The Explorer Kit Guitar Project

GilmourD

GilmourD

Eater of Worlds
Staff member
So, I got the kit!

And the grain is actually pretty nice! There's no weird glue lines or anything. Sure, it's four pieces and not perfectly bookmatched, but I've seen Gibsons that with worse plank matches.

Also, the fretwork actually looks surprisingly very nice!

So, I'm thinking of doing a transparent finish on it, now, instead of black. I'm almost tempted to just do a tinted TruOil finish on it and paint the headstock face black after I reshape it?

What do you guys think?

I've included some good pics on my parents' terrible living room carpet from my Nikon D40. There's a good one of the body taken with sunlight coming in the window instead of flash if you want to photoshop colors onto it for suggestions. :)

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looks pretty good to me!

and y'know what, I kinda like the headstock as it is.
if it were mine, I'd leave it that way.
 
Peeker said:
looks pretty good to me!

and y'know what, I kinda like the headstock as it is.
if it were mine, I'd leave it that way.
Click to expand...
Well, that's cuz it looks like something BC Rich would do. LOL

I've gotta get my hands on the right tools and a template for the proper Explorer headstock shape. There's more than enough meat there to carve the right shape out of it. I might see if I can copy the Kramer 5150 headstock shape off my Customwoods neck on my Franky if I can't get the right template. O0
 
when I was still considering the Tele kit, I had planned to leave the headstock as it came

thus:

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I figure if resting the headstock on the table results in more volume, then a big wonky headstcok can't hurt.
(read: I lack the tools and/or knowledge to do anything about it)
:lol:
 
I wish I had a better photo editor on my phone. Not home but just sitting on my butt while my kid is at The Little Gym.

I'll have to GiMP it when I get home later.

Sent from my DROID RAZR HD using Tapatalk
 
I wouldn't go natural. I'd do some crazy metallic orange or green, or wrap it in duct tape and aluminum foil.

Or beer bottle cap it.

zakk-wylde-rebel-630-80.jpg
 
Apparently that was the guitar he brought when he sat in with the Allman Brothers band. It didn't go over well.

Then it went downhill from there.
 
I’d go with a solid finish. I don’t think those rings are going to look too good with a stain.
 
jp_nyc said:
I’d go with a solid finish. I don’t think those rings are going to look too good with a stain.
Click to expand...
Yeah?

I figured it wouldn't look much worse than this if I did it in red or something.

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I'm starting to think faded cherry, like the one on the right here, might look nice.

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I wouldn't have to fill the grain. Hell, I think Minwax makes a product that would do this in one easy step.
 
So, how would you guys do the worn cherry finish?

I was thinking one of two ways...

Minwax (and I'm sure somebody else) makes an all-in-one wipe-on product that stains and finishes the wood.

The other way would be to stain the wood with some StewMac Cherry Red ColorTone dye (which I already have) and finish it off with wipe-on clear poly or maybe even TruOil. I'm not looking to build up a shine or even build up much thickness, if I do something like the above faded cherry Explorer. Just something to color and protect the wood and give it that almost unfinished feel.
 
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