The Black Queen

[ADFinlayson]

I don't think Vik sprays his bursts, I was under the impression he does a sanded burst. Basically just dye the whole thing black with a strong mix, then sand the middle up to the edges to blend, then put the colour over the top. In order to achieve the deep black within the quilt, barely any sanding back of the black is required, then just one coat of heavily concentrated colour so it doesn't wash out the black. It's difficult to do well tbh. 

One thing worth trying is mixing alcohol dyes with waterbased. So do a waterbased dye for the black, then use an alcohol based dye for the colour so that the colour doesn't mix with the black, it just sits where the black has been sanded back. 

I did the same thing on this one, though the contrast didn't come out as well as I'd hoped, probably because I used such a dark blue which doesn't contrast as well with the black, one thing I'm learning is that the stain colour looks a lot darker under finish, so it's better to use a lighter stain.

[komodo]

1 hour ago, ADFinlayson said:

I did the same thing on this one, though the contrast didn't come out as well as I'd hoped, probably because I used such a dark blue which doesn't contrast as well with the black, one thing I'm learning is that the stain colour looks a lot darker under finish, so it's better to use a lighter stain.

 

I'd be surprised if the Vik wasn't sprayed - at least the purple and the outer blacks. After reading a bunch last night, this is my plan. I'll wipe the initial sand back layers, then seal with sprayed shellac, grainfill, sealcoat, then tinted lacquers to get the purple/black burst. The seal layer protects in case of a mess up.

Your guitar looks similar to what I'm going after, I think the trick is the first colors and the sand back. To get that lightness in the "valleys' and no blotchiness is tricky. Doing a wash of the alcohol first, and then the alcohol stain mixture can precondition the wood so it doesn't blotch up, I'm still testing this.

[komodo]

5 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

You may want to use some other colour than black for the grain pattern to pop. A dark wood colour like brown, maybe. Or something that goes with the final colour, like dark blue sanded back and covered with purple. I even recall hearing starting with pink or yellow sanded back and continued with darker colours. There's also a difference between water soluble and spirit stains and how they interact with the previous layer.

Thanks for the link. Yes, I've been testing for the first dye layers. Everything from black to amber yellow for the first sandback. The trick is any subsequent layer starts to mix and get weird. ie. yellow sanded back with a blue purple over it turns brown. It really looks like the figure in the above example has almost straight black sanded back, but that ends up looking flat. That pic looks great...I wonder if in person it doesn't have the depth of chatoyance that some dye jobs have.

[komodo]

7 hours ago, Prostheta said:

The original RS control layout is comprehensive but has many redundant and non-useful combinations. . . . The real trick with distilling combinations is finding out what works best in a player's context,

@Prostheta You are so right.

I had thought, screw it I don't need the phase, and drilled the three minis for plan old on/off for each pup as I have on my Strat and love. But with three on-on-on so I can get phase/flipped phase/off, seems like a winner. I get the cleaner controls on the face, and the combinations of the RS.

I was watching a video yesterday of a Red Special meetup with a bunch of people who build or love the RSs. There were maybe 20-30 RSs in the room and tons of playing. It was funny to watch people flipping through all the switch combos. Instead of just hitting the three-way toggle for the solo, they looked like they were using an abacus.

[Bizman62]

1 hour ago, komodo said:

The trick is any subsequent layer starts to mix and get weird

As @ADFinlayson already said, applying spirit based stain over water based doesn't mix them. Water and water certainly will.

[komodo]

Closer. Just flooded with denatured alcohol, then wipes of black and hint of purple.

This scrap was from a way better piece of quilt than what the guitar is.

[Bizman62]

I can't help it: With black there's always those minor grain lines that look dirty. It's not you, it's all of them. However, since I've seen some that don't have that "feature" it may be avoided. The question is "how?".

I'm by no means an expert in staining, there's people who really have dug into it. My knowledge is more on the theory and a good memory regarding the videos I've seen.

