Attempting to fix a Clear Coat issue on my Red Kramer Focus 2000 Headstock by Wet Sanding 10-04-25
0Attempting to fix a Clear Coat issue on my Red Kramer Focus 2000 Headstock by Wet Sanding 10-04-25
This headstock is a work in progress.
I bought this Kramer Baretta Special neck with a broken-and-repaired headstock off of ebay, because I wanted a Maple Kramer neck for one of my 80s Kramer Focus 2000s, and I'd heard that the Baretta Special neck was closer to being like an actual OLD Kramer neck, than the neck that was on the Kramer Baretta Vintage that I owned a few years ago.
The necks from the Baretta Special and the Baretta vintage LOOK almost the same in pictures, BUT are actually quite different.
The Fret Radius is different.
The Profile of the back of the neck is different.
The headstock looks basically the same, but is actually smaller on the Special.
And there are differences with the heel of the neck, that make it so the necks are NOT DIRECTLY INTERCHANGEABLE.
Disclaimer
I am NOT any kind of professional luthier, and don't claim to be! lol
And these are NOT *tutorials*.
I'm just a guy who's played guitar for a very long time, and have always done my own work on my guitars.
Mostly because I never had the money to have somebody else do it for me lol
Anyway, my main goal is making an instrument that plays well and *does what I want it to do*, and I'm much less concerned "cosmetic perfection".
The reality is, I have neither the tools, nor the skills, to create perfect and beautiful guitars anyway.
So I could either keep waiting, until I can buy all the required tools, and learn all the required skills to do that...
Which would probably take years, if it ever even happens at all...
OR
I can go ahead and just do what I can, with what I HAVE now (or could easily get) and CAN do now (or easily learn), and FINALLY get to play these guitars I started gathering parts for in 2019 or so.
And since I've already waited up to 5 years on some of these guitar projects, and been stubbing my toes on setback after setback, I really just want to get it done lol
So don't expect perfect work or exacting details.
I try to get things as good as possible *where it counts*, like I'll spend time and effort to polish some frets where the string contacts them, but I'm not going to buy a bunch more stuff to be able to microscopically polish the sides of the frets clear down to the fretboard.
That's time and money I don't have to spare, for something which would have little, if any, effect on how the instrument plays or sounds.
Having said that...
I've also noticed that on the work I've already done, pretty much every time I've made a substantial mistake and/or ended up with a result I'm really not happy with, it's been when I got impatient and/or tried to hurry up/rush something.
So, yeah, don't take forever, don't waste your time, but ALSO, be sure you take enough time, to not make too many mistakes ;P
Still, in reality, mistakes are often a necessary part of *progress*.
Because every time you do something, you risk effing it up.
So if you let fear of effing up prevent you from attempting to do something in the first place, then you will never make progress, and you can never succeed.
So you gotta make the attempts, and take some risks, and sometimes that means you are going to eff up.
But effing up isn't the end of the world, and you can often learn from the mistakes you make, so you gotta just take those mistakes in stride and *keep moving forward*.
Even if it's only an-inch-a-day, *keep moving forward*.
Because even if you only progress that one inch a day, as long as you keep doing it, you will some day be able to look over your shoulder and see that you have traveled many miles :)
Also, as a side note:
In 2001 my brain, central nervous system, and body were severely damaged by chemicals I used at work that had started getting into my system and building up.
The result, was that in about 3 months, I went from being someone who could assemble an engine, to someone who could literally NOT assemble a sandwich.
Over the past 20 some years I've gotten much better, but still have a lot of mental and physical issues, especially with memory.
I'm adding this to help others understand why I have some oddities, like sometimes random twitchiness/tics or, like, to help explain why I can maybe understand one thing really well, but cannot understand something that should be easily related.
Basically, there's still a lot of connections broken in my head ;P
But, ALSO, to basically let other people know that if you have a health issue that suddenly makes life a heck of a lot harder, maybe even makes a lot of things you used to do impossible; It's NOT the end of the world.
As long as there's life, there's hope! :D
So never give up! Just keep working towards making that one-inch-a-day of progress, and don't be afraid to make mistakes.
You will make mistakes, but sometimes that's just part of what it takes to keep moving forward.
So take care, and good luck in your endeavors, to everyone :)