Painting the Neck

The neck of the Guardian is totally hand sawn, carved and shaped by Dick Levens. It is a one piece maple neck with an ebony fingerboard. Below are most of the stages of painting and lacquering of the neck as they are completed.

Some of the 'Leverty Guitars' headstock designs for this guitar.

And the design finally chosen for the guitar. This is actually the second neck that Dick (Levens) made for this guitar - the first one apparently, wasn't absolutely perfect.........So this is the 'Mk 2' neck.

As you'll notice there are no fret markers or inlays on the ebony fingerboard. The markers are going to be applied using gold leaf and then lacquered in.

The fingerboard work will be the first stage of this part of the guitar. Once the markers are applied and lacquered in, then the frets will be fitted. The reason for working this way around is that the images being applied as markers would be almost impossible to apply and lacquer in neatly with the frets in place, so the frets will be fitted afterwards and any remedial lacquering after the frets are fitted will be done when the neck is shaped and finished.

The neck is carefully marked out and masked............

Once the whole of the fingerboard is carefully masked.........

22 Carat gold leaf is applied..........

Seriously fiddly stuff this.............not a good time to get a fit of the sneezes........typical!

Anyway, once the whole fingerboard is gilded where required a small border is cut around the gold leaf in each section and the gold leaf is then carefully sealed in place with nail varnish. Using nail varnish to seal in the gold leaf prior to lacquering helps to keep the gold leaf flat under the lacquer coat.

Then the original masking is removed...........

......and the whole neck with the exception of the fingerboard, is masked ready for the first lacquer coat. The fret slots are also carefully masked out as I don't want my lacquer coats to be filling them in.

Here the fingerboard has been lacquered and is partially rubbed down. A lot of care is needed here as the fret board needs to be perfectly smooth for the next stage, but I don't want to rub through my lacquer coat into my gold leaf below.

Okay, here the fingerboard has been rubbed down until it is pretty smooth. Not absolutely perfect, but this is as far as I'm going to rub this coat down at this stage. There will be several other coats of lacquer to be applied to this fingerboard during the following process that will later enable a perfectly smooth finish to be achieved, and, this is easily as smooth as this needs to be for the next stage of the fingerboard detail.

Just a couple of quick piccies of the fingerboard graphics being applied.................

Lots of scraping and very careful rubbing back and the images I want start to appear, works a treat on this ebony fingerboard and will look really good when all the markers are finished. Here are a few more................

 

 

Doesn't look much for a days work I know, but this is finer work than the pictures would suggest...................and the images do look better real sized and not blown up like this..............honest! Just the last couple of markers to do tomorrow and then the fingerboard will get various lacquer coats until it is all perfectly smooth and the gold leafwork sealed and protected.

This is what it looked like after the first lacquer coat...................

............and after a rub down with 1200 grade wet and dry and a second coat of lacquer this is where the fingerboard is now. This is now ready for another rubbing down which should see it hopefully almost perfectly smooth. It will then be lacquered once more and rubbed down for a final time at this stage. Then it will be left for at least a week for the lacquer to fully cure and harden up, during which time it will get a few sessions under the U.V. lamp. So as far as this page is concerned that will be it for a week or so. Apologies for the poor quality of the pictures here, but there will be better ones posted at later stages of the neck painting - as these pictures don't do the fingerboard justice even with my best efforts this evening.

Okay, here we are back with the back of the maple neck. Seems a shame to cover up completely the grain of the wood...............

...........So the plan is to do something a little different with the back of the neck and the headstock.

To follow along with the nautical theme of the guitar, we thought it might be an idea to try and use the grain of the wood as a guide and turn it into an 'Oldie Nautical' type 'treasure map' map kind of idea.

First off some islands were roughly drawn out and painted in with water based dyes. I don't want this effect to be too prominent, ideally it almost wants to be fading into the main background blue of the neck, which obviously has to match the body.

A few 'Olde Worldy' maritime images help to set the scene and add a little interest.

Couldn't resist giving 'Eric' a mention...................maybe I'll grow up one day??.......Nahhh!

With the background roughly coloured in with the waterbased dyes, it was time to give the neck a light rub down with 1000 grade wet and dry. This lightened all the black lines and instantly gave the map an aged look. Perfect.

At this stage the newly applied stains were sealed in with a lacquer coat. The edges of the neck and the headstock will then be airbrushed in with a darker blue to match the guitar body. This first coat of lacquer is effectively acting as both a grain sealer and primer coat for the cellulose paint to come.

