Joes Thunderbird... the finale

Joe's Thunderbird is done!! Shipped out last week, hope he enjoys it!

Big Boy!!

BIG BOY update!! Skipping a lot here again but lots of the same process can be seen in the "daylighter" updates.

We mixed up some cherry tinted lacquer and shot the entire guitar with it (save for the maple faux binding). Since this is Billy-Bo inspired and those are solid red it felt right. Carbon Fiber rear covers here too.
The blackberry camera does NOT do this justice, it looks like the Cool-Aid guy is about to jump out of the top. Way cool

Just about finished. One more day of clear and this guy is done!

(day)light at the end of the tunnel!

Hang on this is a MASSIVE update... two or more weeks worth. So where'd we leave off, binding the necks I believe! Here we go!!

I've skipped ahead here a bit. Last update was gluing fretboards on, here's -5 with the neck roughly in place. We inlayed, fretted and shaped the necks of 4449 1-5 at the same time.

-5 mocked up

While we all got the joy of leveling and fretting I was the only one with the camera so here is Steve leveling out his inlays. We got smart and screwed the blocks down to the bench and worked over them. MUCH easier.

The Arbor Press we converted over to a fret press.

Shaping the neck. I'm skipping a fair amount here but its the same process we've covered before.

Once 1-5 were shaped, we final sanded we started oiling the tops with Boiled Linseed Oil. The normal MO for bringing out the figure in maple tops was to dye them direct and sand back. We decided to use BLO instead because I didn't want to color the spalting with direct dying instead we opted to spray tinted lacquers.

The caps after oiling and sealing. Since these are called "Daylighters" I was aiming for a sunburst that roughly matched the colors of the actual train.

The Yellow'ish center color.

With the red/orange bursted edge.

Now skipping ahead a bit again I bursted the rest of this batch. After getting the fronts shot I worked up a back color and started shooting them.

These guys are going to get blacked headstocks with a special treat I have worked up.

There we go! About a 1/3rd of the way through the clear coat process but things are REALLY looking great!

This is 4449-6 that we ended up adding a matching headstock to.

Sealed and ready for its burst.

Bursted!!

4449-5's bursted and back color applied.

Wenge/Maple binding that we did.

There we go, #5 is coming along great too!

I PROMISE the next update won't be so far behind!