Last coat of the day. Some minors runs. Will scuff tomorrow morning and do last 3 coats, no scuffing and then let her cure for a week and then level sand. Did 3 more coats on the 22nd. Will let cure until next Monday to begin level sanding.

Added 4 more coats of color. Pretty happy with it, Not going to level sand it. Got into trouble last time, not really supposed to sand color coat unless there is debris caught up. Stains are different though. Going to spray a bunch of coats of matte Crystalac water based finish. And level sand that instead of the color. Some people wetsand the color but not going to risk it all. Overall going really smooth so far.

Trying to avoiding a lot of the pitfalls I’ve done in the past. Like oversanding the color coat or painting in the heat. Not scuff sanding clear coats or oversanding or sanding through the clear coats and causing massive headaches that I’ve completely resanded and refinished from scratch too many fucking times. Lessons learned but I have to be totally focused.

The Crystalac clear matte coat is self leveling. I will spray light coats with Earlmax spraygun. Another pitfall I made was spraying too much. Especially when spraying the sides. Always better to underspray and not get any runs. But runs are going to happen. I’ve learned that it’s better to leave the runs alone and let coat dry thoroughly before next coat and just scuff it more but not oversand. Gradually it will level out after a few coats, and final level sand should take of it. No point of level sanding after a few coats, you will oversand. Scuffing with scotchbrite lightly always the best in between every 2 coats. My #1 trouble spot are the horns the runs just seem to accumulate there when and gravity loves messing up my day. Gotta super pro active about it.

I am not going to thin out the mix this time. Avoiding huge runs is key. Never leaving spray gun settle on one spot. A full coat should take less than a minute to complete. And 2 hours between coats and scuff sand. Last 3 coats no scuff sanding and only 45 minutes between coats. When I initially spray I seem to overspray that top left corner. I learned to pre spray just above it and keep going. Also made mistake of double spraying same part and having it run. Just have to practice a few sprays first to make sure gun is spraying consistent.

Going to let this dry for about a day and a half and spray matte coat on Saturday morning to be safe. I’m confident I can get this done right the first time. Just got to keep improving. This is hardest part of guitar making. I think I’ve paid my dues and have luckily sold a lot of my practice paint guitars. A skill I’m still progressing, it would be a massive accomplish if I can finish this matte clear coat without any runs.

First coat applied. Color looks really accurate. A bit too hot to paint right now though gotta resume tomorrow morning. Only good to paint when temperature below 75 degrees when paint doesn’t dry to quick and blends better.

Abranet mirka pads a breeze level sanding tot 220. Key is using low speed and letting pads do the work. Also can use pads manually to sand the sides and bevel. No lines or swirly marks. Fastest I’ve ever level sanded. Anxious how new paint color should look.

Did 4 coats of Crystalac Water based sanding sealer. Will scuff sand tomorrow morning and do 4 more coats and let fully dry for a few days before level sanding and adding color coat.

Started using Mirka sanding sheets on orbital sander. Was super smooth finish, almost no swirl marks. Learning to let sander do all the work. Sanded top and sides with orbital sander. Sanded the bevel and horns by hand. Whenever I try sanding bevel with orbital I always get in trouble, have more control by hand.

Looks like fender used red for primer and uses 1 layer of white color as a leveling coat before final color added. Much level now. One thing Squier does right are the finishes. The color paint they use is super smooth and sands almost like sanding sealer. Wonder what they use for paint, only left a couple blemishes.

Will sand to 220 and add maybe 3-4 coats of sanding sealer then add color and spray clear coat. Bought a some water based acrylic that closely matches the color I’m going for. Unfortunately the paint I bought doesn’t sand as good as the Squier color, so I have to level sand the sealer coat as flat as I can. But I definitely think I can use the orbital sander with Mirka pads at a slower speed. The Mirka pads are so amazing, no stupid swirl marks. They are bit more expensive but worth it. Must be careful ripping the pads. Going over the top caught in the cavities tearing the edge that can cause swirl marks. The paint should arrive by Friday and should be ready to go with the sealer by then. I’ll cut the humbucker and control cavity after sealer or maybe before to avoid toolmarks.