With the lacquer coat fully rubbed down, the neck doesn't look much different to before the lacquer coat. But it is now it's ready for the blue sunbursting along the fingerboard transition and the edge of the headstock to be applied.

The great bit about this job is letting your imagination run riot.

But here is the overall effect prior to sunbursting the edges...........albeit in not too great a picture!

It was at this stage that decisions had to be made about what was going on the headstock itself. I did think about a solid colour, then I thought about a stain, but with the rest of the guitar so 'busy', it would seem strange not to have something a bit different on the face of the headstock too. After much head scratching, I remembered an old story that related to piracy and involved an old nursery rhyme.

Apparently, 'Sing a song of sixpence' was a coded rhyme used to recruit pirates to Blackbeards ship. The various lines of the rhyme all having veiled meanings to those 'in the know'. So here we have the perfect backdrop to the headstock.

Once again the design is drawn in and then painted in with waterbased dyes.

Then the background is painted in as was the back of the neck.

The fingerboard here is masked off to protect it from the paint soon to be applied to the side of the neck.

And then darker blue cellulose paint was carefully airbrushed in along the edges of the neck and the headstock. This blue matches perfectly with the blue of the guitar body, but as no primer was used below the paint (just a clear lacquer), some of the grain in the maple still shows through. Makes for a really nice effect.

The headstock too was darkened right down with the blue paint. This will help the 'Leverty' logo show out against what would otherwise have been a very 'busy' looking background.

Like this. Under lacquer these colours will really lift and brighten and should look pretty cool - especially when the 'Steinburger' tuners are in place. Anyway, time for the first proper lacquer coat.

With a coat of lacquer the combination of dye and paint works really well, making for visible detail, but not too overpowering.

There will be tweaking to be done on the back of this neck as it progresses through the lacquering stages, but even at this stage I know it's going to look the business.

The next stage for the neck now is to leave this lacquer for a couple of days to fully cure out.

Once it has fully cured the neck will be carefully rubbed down again..........

...........and the next lacquer coat applied.

Okay. after what seems like an age finally the neck is almost finished.

These pictures are of the finished neck laid up in position with the now finished body, just to get an idea what the finished article will look like.

This neck has taken a long time to get right, not because of any of the finishing work on the back of the neck, but because of the way the fingerboard was done.

The back of the neck was relatively straight forward. The pleasing part is that the tinted lacquers used on the neck (to allow some of the grain in the maple to show through), actually match up better than I'd expected with the guitar bodies' solid colours.

With the pickups laid in place too, it's easier to imagine what the fully finished and set up guitar will look like.

As you can see the fretboard doesn't have regular inlay markers. One of the reasons that this project has taken so long to get to this stage is that the method I've used for the fingerboard was very experimental - and as is often the case with experiments, they don't always work perfectly the first time through. In the case of this fingerboard it's taken a lot of work to get it to this stage.

Obviously, I haven't put every stage up as I've gone along with this process, can't give everything away! But this is why the site has been a bit short on updates of late.

All matches in quite nicely now though.

The nut isn't carved yet, the whale-tooth nut needed rough fitting and lacquering in before the final finishing stages, this enabled the finish along the edge of the fingerboard to flow perfectly smoothly all the way along the neck.

As you can hopefully see, it's all pretty smooth.

Even on the darker edges of the neck and the headstock, you can still see the grain through the tinted lacquer used on the neck.

Interesting process to get these looking right, it's a long story!

But the finish on the board is pretty damned good now.

Really love these colours, dark blues have to be some of the best colours for a guitar.

So there we have it..........

An almost complete guitar. The next stage is to hand the guitar over to Dick to put the whole thing together properly, wire and string her up and finally................we'll get to hear what the thing sounds like!

There will of course be more pictures to follow of the fully completed guitar once it's at that stage, but for now......

Watch this space.........

 

Painting the front of the 'Guardian Guitar'.

Click on the image above to see how the front of the guitar was painted.

 

Painting the back of the 'Guardian Guitar'.

Click on the image above to see how the back of the guitar was painted.

 Jim Fogarty Graphics.

 

All artwork, images and text are Copyright © Jim Fogarty 2002-2009. All rights reserved. All artwork shown on this website is protected by international copyright law. No image on this website may be used for any commercial or non-commercial purposes without prior written permission from the artist.

