The Partscaster Part 2

A short update. The body came in, and in fairly good time. It took just 16 days from the day I ordered it to arrive at my house. I asked the maker to not wax the guitar as I wanted to shellac the body and he didn't wax it. I've wanted to try my hand at applying shellac and from everything I've seen and read, it's really failproof with a few exceptions. The vids I've seen for example on classical guitars has amazing results - just an absolute mirror hard shell finish. Of course those guys have to do multiple coats then sand down to some insane number like 12,000 grit - which is basically polish at that level.

This is what I'm talking about: Shellac finish on a classical guitar.

Anyway, my tele body is very rough textured so any mirror finish on the Yakisugi finish would be useless. So instead of paying $20 each for two spray bottles of lacquer, I decided to spend $20 on 8oz. of shellac flakes and some Everclear. I spent the morning watching some Netflix and crunching up the flakes into near powder and creating a 2 lb. cut of shellac (8 oz. Everclear to 2 oz. of shellac flakes). 2 lb. cut is generally the standard for a semi-gloss finish, while a 1 lb. cut (8 oz. / 1 oz.) would give a matt finish.

After mixing it up in a canning jar, I sat and shook the snot out of the bottle until all the shellac flakes were dissolved, then strained it through an old t-shirt into a new bottle. I thought it would take longer for the dissolving part but it was an hour of shaking and 3 minutes to strain. I then made myself a little applicator out of more old t-shirt and cotton balls and went at it.

The great thing about shellac is, because the alcohol (in this case Everclear) dissipates so quickly, it leaves the shellac behind and the shellac dries really quickly - and once it's dried, it's set. So I put 3 coats on all sides and have it hanging to cure overnight. I'll put another 3 coats on tomorrow, and then probably even out any areas with just some alcohol. Again, I'll let it cure for a few days and lightly polish by hand. I could add a light coat of wax on top but I'm not sure yet.

The great part about shellac is it's super easy to just add more, or strip it off and put on a whole new finish. The other consideration was, I didn't want to buy shellac in a can. Why? Because shellac in a can has about a 6 month shelf life. Most people don't use a pint of shellac at one time, so they leave it and a year later, they open the can and it's kaput. Even with the flaked shellac after it's combined with the denatured alcohol / Everclear, it has to be used within 6-8 months. In this case, I bought 8 oz. of flakes but only used 2 oz.

(I used Everclear because it's Ethyl alcohol made from grain - the kind that can be consumed, so there are no chemical additives. In Denatured alcohol, which is also Ethyl alcohol, there tends to be toxic additives like methanol, acetone, denatonium and dyes added. These generally are added to denatured alcohol not only to dissuade people from drinking it, but it also makes it toxic. I went for the pure Everclear which is 95% ethyl alcohol with no additives, acetone or things that will kill you. The stuff is technically drinkable but yuck.

All the other guitar parts are in. The neck was done really well, though not enough time on the nut nor the frets above the 9th were filed down. I had to file these down as there were many sharp fret ends. The nut was partially cut but I think that's ok since fine tuning at the end of the build must be completed to get a good feel and comfortable action.

I set the bridge, taped it off, aligned the neck with old strings on both sides, then drilled the bridge holes and also drilled the neck holes. Just eyeballing the neck, it looks as if I'll need a .5 degree shim as I don't want to file or shave anything off the neck pocket. The bridge I got from Fender but curiously, it didn't come with the four screws needed to attach it to the body, so off the Amazon I went to get some.

I was expecting the shellac and finish to take longer but I may have this baby put together in the next week or so. I've dry fit most of the other parts and everything seems to go together with very little modification needed - also surprising.