since completing the Starmaster, I'd joined joined a maker space near my home, NextFab, which gave me access to a climate-controlled spray booth and a 3m Accuspray HVLP system. I also took this a an opportunity to try a new clear coat product that had received high praise, Crystalac, a non-toxic waterborne poly. Crystalac and of exists in the middle ground between a catalyzed poly and lacquer, with perhaps more in common with nitrocellulose, with one notable exception: I can spray it while wearing a pandemic dust mask and remain headache free. It's self leveling and like lacquer, subsequent coats fuse into another, provided it hasn't fully cured. Unfortunately, like lacquer, it needs a bit of curing time before sanding and polishing, however, mercifully less, with about a day of curing per coat. For a glitter finish, that means at least 16 coats and I let it cure for 3 weeks after spraying. Here we are after about 8-10 coats:
I'd become increasingly curious about relic finishes- I still am not a big fan of relics that look like they'd been dragged for ten miles of mississippi dirt roads, but the "MJT Light Relic" was starting to have a certain appeal, so I played around with it as a sort of mark-making painting process. here'I'm making tentative moves:
and leaning into it a bit more... here's i'd rubbed through the original clear, finish coat and into the primer. I also had sprayed a layer of vintage tint yellow partway through the clear coat process and applied a late coat of clear and didn't let it cure sufficiently, to make it resemble that sort of quasi disgusting, sweat/nitro reaction:
this is after sanding to 20,000 grit and hand polishing. I gave it a relatively light touch, stopping short of gouging the surface and making dents and dings; I couldn't bear to go that far:
Here's the final product. While I had it apart, I redid the wiring harness again, this time, using low-capacitance shielded cable, 1Meg CTS volume pots and a treble bleed on the master volume and a 500K CTS tone pot, all topped with Gibson-sty;e top hat knobs. I also installed an Allparts roller Tune-O-Matic bridge and a Graphtech TUSQ XL nut and used TV Jones Dogear Filtertron rings to mount the pickups.