 

 

Painting the Neck

The neck of the Guardian is totally hand sawn, carved and shaped by Dick Levens. It is a one piece maple neck with an ebony fingerboard. Below are most of the stages of painting and lacquering of the neck as they are completed.

Some of the 'Leverty Guitars' headstock designs for this guitar.

And the design finally chosen for the guitar. This is actually the second neck that Dick (Levens) made for this guitar - the first one apparently, wasn't absolutely perfect.........So this is the 'Mk 2' neck.

As you'll notice there are no fret markers or inlays on the ebony fingerboard. The markers are going to be applied using gold leaf and then lacquered in.

The fingerboard work will be the first stage of this part of the guitar. Once the markers are applied and lacquered in, then the frets will be fitted. The reason for working this way around is that the images being applied as markers would be almost impossible to apply and lacquer in neatly with the frets in place, so the frets will be fitted afterwards and any remedial lacquering after the frets are fitted will be done when the neck is shaped and finished.

The neck is carefully marked out and masked............

Once the whole of the fingerboard is carefully masked.........

22 Carat gold leaf is applied..........

Seriously fiddly stuff this.............not a good time to get a fit of the sneezes........typical!

Anyway, once the whole fingerboard is gilded where required a small border is cut around the gold leaf in each section and the gold leaf is then carefully sealed in place with nail varnish. Using nail varnish to seal in the gold leaf prior to lacquering helps to keep the gold leaf flat under the lacquer coat.

Then the original masking is removed...........

......and the whole neck with the exception of the fingerboard, is masked ready for the first lacquer coat. The fret slots are also carefully masked out as I don't want my lacquer coats to be filling them in.

Here the fingerboard has been lacquered and is partially rubbed down. A lot of care is needed here as the fret board needs to be perfectly smooth for the next stage, but I don't want to rub through my lacquer coat into my gold leaf below.

Okay, here the fingerboard has been rubbed down until it is pretty smooth. Not absolutely perfect, but this is as far as I'm going to rub this coat down at this stage. There will be several other coats of lacquer to be applied to this fingerboard during the following process that will later enable a perfectly smooth finish to be achieved, and, this is easily as smooth as this needs to be for the next stage of the fingerboard detail.

Just a couple of quick piccies of the fingerboard graphics being applied.................

Lots of scraping and very careful rubbing back and the images I want start to appear, works a treat on this ebony fingerboard and will look really good when all the markers are finished. Here are a few more................

 

 

Doesn't look much for a days work I know, but this is finer work than the pictures would suggest...................and the images do look better real sized and not blown up like this..............honest! Just the last couple of markers to do tomorrow and then the fingerboard will get various lacquer coats until it is all perfectly smooth and the gold leafwork sealed and protected.

This is what it looked like after the first lacquer coat...................

............and after a rub down with 1200 grade wet and dry and a second coat of lacquer this is where the fingerboard is now. This is now ready for another rubbing down which should see it hopefully almost perfectly smooth. It will then be lacquered once more and rubbed down for a final time at this stage. Then it will be left for at least a week for the lacquer to fully cure and harden up, during which time it will get a few sessions under the U.V. lamp. So as far as this page is concerned that will be it for a week or so. Apologies for the poor quality of the pictures here, but there will be better ones posted at later stages of the neck painting - as these pictures don't do the fingerboard justice even with my best efforts this evening.

Okay, here we are back with the back of the maple neck. Seems a shame to cover up completely the grain of the wood...............

...........So the plan is to do something a little different with the back of the neck and the headstock.

To follow along with the nautical theme of the guitar, we thought it might be an idea to try and use the grain of the wood as a guide and turn it into an 'Oldie Nautical' type 'treasure map' map kind of idea.

First off some islands were roughly drawn out and painted in with water based dyes. I don't want this effect to be too prominent, ideally it almost wants to be fading into the main background blue of the neck, which obviously has to match the body.

A few 'Olde Worldy' maritime images help to set the scene and add a little interest.

Couldn't resist giving 'Eric' a mention...................maybe I'll grow up one day??.......Nahhh!

With the background roughly coloured in with the waterbased dyes, it was time to give the neck a light rub down with 1000 grade wet and dry. This lightened all the black lines and instantly gave the map an aged look. Perfect.

At this stage the newly applied stains were sealed in with a lacquer coat. The edges of the neck and the headstock will then be airbrushed in with a darker blue to match the guitar body. This first coat of lacquer is effectively acting as both a grain sealer and primer coat for the cellulose paint to come.