One thing that might help is a more proper sanding. That's what I've been trying to master but my eyesight isn't what it used to be so I always find some rougher spots during the finishing process. I should get spectacles similar to @Norris! Anyhow, you know the procedure: Sand with a light hand through the grits up to 320, moist the surface to raise the grain, sand lightly. Moist again, let dry and sand lightly. Rinse and repeat several times. Don't press since that will only press the grain into the wood instead of cutting it. They say that 400 is the highest grit to be used in order to make the finish stick. I must partially disagree. Using 800 grit Mirka Abranet mesh still leaves a sanded feel rather than a burnished surface - the latter may not take any dye, oil or lacquer since the wood grains are fully closed and polished. The trick is to use a minimal amount of very light passes with the highest grits. It's like maintaining a golf lawn with nail scissors!

[komodo]

Ha! Thank you @Bizman62. 

The guitar will get its required sanding, and of course ideally the test pieces should as well - it may help you to feel better knowing this piece received nothing. Straight from the scrap bin.

[Prostheta]

From my limited understanding, black isn't black. The size of particle in the pigment is large hence its tendency to stick in the texture and go gritty. I'm likely wrong but this is my current understanding! I agree with using brown and other non black colours as a base "pop". They're fine and more subtle. Black kills the pop at the expense of exaggeration. 

[Bizman62]

3 hours ago, komodo said:

this piece received nothing

Thanks for telling that! I already feel better!!

[ScottR]

On 11/5/2019 at 7:08 AM, komodo said:

I'd be surprised if the Vik wasn't sprayed - at least the purple and the outer blacks. After reading a bunch last night, this is my plan. I'll wipe the initial sand back layers, then seal with sprayed shellac, grainfill, sealcoat, then tinted lacquers to get the purple/black burst. The seal layer protects in case of a mess up.

Your guitar looks similar to what I'm going after, I think the trick is the first colors and the sand back. To get that lightness in the "valleys' and no blotchiness is tricky. Doing a wash of the alcohol first, and then the alcohol stain mixture can precondition the wood so it doesn't blotch up, I'm still testing this.

I've experimented with this quite a bit over the last few years. If I were going for that blackish purple you showed I would sand to 320 and then wipe on a dye that was brown darkened with burgundy red and blue, which yields a very dark purple (nearly black). I'd sand that back heavily with 220 to the point where pure wood is  creating the light areas and sand on up to 400. Then I'd mix dilute the dye mix about 20% and sand back with 320 and go up to 600 or micromesh 1500. Then I'd dilute it by 40% and sand it back with 400 and go right on through the grits till it is polished and highly chatoyant. Then spray a couple of seal coats on it. Then mix a purple tint into your lacquer and spray that over the whole thing, and go a bit heavier on the edges. Then spray the black burst. It can be done with a gun, but I recommend getting an airbrush, if you are going keep building. It is not much more in cost than a nice portable drill and is super useful, particularly for someone in the graphics field as you are. Then spray your full schedule of clear.

It will look amazing!

BTW, I've found blotching to be a characteristic of a particular piece of wood. It comes from pore angles in the figure that are more open than the surrounding pores in that area of the figure. Those open areas take in more dye and create the blotches.

SR

[komodo]

@ScottR Thanks for that. Spraying the burst should be no issue as  I've got a nice jamb gun. It's exactly like a SATA, I've never tried spraying dyes though. 

The thing that has really been top of mind is getting the really sharp edge on the "binding". Since the body isn't darker wood and I plan on leaving it completely 'white', the top color will wrap over the edge to the depth of binding. To get that sharp edge, my best plan is masking the top and binding area, then spraying sealer (vinyl or shellac) over the back and sides. Then dying the top.

Thoughts and trouble spots in that plan:
Mask the sides again when you dye the top and try to match that same edge?
If shellac is used, it's alcohol soluble and my dyes are alcohol. 
In the Vik example, the face goes opaque at the edge. Having the binding be transparent at the sides would be nice. Do I have it transparent on the sides or also a bit on the top like binding, and still have the opaque burst? Or just mild burst but still transparent. Thinking out loud here.

Still much work to be done. If I can't finish before spray weather is complete crap I'll go mad.

[Bizman62]

Just yesterday I watched Ben Crowe of Crimson Guitars explain once again how they do the faux binding with stains. He said that no matter how good quality tape one uses, the dye will get under the tape somewhere and cause a mess. Masking with some sort of goo is tricky as well. So they simply wrap a piece of paper towel to a wedge type "tool" and use it relatively dry, meaning they press it on the bottle top and shake once. The biggest trick is to apply the dye  from inside out, lifting slightly just at the edge. No masking at all!

