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Location: Pueblo West, CO | You got it!
Progress continues... |
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Location: sitting at my computer | amosmoses -
"stick it down so it's even with the existing label" Good choice jay! I think being a little off-kilter is very befitting to the BFLG vibe.   |
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Location: Birmingham, AL | This is turning out vewy nice...... can't wait to see the completed guitar! |
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Location: Frozen Tundra of Minnesota | I just Love pouring over every detail Dan, this is all So Fascinating!!!
Thank you So Much for sharing!
Love the Remade Label too! Very Classy!  |
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Location: Pueblo West, CO | Thanks, Paul & Nancy.
I'm ready to glue the top down, but I've decided to apply a sealer coat to the top before I actually glue it into place.
So, right now, I'm running a few tests. I'm going to apply a polyurethane finish instead of the lacquer I used on my 1619, mainly because it won't take as many coats.
I tried Varathane. (nyet!) Too soft.
Now, I'm testing Min-wax. I tried the water-based and the solvent based. As I suspected, the water-based causes the wood to swell on the finish-side, which introduces a bow into the wood due to the swelling of the wood fibers as it absorbs the water. This effect is not unknown to me, and was totally expected as I used to take advantage of this when sheeting the fuselages on my model airplanes.
The solvent-based does not do this, so I'm leaning toward using this. I can explain more when my tests are done and the top is glued into place.
Edited by DanSavage 2015-08-25 9:52 PM
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Location: Pueblo West, CO | I still haven't glued the top down.
But, the sanding sealer coat on the top is done. Here's what it looked like before I wet-sanded it. Purty.
I'm going to finish the neck and prime the bowl before gluing the top down. I thought about trying to spray the clear coat on the top and neck at the same time and decided it would be easier to break the finishing into individual steps.
Here's what the back of the neck looked like after one of the clear coats. Purty.
I'm nearing the end of the sanding sealer coat on the neck and head stock. Once that's done I'll apply the logos, then shoot a final coat to seal them in. After that I'll shoot the bowl with a two-part flat black epoxy primer.
I decided to go with a two-part polyurethane finish from Eastwood. The neck and top will get shot with clear and the bowl with gloss black. I'm using poly-u because it's an extremely durable finish and I'll be able to keep it very thin and a thin finish means good sound.
Getting back to the water-based sealer comments. Even though water-based is easier to work with, I decided to go with the solvent-based for two reasons.
When wood gets wet it swells. When you wet one side of a piece of wood, it will swell on that side causing the wood to warp into a curve. While this is good when you're gluing a piece of sheeting to the side of of a curved surface like a model airplane fuselage, this is bad when you're trying to keep a guitar top flat. The main problem is that unless all the edges of the sheet are supported, the wood will warp unevenly and when it dries it can resemble a potato(e) chip.
The braces are glued with hide glue, which is water-based. If you want to separate a HG joint, you simply apply water and the glue will soften allowing the joint to be pulled apart. The last thing I wanted with a water-based finish was for the water in the finish to soak through the wood and soften the bracing glue joints.
Edited by DanSavage 2015-09-03 11:46 AM
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Location: Texas | Tremendous work Dan! Thank you. I wonder how many shiny's were built with the two piece neck (or is it one piece)? I think I have only seen one other, that Mike may have had. Is the bowl going to be neon green, instead of black? My son will really like that!
Edited by jay 2015-09-03 12:11 PM
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Location: Pueblo West, CO | You're welcome, Jay.
It's a two-piece neck.
Sorry to disappoint your son, but the bowl will be black. (I've already ordered the paint)
But, if he wants a neon green bowl, or any other wild-looking color, you can always spray it with Plasti Dip. (http://dipheadsunite.com/our-colors/) |
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Location: Birmingham, AL | Since you're going to make the bowl shiny why did you take the finish off in the first place?
The torrefied top is awesome.....looks like a 50 year old piece of wood....this is gonna be one helluvagood axe! Soundclips are required!!!!!
Edited by clrules 2015-09-06 2:58 PM
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Location: Texas | I think I can answer this...The bowl had 50 years of use on it. It was pretty scratched up ... I scored a RI shiny, but the bowl had been terribly abused. Aside from the excess belt buckle scratches...grooves...it had a 3x4 place on it that appeared to have been burned or melted. The top was in pretty good condition...so I called up Kim and asked how much a bowl would cost. He wanted to see it first, so I sent it in. Didn't need a thing other than the fine craftsmen at the MS to bring her back to NEW condition. I was amazed. I thought that bowl was history. Pretty amazing place...the factory... Anyway...here are some of Dans pics...as you can see... it had seen some use. Hopefully Dan will share with us what he did with the bowl, and what it takes to get that black shiny result.
