With the StewMac offset kit-build complete, including quite a few custom touches, Dave Burrluck now has to apply a finish. But which one will he go for?
Having taken a reverse approach to this kit-build, in that I built it all first before I applied any finish, I now have to ‘unbuild’ it so I can apply a finish to the mahogany body and plain maple neck. It seemed like a blooming good idea at the time because – to put it somewhat bluntly – if the final guitar wasn’t very inspiring, then I wouldn’t need to spend time and money finishing it myself or indeed calling in a professional.
The thing is, I’ve taken a bit of a diversion from StewMac’s instructions: I’ve ditched the supplied scratchplate and made a couple of separate Perspex plates for the toggle switch and the volume, tone and output jack, leaving the central ‘swimming pool’ rout open. I then loaded in a pair of Fender Jazzmaster pickups and, via a small screw-in connector block, I can actually fit any pickups I want in the future without using a soldering iron (so long as they will direct-mount to the body). Inspired or plain daft? That’s the beauty of doing things for yourself.
Since the guitar was still assembled, I put any thoughts of finishing to the back of my mind while I just enjoyed StewMac’s and my own building efforts [pic 1]. What started as a £165 kit has turned out to be a rather nice instrument. There’s good resonance, ring and sustain, for starters, and it plays pretty well, too. Also, while Jazzmasters can be weighty, this one isn’t. The pickups certainly produce the brightedged, jangling voice I was hoping for as I didn’t really get on with the perfectly good P-90 soapbars that were supplied with the kit, which were a bit too ‘rock’.
In the ‘cons’ column there are no sidemarkers on the fingerboard, the neck shaping before it meets the body heel is a little rudimentary, and that body heel itself is a little sharp-edged. So if those cons bother you, you need to fix ’em before you apply a finish. In the meantime, what finish am I going to use?
Choice Abounds
Like every other material or part you need to mod or indeed make your own guitar today, it’s the huge choice on offer that can prevent us from doing anything. It’s no different with finishing. From spray-can nitro to coloured finishing kits, not to mention natural and coloured stains (water-based and spirit-based), oils and potions, gilding waxes and so on, the options for ‘domestic’ finishing are vast. I’ve spent plenty of time on Google. It’s wise to try out your colour and process on some sample wood first, but I don’t have any waste mahogany lying around – and, in fact, an awful lot of the products I’ve found seem designed for light-coloured woods, not mahogany. A v
