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Spalted Maple


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Here's a pic of the spalted maple I got from sandy1070 on E-Bay. I'm happy with it - think it needs to be a Tele. The guy at my wood store recommended vinyl sanding sealer or CA glue to stabilize it. I've used CA before, but not the vinyl sealer. Anydody used it? What would youy suggest? Would you use it before starting to shape / cut the body or would you use it when you would normally use a filler or sealer?

Thanks

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I'm relatively (almost positively) certain that CA will seep in and enhance the grain better than the vinyl sealer will.

Both might be good for giving you a flat surface and filling pores, but I think the CA will enhance grain better.It's what I used to grain-enhance and pore-fill my figured Koa guitar, and it did a fantastic job with the grain.

I'm binding it with Pearl binding strips right now actually. :D

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  • 2 weeks later...

Pics of the spalted maple. The bottom is mahogany. It is also my first attempt at binding. I'll give it about a C+. It has CA on it that I need to level out and clean up a bit before the lacquer. The wood was not as bad to work with as I had heard - but it is touchy to rout, chipped out a couple of little spots doing the binding rout even using the Stew Mac Dremel attachment.

Sealed2.JPG

Sealed1.JPG

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Drak, the CA went on fine. I followed the directions you gave me in an e-mail you sent me on August 19 last year. Keep that one in my finishing book. It seems to be particularly effective on the spalted maple - fills the little holes and indentations and levels out great. I need to use another coat or two and level it all out. It brings out the mahogany nicely. One thing I like about it is that you can be a little more agressive when leveling than with grain filler.

As usual, your koa is incredible.

The crotch monster is coming along nicely - I've got about 3 coats of lacquer on it but it has been rainy, damp for a few days so I'm waiting.

Incidentally, the wife and I have decided to move to Oregon so I can maybe get some of that wood you always seem to find. :D

asm, it is just 2" thick, however, the mahogany is pretty heavily chambered so it weighs less than 5 lbs.

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