Walnut Tele

[zyonsdream]

First off, I have to say that I love Walnut and it's the most forgiving wood you'll find. It makes an excellent first build! I also like it with blond and to me i like it over crotch walnut.

Since this sort of turned into a Tele show off thread I'd like to show a walnut one.

Bookmatched black walnut finished in Nitro. Seymour Duncan's with a baby grand bridge. Notice my placement of the pickup selection switch. I like them up there! Two coil taps and one kill switch.

http://www.zdguitars.com/moho1.html

[WAK Guitars]

I've never been a tele kind of person, but with the teles going on in this forum I have a felling that will change! These are really nice! Great job.

[mattharris75]

First off, I have to say that I love Walnut and it's the most forgiving wood you'll find. It makes an excellent first build! I also like it with blond and to me i like it over crotch walnut.

Since this sort of turned into a Tele show off thread I'd like to show a walnut one.

Bookmatched black walnut finished in Nitro. Seymour Duncan's with a baby grand bridge. Notice my placement of the pickup selection switch. I like them up there! Two coil taps and one kill switch.

http://www.zdguitars.com/moho1.html

Sweet looking tele! What did you use for grainfiller with the walnut? That finish is what i'm looking to achieve on my first build. And if you like the lighter streaks in walnut, check out my build thread: Matt's First Build

[zyonsdream]

I don't usually use grain filler at all with walnut. You canget a really good finish with walnut so it really isn't necessary. I just use nitro to build up. I did give it a coat of minwax natural stain before I finished it. It made it a very mild amount darker. This was a premo piece of Walnut if you ask me.

This one however had a ton of filler in it. The top is Wenge. I sanded it to 300 grit and then covered the whole top with light oak filler. Once it dried, I sanded it all back to the wenge. Wenge takes a tone of filler into the grain and to add to that it took a ton of nitro to get everything looking flat.

Oh, and then I stained everything green before filling it. It made the wenge really dark and made the oka filler pop like crazy.

I like the walnut you are using Matt. However, it isn't black walnut so you'll likely not be able to get the same tone. It all most look Peruvian to me.

Edited June 29, 2007 by zyonsdream

[mattharris75]

I like the walnut you are using Matt. However, it isn't black walnut so you'll likely not be able to get the same tone. It all most look Peruvian to me.

I believe one of the big visual differences in peruvian and american walnut is the fact that the sapwood of peruvian walnut is not cream colored, which mine definitely is. I don't know for certain that it is black walnut, but if you look at the back of the guitar blank you see it looking much more like typical black walnut I think. It certainly looks like the black walnut in the pictures i've seen. (Like on www.hobbithouseinc.com, which has a ton of pics of it)

Edited June 29, 2007 by mattharris75

[zyonsdream]

It just seems light colored for Black Walnut but it could very well be my monitor. Regardless, there is some nice grain and that sap wood will get a bit golden over time and will really look nice. I love walnut! Every guitar could be built out of it if you ask me.

[mattharris75]

yeah, it does look light colored, particularly on the front, but honestly I think it's partly my camera. Also, when it's been wet down with naptha it looks like textbook black walnut with plenty of nice sapwood. I agree that walnut is beautiful, but i'm glad everyone doesn't use it, otherwise our walnut projects wouldn't be as unique and cool as they are!