Stupid Little Side Project (tele).

[alloyguitar]

So, I was bored today and ended up making this:

Then decided that it needed a pirate ship, so, after about 30 minutes with a soldering iron, we had this burned into it:

I picked up some green stain at Lowes today, so I'm probably going to attack it with that.

It's spring break for me, so I have to keep myself occupied somehow. Lol.

[johns]

Arr matey, that be a fine vessel ye have thurr!

[Reinhold]

The pirate ship was completely necessary.

[madhattr88]

i'm anxious to see how you do the green stain.

keep us posted....lots of pics!!!!! thanks!

[pauliemc]

YARRRR ! dis be so awsome i actually died of the fright when i sawd it !! yarrrr !!!!!!

[alloyguitar]

Bahahaha, I actually thought about putting "Arr Matey" In script under the neck pickup. Lol

It was a bitch burning that, though, because the variations in the grain made the soldering iron pretty much go all over the place, but all in all I'm happy.

And as far as staining is concerned, I'm not doing anything special. It's a green water-based stain (called Northern Ivy I think). I wanted to use Tung Oil but googled it and everything said that it had to be an oil based stain for the oil to work, so I ended up purchasing a rub on poly. We'll see what happens.

[Our Souls inc.]

If thats Home depot stain - you'll hide all the artwork before you see any color ............

Edit : Arrrrrgh!

oh and maybe you could draw some inspiration from this :

[alloyguitar]

Holy crap that's awesome. I actually thought about doing a map, but didn't want to spend that kinda time on it. lol.

[alloyguitar]

...and it's actually lowes stain. I applied the first coat today and am pretty disappointed with it, but oh well, I'll live. Hopefully I can save it.

Here's a few photos:

I decided that I wanted a bit more of a bevel on the lower horn (not that it'd really do anything with a 24 fret neck, but whatever), so I pulled out a precision guitar-building tool...

...an angle grinder.

and on the back to fit my side a bit better:

And here they are after a few minutes of sanding:

Then i rubbed a bit of water on it to get the grain to rise:

I should have left it alone here, but my dumbass decided that I wanted a green tele/esquire thing.

That's after the first coat of stain, but before rubbing off the excess. Hopefully after I sand off the taller grains and add another coat it won't look as bad. I'm pretty much planning on going over the whole thing with a soldering iron again.

Ya win some. Ya lose some.

[Our Souls inc.]

That aint lost.

I'd leave the "ocean" color around the ship to make it look like its in the water.... maybe use a mahogany stain to do the bottom ala "land" and then re-burn your graphics to bring em back out. Maybe even relic the finish like an old ship board look or something.

It aint over till the round lady sings.

lookin again , that nice strip of dark wood looks like the horizon - roll with it.

[alloyguitar]

I like that concept. A Lot.

Right now I'm just sitting around and waiting for it to dry to asses the damage and what I can do to fix it. Reburning and probably relicing (sp?) are both definitely going to happen.

As far as the land, if I apply a darker color directly over the top of this, will it look right? I usually paint things, not stain them, so I'm new to this game.

Edited March 10, 2010 by alloyguitar

[Our Souls inc.]

I'd sand off the bottom portion ( that stain aint that deep ) and maybe inside the sails. Try doing anothe coat of the green just around the ship ... maybe do some white inside the sails ... or even black like the Black Pearl . Arrrgh. You could stain some of the bottom spots darker brown , leave some lighter , like sand along the "shore" and then clear it all in once you're done.

Take that side-project and make it rock!

Edit:

the grains even look like waves in the ocean ......

[alloyguitar]

After sanding. I've decided that I'm just going to leave it green and reburn the stuff into it, since I don't have any other water-based stains laying around.

[CainMD]

I like the way it is now with the dye. It makes it look waves

[alloyguitar]

Yeah, it's starting to grow on me as well. When I purchased the stain, it was a tossup between Green or Blue. I flipped a coin, and the coin said green.

...had I known that I was going to do the pirate thing I would have picked blue. Oh well. It's still neat none-the-less.

[PunkRockerLuke]

I deem this worthy of someone emailing to the people at MLIA

And that ship is sweet looking. Overall a really nice lookin guitar

Edited March 10, 2010 by PunkRockerLuke

[alloyguitar]

...what's MLIA?

Anywho, I reburned it, and rubbed some acrylic paint all over it, then rubbed it off. It gives in a distressed look and left the paint in the burns, which helped them show up a lot.

[PunkRockerLuke]

My Life Is Average. In actuality everything on it is un-average. Such as this guitar.

[alloyguitar]

Lol, well that's the beauty of it, isn't it?

[alloyguitar]

Mental Note:

Next time, I should triple check to make sure the neck pocket/bridge location is absolutely straight. The High E string hangs off the fretboard slightly...

..plus the neck in general is just too high. I had to space the bridge up to make it playable.

Oh well, it was entertaining and looks cool on the wall.

[Our Souls inc.]

entertaining and looks good on the wall ?!?!?!?!?!?!?

If I was keeping it as art , I would've definitely made the front more of a "painting" lol ....

or at least reposition the neck so its right for playing .

[alloyguitar]

Well, It's not THAT far off. It's playable.

I'm learning as I play it, though, that I shouldn't have angled the pickup as much, as it barely picks up the high E string. I'll try and post a sound clip of it later.

[Tim37]

the neck should be pretty easy to relocate loosen the screws and see if you can pull it straight if not then just a little sand paper and time on the body to get it right.

also a pickgaurd (something that looks as unique as the guitar) to straghten up the humbucker and your ready to go.

[alloyguitar]

I thought about taking some copper or something and putting CLR on it (makes it look like hell) for a pickguard, but I might save that idea for my next one. After looking at it, I think I'm going to have to move the bridge somehow (haven't figured that out, yet), because I tried to set the intonation today and it's just not going to happen.