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And want to do me a favor? Chris

Well after curing its no longer dye. It's now a solid hunk of plastic of a certain color filling up the voids in the wood's cellular structure. It also doesn't re-melt upon re-heating. So there's is nothing to 'move.' Only solid structures locked in place. Chris

What do you mean remobilized? As in, next color/cure session will it move at all? No. Once color is cured with heat it's locked into those cells/figure sections. If that area didn't fully saturate the color may change a bit. For example let's say a cluster of fibers absorbed 50% of what they're able to of blue. Then I come in and do a vacuum with yellow where it sucks up the other 50%. Apparently it's possible to then get green where there was once blue. I haven't seen much of that though. I've mainly seen things: it either colors that area or it doesn't. Chris

Here's an interesting pic. This is a billet I decided to resaw halfway through the process. I wanted to see what soaking different colors along different areas would look like. I did just that and this is the view from the outside: As you can see though, the capillary action pulled less than you'd think into the center. I did this color in stages. Blue red and purple were soaked into the billet at the same time; from each side one after the other. A couple applications, let it drink up, repeat. That was cured and then it was soaked in green over night for a second round of soaked color. Now that I've seen the result that section-specific soaking can give I may leave this as-is; partially stabilized. Or maybe I'll do a vacuum pull on it to liven up all that plain box elder Burl? Chris

Way too much coloring on that maple to call is 5A. 5A should be dammed white. Chris

Note to everyone: anything you see on this thread is for sale. PM if interested in pricing. Need to recoup some of this tool investment! Chris

Here is the latest top. Decent amount to talk about with this one. Given I was having issues with bowing after I resaw the billets, and was only doing like 1/8" tops at this point, I figured I should use some "lesser wood" to test how this process would go with 1/4" tops. So I used some sorta-burly wood I got for really cheap at a local recycling lumber yard. Also, being a fairly solid piece of wood, instead of punky like buckeye or spalt, I went back to the old "give both baths some vacuum" tactic. This piece got a 20 minute vacuum cycle in purple, followed by a 12-hour vacuum cycle in red. Sure enough, when I went to resaw it, it bowed along the lengths, the centers going out and away from the blade; big and bad. There was probably 1"+ separating the boards in the center when held together. However, after weighting them flat for a couple weeks they are flat as can be and I see no issues with using them, the bow returning, etc. I'm starting to think the plasticization that takes place really does do some wonders in terms of being able to control the wood. This is also another great example of how you really need to use a lot of red dye in your cactus juice unless you want pink, like I got. After these trials I'll likely start doing a 2oz/gallon mix for red. Chris

Well once I figure this warping issue out I've got my next piece to stabilize!!! Got this huge (5.25" thick hahaha) box elder burl for a steal from Turnright Specialties (@turnright78) on facebook. Was super helpful. Mostly deals with turners but went above and beyond to let me give him my template so he could find a piece that worked for my shapes! Can't wait to see how colors react in this! Chris

But it always seems to bow in this ONE direction here. And the same boards, when resawn otherwise (like into top billets) didn't move... it's something with the process that's doing this. Chris

Hmmm... so the biggest issue I seem to be running into with large pieces is warping! Quite frustrating! They seem to want to warp at two times: 1- they like bowing, along the length, up and away from the oven coil at the bottom when doing the initial drying. This makes me think I should weight them down when drying and/or wrap them in foil to make the heating more even. Some folks say air flow helps but I'm not buying yet another oven ? 2- They love to warp, again bowing along the length, once resawn. The billet may be perfectly flat but the second it comes off the saw the centers of the board act like they're magnet and fly away from one another. I'm thinking perhaps the answer here is to resaw first and then stabilize? If I can keep them flat in the oven I think this may be the winning solution. Side note: I find it really strange that these boards like bowing along the length. That's pretty much the least common type of warping you see naturally. I can't help wonder what's driving this? This also makes me scared to map tops thicker than the 1/8" ones I have been so far. Those seem to calm down a bit once stickered flat awhile. I have one 1/4" top under weight right now but I'm leery of success. Chris

No clue yet lol I plan to use epoxy only until I get time to run tests with titebond. Chris

Not sure I follow. I generally am not doing any sanding of the surfaces prior to the first soak (I'm going to have to sand them before the vacuum soak anyways, so why waste thickness). Chris

I resawed open some of the billets I posted above and it's interesting to see how different some are on the inside. The one that was supposed to be blue, but took on a more green tone really opened up to the idea of blue on the inside! Also, you can really tell I did a clear-juice-soak first as well: The other one where I did some black-soak work before a purple and hreen mix also came alive a bit more inside... less deadened by the black: Fun stuff. Got some maple burl in the mail yesterday. Looking forward to messing with that. Chris

Here's that "the first place I'll be using the stuff" reference I made above: I put this body blank together awhile ago so it's ready and waiting when the new batch starts later this summer. Chris

Alpher instruments (with the help of Californiawoods.com) sure did! heres the clear/red experiment: I'm thinking I need to add more dye so my colors are richer. The blue was more green, the red was more pink. I like the results, but they weren't what I expected. I'm also tempted to think that over use my blue has gotten less blue (see earlier examples, same tub of juice). Wonder if that happens? Or maybe the piece I chose was just something that wanted to mess with the blue? Oh well, experimentation! Next time I buy I'm gunna really saturate my blue and see how that works out. Ive definitely learned (from pen blanks I'm doing at the same time for more tests) that you REALLY gotta beef up the black juice! Chris

