Pickin’ and Grinnin’

[Ulu]

Meanwhile, I shaved every speck of black paint off that lovely maple and “ebonized” rosewood neck.



OK, there was a little worm-wood action. That’s why the factory painted real Brazilian rosewood.



I had to patch the binding.



Crazy Glue, black styrene and sanding…
Almost invisible!



All the frets were shaped and leveled on a sanding beam. Then they all got crowned, balled & polished by hand.

 

[Ulu]

The blank body:





Routing the openings.


I shaped all the body edges by eyeball on a belt sander. Then I ran it on the router table.



I made the tail from a new heavy duty stainless BBQ spatula. Eventually I polished this and domed all the screws.





This tail holds back nearly 200 lbs of string tension. It had to be pretty rigid.

The first test assembly.

 

[Ulu]

That last pic shows the original stain color. Watch what happens.

Lots of rubbing followed, plus stain and lots more rubbing, then black grain filler,
and shellac. (Lacquer is no longer an option in commiefornia.)










I was originally going to paint the edges, but I decided to celebrate the plywood.



The shellacking.



I made the control cover and pickup ring from smoked lucite.

Everything else came from the Synsonic, except the humbucker pickup, switch and volume pot. Also the Tune-o-matic clone “harmonica” bridge, from which I polished off the black chrome.

After lots of polish and fitting, The final assembly and tuning of the nut and bridge.





Audio samples to come…