I need to do some final stuff to get ready to paint the guitar. I needed to make some fixture to hold the guitar while I paint it and still allow me to paint all the sides. And I need to find a way to hold it without me actually holding it.

I used some scrap pine to make a fake neck that I can attach to the body. Then I used a piece of 3/4″ galvanized conduit (the stuff used to run wires in places the wire can’t be exposed). I flattened one end of the conduit in my vise and drilled some holes to mount it to my faux neck. The conduit was bolted to the pine neck thingy and voila!

To mount this to my workbench, I drilled a 3/4″ hole through a couple thicknesses of 2×6 that are glued and screwed together. This makes a solid 3″ long bearing surface to hold the overhang weight of the guitar body. This thing has to be strong enough to hold the guitar without me worrying (I’ll still worry). Luckily the conduit is slightly less than 3/4″ so it’s easy to turn and it does not have too much slop. I’ll use the tag team of my workbench vise and some screws to hold the fixture nice and solid.

I’ll do some final cleanup around the workshop and put drop cloths everywhere around the guitar.

For the neck, I’ll just hang it from the ceiling and paint the headstock.

After filling the old screw holes, I installed the new tuning machines to make sure they fit right. I also drilled pilot holes for the screws.

The tuning machines are Grover Rotomatic 18:1 tuners. They are the non locking type cause I have a locking nut for this guitar.

These pretty much fit the old Schaller ones from the 1980s. The only thing that didn’t line up was the screw holes. They are all 1/32″ or so off which is why I filled the old screw holes.

Time for some work on the neck and fretboard!

I gave the whole neck a good sanding to smooth things out and remove some age marks. I also sanded the headstock where it will be painted to rough up the paint (I’m not going to strip it). I filled the timing machine screw holes with toothpicks. I pulled out the old plastic fretboard dots and put in some cool red jasper stone dots. Then sanded the whole shebang and put a coat of oil on.

The new dots are a bit larger than the old ones (a good thing). Opened up the hole using increasingly larger drill bits. The drill is in reverse so it doesn’t dig in. Then I filled the holes with CA glue.

After some sanding, the dots are nice and smooth! After a coat of lemon oil, the fretboard and dots look awesome!

The Vanguard neck is now fretless. I think this will be the very first fretless flying V with a Floyd Rose!

Actually, it’s getting new stainless steel frets that will be smooth and sexy. It’s also getting new fretboard markers that are way less lamer.

Now it’s time to fill all the bumps and bruises with Bondo to level them out.

I felt the body to find any dips in the wood and sanded them a bit to make rough and circled them with pencil. Then mixed up some Bondo and schmear it in.

Next it sanding off the Bondo to make everything smooth again.

Next step is some final fitting /adjusting and then starting the paint!

While I was routing the body for the Floyd Rose tremolo, my router bit slipped out of the chuck and dug in too far. It went in about 1/4″.

The boo boo was in an area that is not functional and wouldn’t be seen, but I wanted to fix it anyway. My plan is to…

• Square up the boo boo
• Level the bottom out
• Make a piece of wood to fit
• Glue in the block
• Trim it off and smooth it out
• Fill any cracks or gaps with bondo

I plugged all the holes in the guitar body. I don’t think I will use any of the old screw holes, plus I am moving the strap button, and the output jack is moved. Plug them all!

Also there was a screw with a twisted off head that needs to come out.

I finished a couple little jobs like drilling for the tremolo posts, and increasing the hole size for the kill switch. Next is mocking up to make sure stuff fits and lines up.

I installed the tremolo posts and tremolo. I installed the killswitch, volume pot, and pickup selector switch.

I used some string to approximate the guitar strings and the tremolo lines up real good.

Next steps are prepping for paint and re-fretting the neck.

After moving the output jack, I drilled a 1/8″ pilot hole to the pickup area. I then used a 12″ long 5/16″ bit to make the hole bigger.

I ran into a problem and could not get the holes to connect. I bought an 18″ long drill bit and went to work.

Turns out the first hole drifted off course which is why it didn’t connect. Then I drilled too far and it came out the back. Ugh.

After the bit came out the back I realized what happened and connected the holes. It’s a bit uglier than I wanted but no big deal. It won’t show.

I needed to do a bit of modification to make the pickups fit. A little quality time with some sharp chisels is all it takes.