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My Second Build Attempt


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Just in case you ever did... here's my suggestion on how I'd use it :D

I'd do that route deep enough that you only have say 1/4" of body thickness left where you do it. Then cut out a 1/4" maple pieces and fit it in there perfectly, then bind that piece the same way as the top before you glue it in there. Now you're left with a 1/2" platform and a wall of say... 1"+ thickness? Have the jack come out of that wall :D

My $.02

Chris

PS: Route down or not, these are some of the most pleasing guitars I've seen on here in a good while. They are just elegant as elegant can be.

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I was looking at that shot too. For a different reason. I love that tobacco burst exactly as it is. The walnut binding will show up as a lighter different shade of brown. I suppose you could let the top edge of the binding get sanded off and dyed with the top. Then the color break would be at the corner. I've never seen it done, but it could work. Maybe you should bind a test piece to see what whatever you come up with works.

SR

My significant other thinks I should do it that dark too. I'm torn on it. I like the darker edge too but just want the binding I worked so hard on to show nicely.

Oh did I mention that on that sample that if I turn it 180 degrees the dark flame almost completely disappears? I have high hopes for this finish.

Here's the deal. Your walnut is medium brown, almost dead center on the scale of light to dark. The best way to get it to show is by using high contrast. Your choices to do that are either to go light, the extreme of which would be to leave the top natural, or to go very dark, which you have already tested. To my eye the dark is more visually exciting, plus you get that cool flip. This not unlike John's choice with his hands of God inlay. He was torn between a maple fretboard or a dark one feeling like the maple would show off the wood of his scroll work better. He was afraid the contrast would be too low and the darker woods would get lost against a dark background. But he went with the wenge board and of course it looks great. By the same token, your walnut binding will be quite visible against that dark tobacco burst you've created.

SR

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Thats for the input Scott. I think I'm going to do the dark. Here is a minor update.

I started the preliminary staining. As I said I would do I'm documenting all this on video and if it comes out as I plan I'll edit and post the vid. But until then pics will have to do.

My first step was to go over the top with a little bit of distilled water to dampen the wood and give myself a buffer so I could blend a bit. On my samples I just hit the blue one with black and the tobacco one with med brown trans-tints then let dry and sanded back. Because I have a little more surface area I want a little more of a transition on the the flame. So instead of all black I'm attempting to go from dark blue in the center to black towards the edges in hopes that when I sand back and lay down the turquoise in the center that the flames in the center will be somewhat more subtle against the turquoise. Same theory on the tobacco burst. Hope I'm explaining myself coherently.

Here is the blue getting started.

IMG_9390.jpg

I can always go darker so I'm starting off slowly.

Its still pretty damp in this picture but the color is getting a deeper here. I added and blended some black transitioning from the edges as my last step. At this point the wood was started to push getting over saturated so I stopped and moved on to the other guitar. One thing to note here is the way the wood is just kind of blotching up just left and right of center about 2/3rd of the way down. This could be a problem but more on that in a min.

IMG_9391.jpg

Here is the other one after finishing the first stage. Obviously the figuring is much more consistent on this piece.

IMG_0185.jpg

And dry.

IMG_9392.jpg

Ok so back to the trouble spot on the lower left side of the blue one. When I sanded this one back the grain almost disappeared in that spot. Because of the inconsistent figuring in this area I decided to attempt a bit of faux figuring here. I mixed a bit of diluted dye and applied it with a q-tip. After that was dry I took a fan tipped brush and carefully feathered in some grain lines around it with more blue dye.

photo24.jpg

And here it is after that section was lightly sanded over and blended in. The dark blue/black section was still damp. Ignore that part.

photo25.jpg

I realize that this faux figuring wont dance and have the opalescent qualities of the rest of the body figuring but I'm thinking its going to be better than what was there before. We'll see.

Oh and here is the other one sanded back.

photo26.jpg

Until next time.