With the lacquer coat fully rubbed down, the neck doesn't look much different to before the lacquer coat. But it is now it's ready for the blue sunbursting along the fingerboard transition and the edge of the headstock to be applied.

The great bit about this job is letting your imagination run riot.

But here is the overall effect prior to sunbursting the edges...........albeit in not too great a picture!

It was at this stage that decisions had to be made about what was going on the headstock itself. I did think about a solid colour, then I thought about a stain, but with the rest of the guitar so 'busy', it would seem strange not to have something a bit different on the face of the headstock too. After much head scratching, I remembered an old story that related to piracy and involved an old nursery rhyme.

Apparently, 'Sing a song of sixpence' was a coded rhyme used to recruit pirates to Blackbeards ship. The various lines of the rhyme all having veiled meanings to those 'in the know'. So here we have the perfect backdrop to the headstock.

Once again the design is drawn in and then painted in with waterbased dyes.

Then the background is painted in as was the back of the neck.

The fingerboard here is masked off to protect it from the paint soon to be applied to the side of the neck.

And then darker blue cellulose paint was carefully airbrushed in along the edges of the neck and the headstock. This blue matches perfectly with the blue of the guitar body, but as no primer was used below the paint (just a clear lacquer), some of the grain in the maple still shows through. Makes for a really nice effect.

The headstock too was darkened right down with the blue paint. This will help the 'Leverty' logo show out against what would otherwise have been a very 'busy' looking background.

Like this. Under lacquer these colours will really lift and brighten and should look pretty cool - especially when the 'Steinburger' tuners are in place. Anyway, time for the first proper lacquer coat.

With a coat of lacquer the combination of dye and paint works really well, making for visible detail, but not too overpowering.

There will be tweaking to be done on the back of this neck as it progresses through the lacquering stages, but even at this stage I know it's going to look the business.

The next stage for the neck now is to leave this lacquer for a couple of days to fully cure out.

Once it has fully cured the neck will be carefully rubbed down again..........

...........and the next lacquer coat applied.

Okay. after what seems like an age finally the neck is almost finished.

These pictures are of the finished neck laid up in position with the now finished body, just to get an idea what the finished article will look like.

This neck has taken a long time to get right, not because of any of the finishing work on the back of the neck, but because of the way the fingerboard was done.

The back of the neck was relatively straight forward. The pleasing part is that the tinted lacquers used on the neck (to allow some of the grain in the maple to show through), actually match up better than I'd expected with the guitar bodies' solid colours.

With the pickups laid in place too, it's easier to imagine what the fully finished and set up guitar will look like.

As you can see the fretboard doesn't have regular inlay markers. One of the reasons that this project has taken so long to get to this stage is that the method I've used for the fingerboard was very experimental - and as is often the case with experiments, they don't always work perfectly the first time through. In the case of this fingerboard it's taken a lot of work to get it to this stage.

Obviously, I haven't put every stage up as I've gone along with this process, can't give everything away! But this is why the site has been a bit short on updates of late.

All matches in quite nicely now though.

The nut isn't carved yet, the whale-tooth nut needed rough fitting and lacquering in before the final finishing stages, this enabled the finish along the edge of the fingerboard to flow perfectly smoothly all the way along the neck.

As you can hopefully see, it's all pretty smooth.

Even on the darker edges of the neck and the headstock, you can still see the grain through the tinted lacquer used on the neck.

Interesting process to get these looking right, it's a long story!

But the finish on the board is pretty damned good now.

Really love these colours, dark blues have to be some of the best colours for a guitar.

So there we have it..........

An almost complete guitar. The next stage is to hand the guitar over to Dick to put the whole thing together properly, wire and string her up and finally................we'll get to hear what the thing sounds like!

There will of course be more pictures to follow of the fully completed guitar once it's at that stage, but for now......

Watch this space.........

 

Painting the front of the 'Guardian Guitar'.

Click on the image above to see how the front of the guitar was painted.

 

Painting the back of the 'Guardian Guitar'.

Click on the image above to see how the back of the guitar was painted.

 

 Jim Fogarty Graphics.

 

All artwork, images and text are Copyright © Jim Fogarty 2002-2009. All rights reserved. All artwork shown on this website is protected by international copyright law. No image on this website may be used for any commercial or non-commercial purposes without prior written permission from the artist.