Dismantled Squier Mustang. Realized poplar isn’t that great for staining because of the random blotchiness even when using conditioner. Not alder. Will revert to solid water based acrylic paint. Ordered some from Amazon.

Sanding with orbital sander does take a ton of time. Might use the scraper and heatgun method, since It’s going to be solid color paint I’m not worried about excess toolmarks from scraper. Not sure thought I think I can just scrap off top coat of poly and paint and then use sanding sealer and level sand then add color and clear coat. That should work.

New projects. Going to flip the Squier mustang I received as payment for my last project into a Cobain #1 mustang. Also going to make a pink Cobain Mustang he played on February 16, 1990.

This project should be fun. Some new challenges. I will create a Univox style pickup that matches the resonant frequency of the original early phase III pickups. I will use a mojotone winder and the data I gathered from my last project.

For both bodies I will stain a faded mocha and pink gloss. I will also cut the pink mustang body on my CNC. Should be a good test. The neck is from a project my dad was doing but unfinished. Pretty sure it was from a Squier guitar, neck pocket is super thin. Bought a hardtail from amazon and silver speed knob. Ordered pickup parts from Donlis.

Finished the control plate.
Slight countersink holes
Light Relic- matted down wetsanded with 600 grit
Kiwi shoepolish- lightly
Beveled left edge by hand, kept janky edge for authenticity
Added switchcraft jack and original Univox knobs

Added wood support for humbucker ring. Sanded down cavity a bit so titebond would adhere better. Cut out 1/4″ x 1″ x .95″ block of ash. Clamps didn’t fit right. Used a couple of pieces to add pressure on joint, will wait a day to continue. Pretty much almost done. Rewire her up, add plastic for bridge holes and add Soundgarden sticker. I scuffed the under pickguard to see how it would look, sent to customer and will just keep the body as is and let her age better. Control plate will try to relic it a little bit with brown shoe polish. A bit bright right now.

Control plate cutout. First one fucked up because rpm were a bit high at 24000 rpm, causing first toolpath to pull workpiece. The second version I used more double sided tape and added tabs and lowered rpms down, actually only on notch 3 `18000 rpm. That seems like the sweetspot for the carbide router, anything higher cause way too much jitter, even with an hdz mount.

Almost done with plate have to bevel edge, could have done this with a V bit but, the top and edges wouldn’t remain non beveled and didn’t want to do a tool change because I’d have to change to 1/4″ collet and maybe lose my datum.

I’ll bevel by hand around left edge with a file, did same thing on my first version but beveled around whole thing. And janky up the right edge more.

Cut black label pickguard. Thickness was slightly thinner .088″, Also I set the bottom z datum point and x,y zero points before pickguard mounted. Drew a center dot. Slightly more accurate. Measured stock thickness at center of vinyl instead of the edge, where it most thick.
Overall I like the black one way better. The gummed up bit did cause a halo ring around first switchcraft switch. Also not the roughs edges suit this vintage guitar better, gives it that homemade gritty feel like it was cut by hand. Looks more authentic.

Successfully cut out blue label version of pickguard. I used the same speeds and feeds as before. I did gum up the 102 endmill but I wanted to be safe instead of try something untested. Used doubleside tape and tiger clamps. Printed out template guide to angle the record correctly, Drew line on my wasteboard.

#102 .125 Carbide3d endmill

Success! Cuts came out pretty good. Was worried about a lot of things. The workholding being secure enough and also the datum points and straightness of body. Rotating the cuts by just .1 degrees has a major impact on the cut. Kind of like when using a shim, the smallest angle shim will have a massive change to the neck angle.

The cut come out really good, I was able to angle the cut similar to the way Kurt did. This would have been tedious with a chisel crossgrain. I did my version 1 Kurt mustang like this it took me a few hours and the results were not as smooth as this one. But the drawback being the programming and attention to detail took a longtime in illustrator. The programming and setup for something like this takes the longest time. But another positive is I can transfer the programming I did to my version 3 on the Squier Mustang with little revision. Pretty proud of the programming I did. Learning more about chipload, and the speeds and feeds I used for the Spektra were definitely thought out ahead of time. Before, I would set to auto speeds and some cuts were super dusty, which not the way you want to work because it will wear out the endmills way quicker and for health reasons.

