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Spalted maple strat project


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Thanks all.

Even though this guitar came out okay, I still made alot of little mistakes. Funny, the more guitars you build, the more you realize that you still have to learn so much....

I'll probably enter this guiitar in the GOTM contest.

ErikBojerik: Yes, I used the superglue method. That works really great

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OK, thanks. I've tried the runny formula on a scrap piece, and some sections of the spalt are so porous that it just soaks up the CA like mad, doesn't actually fill the grain. Was that your experience? Did the clear coat fill the rest of the grain, or did you end up with an open grain to the finish?

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Erik, on spalt, sometimes you need to do 2-3 coats. The first coat will block up the porous parts when it dries. The second and sometimes third coats will start to level your porous sections. :D

Don't expect one runny CA application to do a beautiful pore-fill, it doesn't happen like that.

1) Use goggles and a respirator

2) Do it outside if you can

3) Don't use any accellerator on it

4) Always level-sand with a hard-backed sanding pad (a block of wood) between CA coats. 220 seems to work for me.

5) I've found something flat and plastic works best as an applicator, like a credit card or plastic spatula, but a brush 'will' also work. You want to push it in the pores with the plastic scraper, you're not wiping on a finish coat like with lacquer, you just want to get it down in the pores.

7) You have (usually) about 3 working minutes before it starts drying on you

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Sounds good, thanks Drak. I've got goggles and a gas mask left over from a recent field expedition (I'm a volcanologist by trade) and 3 oz. of Zap-A-Gap CA+ ready to go.

In pondering, it occured to me that the thin CA might be best for a near-natural finish; maybe the gel has a higher solids content and I was afraid it might dry "milky"-looking. So I went with the runny formula.

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CA isn't like other finishes in that the solids that make up the 'gel' also make the finish more milky in appearance.

Actually, if anything, it would work the other way 'round. When CA goes opaque, it's from it absorbing moisture from the atmosphere when it dries, muck like lacquer 'blush'. The thin runny stuff dries the fastest and is the most prone to 'going opaque' on you.

Be sure to do your CA pore-filling when the humidity is low.

So tell us some cool Volcano stories! :D

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