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Location: Pueblo West, CO | clrules - 2015-09-06 12:50 PM Since you're going to make the bowl shiny why did you take the finish off in the first place?
The torrefied top is awesome.....looks like a 50 year old piece of wood....this is gonna be one helluvagood axe! Soundclips are required!!!!!
Two reasons.
The first, as Jay says, was that there were quite a few scratches. Now, it's true that I could have used glazing putty to fill the scratches and simply scuff up the bowl, then primed and painted.
But, the second reason to take it back was to keep the finish from getting too thick and deadening the resonance of the bowl. When it comes to Ovation bowls, thinner is always better.
There were basically, four generations of bowls.
1st Gen: Hand-laid woven fiberglass cloth over a male mold. These were vacuum-bagged and scraped to remove as much resin as possible, making the bowl as thin as possible.
2nd Gen: Hand-laid woven fiberglass cloth inside a female mold. These were simple room-temperature lay-ups.
3rd Gen: Polyester resin/roving fiberglass pre-preg (SMC) bowls molded over hot metal molds.
4th Gen: Polyester resin/roving fiberglass pre-preg containing 35% glass spheres (phenolic micro-balloons)
Technically, there's a fifth generations bowls, which are hand-laid fiberglass cloth inside a female mold which is both vacuum-bagged and cured in an autoclave.
The advantages and disadvantages to the various generation bowls are:
1st: Pluses: Thin, light, strong, flexible. (read: resonant) Minuses: Time-consuming to produce, not resistant to high temperatures.
2nd: Pluses: Fairly thin, strong, fairly flexible. Minuses: Somewhat time-consuming, but lay up can be done without the complicated vacuum-bagging step, not resistant to high temperatures.
3rd: Pluses: Fast to produce, (minutes vs. hours) resistant to high temps. Minuses: Fairly thick, fairly heavy, not very-flexible.
4th: Pluses: Fast to produce, (minutes vs. hours) resistant to high temps, lighter and more resonant than 3rd gen bowls.
The 5th gen bowls are a return to the 1st gen technology, but removes some of the time-consuming labor steps. The vacuum-bagging inside the female mold helps squeeze out the excess resin and the high temp of the autoclave cures the resin faster and makes the bowls more resistant to high temperatures.
Here's a pic of a guitar body inside a female mold being vacuum bagged.
Here's a couple of pics of a 5th gen Ovation bowl that I got with my 1619 CL. It's definitely made using the above technique. The 1st gen bowls which have wrinkles on the inside, but the weave of the cloth is not visible. The 2nd gen bowls are wrinkle-free, but the weave of the cloth on the inside is clearly visible.
This bowl is smooth and wrinkle free and is very thin. One day I'll use it to make my own bowl mold. 
And, it's larger than the 1st gen bowls. Here's a pic of the 1st gen bowl inside the 5th gen bowl. 
Edited by DanSavage 2015-09-06 6:59 PM
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Location: Pueblo West, CO | amosmoses - 2015-09-06 1:13 PM
Hopefully Dan will share with us what he did with the bowl, and what it takes to get that black shiny result
Well, the plan is to use Eastwood 2K Aero-Spray catalyzed (2-part) polyurethane gloss black over 2K Aero-Spray flat black epoxy primer.
I chose the two-part paint because it's harder and more durable than simple one-part paint.
I'll be using the Eastwood 2K Aero-Spray polyurethane gloss clear on the neck and head stock. The neck and head stock are pore-filled and have a seal coat on them. Ditto for the top.
I'm going to shoot a one-part clear over the sealer, put the logos on the head stock, do a light wet-sand to level the finish on the neck and then the neck will be ready to shoot the 2K clear.
I decided to get the neck and head stock done first because I'll need a handle when doing the top and bowl.
Next step after the neck is to prime the bowl.
Then, the top will get glued into place and the purfling and binding channels routed and glued down and scraped level.
After that, the top will get shot with the 2K clear.
Last, the bowl will get shot with the 2K gloss black.
Once all of this is done, I'll wet-sand the whole guitar.
The last job is to glue the bridge into place.
Unlike the dope I used on my 1619, the 2K poly dries hard in 24 hours, so I won't have to wait 3 weeks between the last coat of clear and the start of wet sanding, which speeds up the process tremendously.