My downcut endmill only had a .75 max depth of cut. Was going to be too shallow to fit the toggle switch. Had to use the Spektra 46577-k so that it would cut that deep. Wasn’t sure if the top cut was going to be clean, not that it mattered since it will be covered by new control plate. I also ran a super low rpm and adjusted for chipload. The bit handled it perfectly, no burning at all and the top had no chips. Man those Spektra endmills bit are fire. I did this to compensate for the rigidity issues I may encounter with the workholding not being screwed down. I felt my makeshift workholding wasn’t the strongest but the lower feedrate really made the cut smooth, secure and less janky.

I think I used this chipload calculator. Didn’t use the recommended super high spektra feedrates but compensated by lowering the rpm.
http://www.manufacturinget.org/home/calculator-chip-load/

The pickup pocket was cut with a
#251 Downcut .25″ Carbide3d endmill



The control cavity was cut with a 46577-k upcut .25″ bit with a max depth of cut of 1.5″,
46577-k upcut .25″ Amana Spektra endmill

Modified the control plate cut , enlarging slightly and rounding off corners radius to .26 for my quarter inch downcut bit. Going to run 2 toolpaths instead of one so that datum is more accurate. The image isn’t straight on.

Export settings in Illustrator to Carbide3d. Set datum points as the screw locations and Made work area square so that center datum is precisely on screw hole in the center. Adding squares to corners, kind of ensures that Carbide Create will not distort the toolpath and make scaled cuts. Want to be as precise as possible.

Removed grounding plates/ bridge on mustang for machining. Lining up guitar body by using a straight edge perpendicular from cnc rail and either a straight fret or bridge line. Tried to be as perpendicular as possible. Used to clamps on bottom and a piece of wood flush with top of neck pocket. Used tiger clamps to secure. Seemed pretty secure. Hoping the rockler clamps will not move during cut.

Ran some test cuts for humbucker mount using some cheap pine. Used Will’s default feeds and speeds. Programmed to cut .625, actually cut to .629, off by only 4 thousandth. There is enough wiggle room. Should be good to go, I rounded off corners to slighty about .25 radius in Illustrator so it would cut fine. Will also bust out the downcut bit for a cleaner top. Special occassion. Workholding shouldn’t be too bad. I can clamp the bottom corners and use some wood to clamp by neck.

These results looks way cleaner than chiseling by hand. Also need to add some wood to top corner of humbucker for screw to go into. Humbucker only secured with 2 screws, it call tilt up from back.

My new Dust boot and dust collection works flawlessly.

Created custom humbucker ring with bottom of frame cut off with bandsaw. Drilled two holes for Univox baseplate screws. Added countersink using larger drill bit manually pressing into ring, trick I used when handmaking pickguards. Angled the 2 baseplate screws with Bass side lower a bit to match Cobain’s placement. Added green cutout for chiseling humbucker pocket. Will also need to add a small block of wood to humbucker cavity to support the top left humbucker screw. May adjust size of pocket. Looks like Cobain overcut the top part in the museum picture.

Took another picture with the guitar strings attached for better placement. Doing all this to be accurate and then when I assemble it’ll be off, lol. Measure, measure, measure, measure, cut…. should of measured once more… lmao. God hates me, doesn’t he?

Pickup location horizontally more towards bass strings but vertically affects tone more. The treble look way off, but not as huge a deal as how close it is to bridge. Looks like he cut backside of humbucker right to and slightly tilted at an angle. Will ask customer his preference. It looks good how it is imo, but will see what their preference is.

Looks like Cobain moved the Univox toggle switch location very close to the volume knob, and he also cut into control cavity to fit. Superimposed Cobain Mustang from the museum and 75 mustang. Need a straighter angle shot of 75 mustang for precision, will try my lx10 camera since my scanner is too small.