WIP: The Gypsy One - Veneer Disease

Artistic impression that is
nowt like it will really
look once it is dustless
and finished.

And so it is Day Two of The Gypsy One's morphingisation, and it is proving to be a rocky road.

The story so far was that I'd glued the veneer onto the front of the guitar and left it to dry overnight (forgetting that sub-zero temperatures, probably won't help.)

Anyway, this morning it is dry somehow, and feels nice and solid. The only slight ant-in-the-currant-bun is that it has raised and bubbled.

Hmmm... Not quite all that good.

Amazingly, I had foreseen such a scenario and knew what to do (hence skipping the woah-is-me/throw the guitar into the garden approach I may have taken.)

To fix the bubbles, I then reached for an iron (for the first time in, well, not sure how long - it may be ever) and some Bacofoil, and ironed the veneer.

Now, this probably sounds dizzy, but the heat from the iron melts the glue and the weight of it flattens the bubble, where it can re-stick all flat like. This took a fair while, but worked, and three more hours drying under a hundred-weight of salt, seems to have done the trick.

Once that was done, I've roughly trimmed the edges and chopped out the holes for the pickups and control plate.

I bolted on the bridge and pickguard so you can see how it looks, though the pickguard is going to be rusty.

So there we are.

Next I'm going to be sanding the edges so that the veneer and body are un-jutty-outy, when I put the iron paint around the edges. Between those two jobettas though, I'm going to give the rosewood a few coats of shiny varnish to see how it looks/protect it a wee bit.

As for the back of the guitar, I think I may have enough veneer left to do it, although I am tempted to go for an iron paint. I'll leave that decision until the top is done, methinks, just in case it all goes belly up.

On the pickup front, I've gone for a set of Jess Loureiro's handwound Broadcaster/Nocaster pickups. I had a P90 off the chap a while back and have been tempted to try these for a while, and there we are. I like the idea that they are period-correct and well, basically that is good enough for me.

So, all good stuff indeedy.

Crinkly Cut - Not a good look

I always tin foil my ironing

Flat and starting to be chopped