Edited by sdshirtman
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Blotchiness happens because some parts of the wood are softer than others. The flames in flame maple are actually just spots where the wood is softer. In the pictures above, you have an area where a lot of flame is happening in the same spot. It looks like the flames are running over one another, creating a larger soft spot with no truly hard areas between them. I don't really know how to get around it. I've only read the first half of Bob Flexner's book so far. :D

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I think David has it right. His soft areas being more absorbant than the hard areas by virtue of having open pores. If you picture wood grain being visible by virture or the orientation of open pores and pores being tubes like a straw. Figuring is what you get when those tubes are orienteed in a wave pattern (amongst many others of course). When the wood is milled, those wave top are cut off exposing the pores in varying patterns along with the sides of the tubes at vaying angles which reflect light at varying angles and absorb at varying rates. All these variences create the dark and light dye absorbtion and the flip and chatoyance that makes figuring so cool. The blotches are softer open pored areas. Or at least that's the way I understand it.

Bottom line is bleach won't help or change it. It is literally the way the tree grew.

SR

Edited by ScottR
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Dude. Count yourself lucky! I used a piece of hard curly on the first Marlin and it didn't take stain worth a DAMN! This may look like I don't know how to stain, I assure you I do. This wood just would NOT take it even at all, and some places it did this other strange thing you can't really see in photos. Ended up having to sand it all back off. I ended up leaving the stain in the lows to use as highlight and spraying the actual burst. I don't like the look of sprayed color as much as stain, but sometimes you have to :D

dye2.jpg

Chris

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Dude. Count yourself lucky! I used a piece of hard curly on the first Marlin and it didn't take stain worth a DAMN! This may look like I don't know how to stain, I assure you I do. This wood just would NOT take it even at all, and some places it did this other strange thing you can't really see in photos. Ended up having to sand it all back off. I ended up leaving the stain in the lows to use as highlight and spraying the actual burst. I don't like the look of sprayed color as much as stain, but sometimes you have to :D

Chris

Thats a bummer Chris. Do you have a picture of it after you sprayed the burst? I though about spraying this and if fact would have preferred it but just dont have the resources right now. We all know how fast this hobby can drain a wallet.

Nice observation on the sea floor Scott.

dye2.jpg

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Funky illusion. It wasn't bright at all:

outside5.jpg

Chris

PS: I still have this guitar. No, I'm not inlaying fish into the body hahahah.

Not bright at all! What tints did you used for the colors? That blue is something I may try to attain in a future build.

You're going to nail them on instead? I thought you were far more a craftsman than that, Chris.

He could airbrush them.... :D

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Hello and happy Sunday evening. I'm updating on my porch while babysitting and slow cooking a nice 3 lb tri-tip.

In between imbibing myself into a defcon 5 hangover Friday and a full day of wine tasting in Temecula valley Saturday I managed to lay down some more stain on these two this week.

The tobacco is coming along very nicely with no major problems but the blue one is still giving me fits.

I did a second session on the blue and let it dry.

IMG_0196.jpg

This is just too bright for what I want. Its nice and I could live with it but this is supposed to represent the Aussie flag which is much deeper blue.

I ended up sanding a lot of this session off and hitting it with some more black because I felt the grain still wasn't dark enough.

After that was dry I sanded back again and started session number 3. It almost seems like I'm going in circles here but there is some complexity developing between the turquoise, the blue and the black. I sanded the black back to the edges here (I think).

IMG_0184-1.jpg

So I let that dry and sanded back a bit more in the center and started another session.

This was that result.

IMG_0205.jpg

That damn spot on the left is killing me but I'm going to have to learn to live with it. The customer has seen the progress and is cool with it. He says its probably bothering me more than it is him.

Here It is as of this afternoon with an outside pic. Its a pretty close representation.

IMG_0207.jpg

The faux grain I painted in there seemed to work pretty well considering.

I'm still videoing the process but that means not as many pics. Hopefully the videos make up for it when its done.

I'll get some pics of the brown one up in a bit.

Edited by sdshirtman
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