Another reason I chose the 2K is that the poly can be applied in very thin coats, which will help keep from deadening the resonance of the guitar.
Edited by DanSavage 2015-09-06 7:22 PM
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Location: SoCal | I am really looking forward to playing this guitar when it's finished..... |
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Location: Pueblo West, CO | You and me both, brother.
I just hope neither of us is disappointed.
Working on applying the logos to the head stock.
Edited by DanSavage 2015-09-07 11:36 AM
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Location: Pueblo West, CO | The neck has been fully wet-sanded and the logos are on the head stock. Not as perfect as I would have liked. With small details like these logos, the rub-down decals are pretty delicate.
Here's the rub-downs as applied over the wet-sanded head stock.
And, with the gloss seal coat applied. 
This shot really shows the beautiful grain of the Brazilian rosewood head stock veneer. 
Once the seal coat has fully hardened I'll wet sand the head stock to level the finish in preparation for the final clear coat. |
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Location: Texas | Heck, looks perfect to me. Just like the 68. The grain certainly shows up better (which is sweet), it seems, than what it originally looked like and the 68. Of course the logos had pretty much faded out. The crown is certainly unique without the skunk stripe. Getting closer! Fantastic job...
Edited by jay 2015-09-07 8:08 PM
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Location: Pueblo West, CO | Yep. The old headstock logos were pretty much faded out. Here's where we started: 
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Location: Birmingham, AL | The logos look great and the Braz is definitely very attractive.
On the 68 Deluxe I discovered the headstock veneer is walnut instead of rosewood.. It was finished very dark so it wasn't obvious until the finish was removed.
The stuff about the bowls is really cool....
Edited by clrules 2015-09-08 9:21 PM
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Location: Pueblo West, CO | Thanks, Paul.
Yeah, walnut is a lot easier to finish than RW because it's less oily. But, it's good that I (re)discovered this for when it comes time to glue down the bridge.
I created a thread in the General section called, "The History of the Bowl." If you're interested, it contains a lot more details. |
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Location: Pueblo West, CO | Finally!
I got the neck and headstock finished to a point where I am happy. For a while there, it was one step forward, two steps back.
First, the Eastwood 2K Aero-Spray is very high-quality paint and it's worth the $25 per can. Even though it's a rattle-can paint, the nozzle sprays like it's a gun. It goes on thin and even and dries very hard.
Unfortunately, I sprayed the final coats on the front of the head stock outside and unexpectedly, it started to sprinkle. A few rain drops landed on the finish on the front of the head stock which was not quite dry and caused small craters. (Arghh!)
Fortunately, I was able to repair these and bring the head stock to an acceptable level.
I decided to wet-sand the head stock to make sure it was going to look okay before proceeding.
The photos don't really show what it looks like, but it's definitely an improvement over what it looked like when it arrived. Here's the front.
And, the back.
Next job is to prime the bowl with the Eastwood 2-part epoxy. The neck is masked and I'll be spraying the bowl tomorrow morning. After that, it'll be time to (finally) glue the top to the bowl.
Edited by DanSavage 2015-09-16 12:12 AM
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Location: Texas | "a while there, it was one step forward, two steps back." I know there are a couple (Dan is thinking "Yeah right Jay, a couple...") of times I drug you back dan...more than two steps, more like a city block. Ok...so Ovation had Black and Brown bowls...It appears they could have been any color... Does anyone know if Ovation did a custom with a bowl any other color than black/brown? |
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Location: Jet City | Full flames... Professor's got one. |
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Location: SoCal | I've seen green ones and blue ones...... |
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Location: Texas | Prof (i know you have waited awhile for this request...) Let me see yours!
Edited by jay 2015-09-16 3:09 PM
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Location: Pueblo West, CO | amosmoses - 2015-09-16 9:26 AM
"a while there, it was one step forward, two steps back." I know there are a couple (Dan is thinking "Yeah right Jay, a couple...") of times I drug you back dan...more than two steps, more like a city block.
Well, I was talking about what it took to get the the neck and head stock finished. It's a long and sordid tale.
The bottom line is that it's at a point where the finish on the entire neck is at an acceptable level. It's not perfect, but it's a lot better than it was and I think you'll be very happy with it.
I applied the first coat of black primer to the bowl. I'll sand it this evening and decide then if it needs a second coat.
Edited by DanSavage 2015-09-16 6:04 PM
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1967 Balladeer Rebuild...