Edited November 7, 2019 by Bizman62

[ScottR]

I've got next to nothing on the binding as I don't use it. I've seen a sealer used as you described that appeared to work well and I've seen tape masking used and then the bleed was cleaned with sandpaper.

I have masked the top off from the body before and used electrical tape to good success. It stuck quite well and conformed very well to all my complex curves. It had enough body to be easy to remove as well

That's all I've got.

SR

[Prostheta]

Shellac. Unless your finish will be interfered with by this, sealing the binding with blonde shellac and masking is enough. The low surface tension of dye carriers (alcohol in most cases) wicks under tape very happily. Mask your dye area, apply shellac (reasonably high cut, again because alcohol), remove, mask binding, dye, celebrate success. None of this scaredy cat "light application" nonsense. Sounds like he developed a technique as opposed to knowing how it's been done by professionals since forever. *cough*

Ultimately, it's whatever works for you. If you don't have shellac on hand, applying like a pansy is probably all you can do. 

[Prostheta]

Joking aside, it's worth testing your technique, especially on end grain. Masking with shellac can have a high pucker factor in those areas. My personal choices on this trend towards design; that is, I prefer to add in a black pinstripe between light binding and main areas. It's a cheat.

[komodo]

Holy cow the gloves are off. You guys are great. I’m going to just step quietly out of the room and come back when it’s done.

[Prostheta]

Sorry. Can't pull punches. If you're in a production environment with high throughput, you need techniques that can be relied upon without babying it all the way. This reliance helps at all levels though.

[Prostheta]

Shellac is rarely used in production now though. It's simple enough to acquire and use in spite of this. I'll ask our head painter tomorrow how he would do this. 

[Prostheta]

I asked our painter Kari - who incidentally has done work for Ruokangas Guitars in the past - about this.

Broadly it's two things. Whether the wood is being sealed prior to dye application (I guess you would then call them toner coats) and whether you're spraying.

Sealing with shellac or lacquer takes bleeding through the grain out of the equation, and leaves your masking as the trick to master. Since sealing isn't always an option - especially when accenting the grain with sandback - sealing the binding area is needed. Again, shellac or lacquer.

Since you've got a gun, I'd go straight towards masking off the body area and sealing your binding. Toner coats rather than dyeing straight to the wood result in no loss of chatoyance. You could even do @ScottR's trick of taking the Maple through to a few million grit (remember to raise the grain and knock it back a few times) however you may have issues with lacquer adhesion beyond a certain point.

Choose your battle. You've got the benefit of having several options on the table, whether they be babying the dye in at the edges (easy to lose your wet edge) or simply electing for laying most of the colour on after the first sealer coats. You can of course mix up all of these.

So what speaks to you right now about your finishing schedule?

[komodo]

Tail block work. Ebony is HARD.

[ScottR]

On 11/9/2019 at 7:28 PM, komodo said:

Ebony is HARD.

I've done a little carving on it too.

I came to the same conclusion.

It's worth the work though. It looks great!

SR

[Andyjr1515]

I like that as an ebony feature.  Well worth the hard work

Talking about black stains, I remember a school chemistry lesson being shown paper chromatography (using filter paper dipped one end in water and, say, an inkspot in the middle.  The rising of the moisture separates the individual dyes).

The standard black permanent school ink was black...with a touch of blue...and even more red...and some yellow.

[komodo]

Thanks @ScottR

I was inspired by your carving and needed to finish this somehow.

RE: black dye - you are right Andy, also @ScottRs dye advice had me doing a bunch of dye tests building a dark sandback color using brown red and blue with great success. I’m getting very close to D-day.

Tailpiece more or less done (not sure if I should still do the piercing on it), sanding more or less done (I’m going to round over the carve some as it goes into the horns), two ebony repairs on the back (you can see the problems on page 6 by back of the neck pocket), neck angle and depth is dead on.

Total weight of body, neck and hardware is right at 8lbs and thats without the final neck carve. I’ll finish that after the fretboard is glued on. Fretboard still has work. I’m probably going to spray before the neck is glued in unless someone tells me a great reason not too.

[ZekeB]

On 11/9/2019 at 7:28 PM, komodo said:

Tail block work. Ebony is HARD.

 

 

But man does it look good!  I bet that took some time