muttcrew spring build

Well I guess it's time to post our latest muttwork in progress...

A mini guitar - tenor uke scale length.

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Made from a damaged children's guitar that nevertheless had a huge sound and an irresistable "please fix me I deserve it" look. Findings on delivery to the clinic:

• originally painted all over in a horrid orange sunburst
• maple bridge painted black, ew
• plywood fretboard painted black with plastic dots glued on, really bad
• neck joint cracked and separated from the body
• frets, bridge and saddle all totally out of place and intonation consequently uncontrolable
• and so on...

Looking very closely at the back I could see some nice figure in the wood underneath the orange paint. So we took the finish off, leaving a little - especially on the lower back, the bottom, and the edges - to keep the vintage look. The good thing was that the wood on the back revealed itself to be a piece of maple with some very nice figure in it. Unfortunately the original paint job was evidently put on without the wood having been sealed first so the paint crept into the wood in places and despite tenacious scraping and sanding left some dirty splotches in places, especially on the top around the fretboard and near the lower edge. The top turned out to be a two-piece, with two pieces just thrown together somehow. Near the soundhole on the treble side there was a little ding in it that was filled with kit. So that had to get covered up somehow...

Here's what we've done so far:

• pulled the fretboard off and replaced it with a piece of santos rosewood
• added headstock veneer and "pickguard" made of tineo
• carved nut, bridge and saddle out of rosewood and ebony
• sealed body and neck with shellac and filled with shellac/pumice
• added shellec finish, starting with blond and then lemon (to darken the shade a little in some parts)

For the final finish we're planning to use spray lacquer to protect everything, but the weather needs to improve before we can do that...

Looks like a fun project, Erich!. You should have gotten some "before" pictures. You ought to take all of the finish off it, and then do your own sunburst. It's a good proving ground, to get your sunburst technique down!

Glad to see I'm not the only one struggling with pictures on UU these days. Still haven't completely figured out whatit is I'm supposed to do to simply get them to display in the post right from the get go.

Hey Matt! I would love to be able to put our own sunburst on. The problem is we don't have any equipment, just spray cans, and I haven't been able to find transparent colored lacquers in spray cans.

I just asked the crew whether we should consider refinishing but they all said they liked it except the neck needs to be darker and the edges on the top need a little more color. So I guess it's going to stay like this - at least until the next finish has to go on, maybe by that time we'll have developed some sunbursting skills.

Erich,
We can get tinted spry lacquer here, but I wouldn't know how to get it to you guys. Maybe there's a source in Germany. Here's a link... http://www.woodcraft.com/Family/2007235/BEHLEN-Jet-Spray.aspx

I figured you guys would be back to the balcony soon, so I googled your weather forecast. Sorry, bro.....looks like a few more weeks. Anyways..your 'ukutar is looking great!

Thanks for the link, Steve. The nice thing about the Behlen sprays is that they are meant to be used on wood, with colors that sound like you would want to use them (golden oak, dark walnut and such). What's available here in transparant sprays is all intended for car tuning and the colors are... red, orange, yellow, green, blue, black (end of list). We don't want our instruments to look like candied apples, do we