So this will be the last project out of my shop not dedicated to the house. (We are moving back to San Diego at the end of the month) It took me close to a year to get it set up:-( I will miss it. Learned a lot of new things here. Oh well, all good things must come to an end. Off to a new start and adventure. Like Melissa said: " a facility well used." I will post the link to our house once it goes on the market.
John, a great craftsman and also a long time guitar and bass player who's helping us out, hit the nail on the head: Why do we always fix up our homes right before we move? Sound familiar? Must be part of this buy a house sell a house cycle.
Enough about that...
Before we knew we would move I stripped my Mesa head planning to build a new custom case. Once I found out we re moving I new I had to put it back together or I would lose the parts. I know how this goes. I didn't have time to build a new case but I could strip it, re-tolex or refinish it. I don't like tolex much so decided to refinish it. I primed it, primed it again, filled holes, primed it, filled holes and so on. It was tough since it was plywood and not MDF. Then I color coated it, clear coated it with urethane and finally rubbed it out. I made a new face plate out of 1/4" curly maple on 1/2" MDF stained blue, finished and rubbed it out. I ordered new feet and a new handle. Turned out pretty good considering what I had to work with. There are a few things I'm not to happy with but that's what happens under crunch time. Here are the pictures:
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| Old... |
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| Old ass backside. |
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| Old with no tolex... This was a lot of work. Old plywood, holes everywhere and glue glue glue |
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| Yeah I can tackle this... |
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| Sanded and rubbed out. |
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| This is the curly maple board I used for the guitar and the blue Mesa front piece. |
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| Faceplate close-up |
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| Faceplate installed: |
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| This florescent light sucks! |
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| All back together except the handle and feet. They're in the mail. Amazing what a good camera and some lights can do! |
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| How nice is that hand scraped birch floor? (hand scraped by who... Dutch flooring elves?) We installed this in almost all rooms of our house. I cut it and Mel stapled it down. Looks great and is cheap. $2.49 a sqft. You can't beat that! The tongue and grove are rough though so be prepared to say the f-bomb frequently... |
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| Close up of the maple. Book matched it from center left to right. Check the reflection of the knobs on the 1/8" round over on the bottom piece of the face plate. I dropped the finished piece while installing it on the concrete garage floor! It landed on the back edge, bounced and landed on it's back. I stood there silent with my mouth open, picked it up, inspected it and couldn't fucking believe it. Not a dent or scratch on the glass smooth highly polished face! The Dutch maple fairies must have been looking over me! ( I think they go drinking with the flooring elves) That shit NEVER happens:-) Finals with handle and feet will follow shortly. |
