlays and found that with 60 grit sandpaper and some plexi sanding sticks I made that I could pre-shape the inlays before installing them. That will save me a lot of work in trying to avoid hitting the fretboard when sanding.

The guy I got the inlays from said they were .060 inch, but they are .0625 inch, and I have to knock them down to about .045 inch at the top and bottom to bring them level. You would not believe how many strokes of the 60 grit are necessary to knock off just .005 inch. I read about how fragile MOP is, but this is some pretty tough stuff to work with. I fit them so I can pop them out with the Exacto blade, so I can size them well before installing them. I hold one at the edge of a flat board and sand it down to where it almost level with the fretboard on the first pass using the 60 grit, and I will bring them level finish sanding them with the finer grits.

I had to finish one out just to see how it looks, so I did the first fret out to 600 grit and it kicks ass! The colors are very pronounced, and it is like night and day compared to the MOTO crap. I have up to 2000 grit on hand, so they ought to shine like jewels when done.

I still have not broken a single piece yet (knocking on my handy board near by), and you can lay into it damn hard while sanding as long as it is on a level surface. I am up to the 12th fret now, and cruising along.

The Theraflu, Vitamin C, Vistaril and chicken soup seem to be keeping the cold under control, and I hope it clears up in a day or two. It has been a long time since I had one this bad. I hope it is just as long until the next one. The winter crud sucks, and it ain't even winter yet!

Well, on to #12. Patience, the pics will be forthcoming!

[DrDoug]

Well, the inlays are installed and the epoxy is setting up! While I had the neck off I checked the frets out to see if they were level (they were), so I dressed the crowns and polished them up just to give it a clean, new look. I will be loading the pics onto my main computer and editing them tonight, and I have been working on the rough write-up as I have been doing this.

I still have to fill in tiny spaces at the bottom tips of the inlays with a mix of rosewood dust and epoxy, and I will do that tomorrow after the epoxy is fully cured. How does it look? Excellent! Beats the MOTO crap all to hell. I only had to take the inlays out to 1500 grit, and they look like that prism tape they used to sell in auto parts stores. White, pink and green with inflections of colors between these. No matter what direction you look at it from you see the colors across the various inlays, and it shifts as you move around it. Is it perfect? No, but the imperfections are so slight that I can live with it. I have no intention of ever selling this guitar, and it is more than good enough for me.

I learned a lot doing this, and if I were to do it again I would in a heartbeat. It has been a fun experience, and it cost less than $100.00 to do it. Since I have extra MOP on hand, I am trying to figure out what to do next...lol

I will get to work on writing up the process I used to do this, but I am not going to do a rush job of it. The better I lay it out now, the fewer questions someone may have if they decide to take the plunge. On the cold, I have to go see the doc tomorrow as the it has progressed into a minor lung infection. I have been pushing myself a bit on this project (who wouldn't!), but I better make sure I am healthy enough to enjoy it too...lol!

More to follow in a thread about the whole job, I am done with this one. Thanks for the pics guys!

[delt]

I am taking notes while doing this (for the later detailed post about it)

Can't wait to see it!! with pics

I am also looking at the logo on the neck and thinking 'Hmm, I wonder if I could trace that out and try to cut a MOP logo...?'

Seems like a lot of work, and you'd need really large MOP slabs. Besides i like the solid white logo with "shadow lines", but that's just me.

[DrDoug]

Well, I lied! This is not the last post in this thread for me...lol! How about a couple of pics of the finished product? My IP forwarding service seems to be running slow tonight, so it may take a few seconds to upload.

http://slackersforum.servebeer.com/pics/Doug/Jackson/NewInlays1.jpg

and a closer shot:

http://slackersforum.servebeer.com/pics/Doug/Jackson/NewInlays2.jpg

They look darn purty, and the recrown of the frets required a fresh intonation so it sounds as sweet as it looks.



I am almost ready to post the first installment of the adventure, just double checking it and resizing the pics. I was busy at the doc today, they took some tests and he gave me some of that god awful prescription cough syrup. He thinks it may be a lung infection too, but wants to confirm it before prescribing antibiotics. Still, I am taking it easy and not taking any more chances, I feel crappy enough already.

I shall return!

[DrDoug]

I am ready to post the info on this project in a separate thread, but since there are a lot of pictures that go along with it, I am wondering if I should put the links in to the pictures rather than have them show up in the post as images.

I ask this as our 56k brethren will probably choke on the pics if they open the thread. I have resized the images to 800x600 or smaller, and packed them up as tight as I could and still keep the quality high enough to see the details of what I was doing in them. The images/links are distributed throughout the information I have written, not all in one spot.

So what do you people think, should I post images or links to the images? I will wait until I get enough feedback to see who favors what. Thanks for your input!