Well here we go. Here's the clear/blue (yes blue... no idea why it looks green) result: Chris

I will be using my first piece on a build in the next batch. It will only best a detail section about 3"x4" but will use that really crazy non-top piece of burl from earlier. Once I get a feel for it in this small use I'll probably be bolded to use one of my full tops. I plan to build with them just like any other top material... or just stock-pile like I'm want to do hahaha. I have a giant poplar burl I'm drying that... 2 years from now... will be screaming for stabilization. Chris

The two I'm doing this weekend should be pretty fun too. Two more buckeye burl billets. So far I've soaked both in just clear cactus juice... but I didn't have enough so I actually came back a few hours later and the 'bath' was bone dry as they'd absorbed everything... so it's tough to know just how this will work this time! Basically I put both on top of each other in the tub and filled it to say... 1/16"-1/8" above the wood's surface. Plan is then to vacuum one in red and the other in, probably, purple. I want to see how the colors react with the "clear" stabilized areas. Chris

I also meant to post these as they've been done for a good long while... this one sat with its inside edge in a black bath of like 1.5" deep for about 8 hours. The capillary action really wicked the black up far. Second bath with vacuum for 8 hours was green. Not sure I like the darkness the black gave on this one very much. Next one is probably my favorite so far! 8 hour bath in purple. Second bath with 8 hours of vacuum was red. As per current process, both initial baths were purely soaking baths, no vacuum, and obviously the color of the first bath was cured and sanded prior to the second. Pics are of both faces. Best, Chris

Quick note about the last post: thought I already posted this but all cupping along length went away with no effort when snickered for a day. Maybe another benefit of the plasticized nature of the finished product? Chris

Thanks for chiming in @demonx, late to the party is still making the party. I've been playing around with this a bit myself; both on scraps and on guitars. Flat surfaces that are wide and expansive are easy (read tops/backs) so I'll just skip those. Where my concerns always are is sides (read narrow surface you still want flat), especially concave sections, end grain, and complex surfaces like fretboards and necks. I've found out two things recently about end grain concave side sections like the butt of a guitar. My god a random orbital makes fast work of those areas! But for the love of god don't use one if you have binding as you're asking for those sections to be visually thinner than places where you didn't use an RO (see below about concave sections), especially plastic, and don't use one after you've done your roundovers... do those after the side geometry has been sanded up through 120. Which leads me to my grip still: End grain side sections where you do have binding are still a pain in the butt. I've never used lower than 120P on almost anything... but in order to level binding after install you sort of have to start there no matter. Which leaves a TON of work still IMO with 220 (I have no idea how you go 120 to 320). Getting out the 120 scrapes that run parallel to the side takes me forever in end grain. For all this I'm using a cork-backed plywood block for those that care. One thing I've also noticed myself wishing is that I owned an RO with a diameter close to the side height... like 3" instead of the standard 5". I feel like it'd balance better and have less risk of tilting over and screwing something up. I also learned long ago not to use electric sanders like ROs on concave surfaces... you're just asking for unevenness, faceting, etc. If you want an unsmooth concave side section go at it with an RO (even with just 220 or 320 IMO). So this leaves ALL concave surface work to cork-backed sanding blocks. This is especially frustrating in sections around the neck pocket as they are both concave and end grain (where I'd prefer to be using an RO). So those places take forever. Necks I've never found a good way to use an RO... Maybe that's just me. Finally, 320 grit! This is a fast one and I've come to agree that your hands, even with the thinner 3M gold stuff, are fine. Once you've gotten up to that grit, and if you're correctly sanded the other grits, you're not doing enough sanding to risk making things uneven or any of that stuff. I've found this knowledge especially helpful when it comes to sanding fretboards! Even diligently going up through the grits diligently I was finding I'd be left with scraps parallel to the string path because there's NO random variation in the path of a radius block! You're keeping that thing centered as can be to not screw up your radius and so it does the exact same path every time. If you are level at 220, I'm safe to go by hand from 320 up. I just said "screw it" one day and tried it and found the frets were just as level with much less frustration. I had a similar issue with end grain sides as fretboards as the motion had very little randomness to it as well... hand sanding the sides at 320 also helped me here. Lastly, I've found that naphtha is my best friend. There are some woods that will still be visibly "line-y" even at 320 (like this one Honduran mahogany body I did). Throwing some naphtha on it made it very clear, very fast, that none of that would show up with finish on the instrument. The minute there was any solvent, and then later finish, you couldn't see any of what you were seeing dry. Naphtha is like scrap highlighter (just like finish is... but I'd prefer not find scraps at that stage especially seeing as I outsource my finish work now haha). As dull as it may be... I'd pay money to watch a professional sand a guitar (even if that video was hours long) if they just talked through what they thought and saw as they went. Chris

So I've never been 100% happy with the various methods for drilling side dots to ensure they all line up nicely. Probably the easiest way is to set a fence up and use the back of the fretboard against it on the drill press. But what if you're doing dots that cross the fretboard/neck boundary? Also, I generally finalize my radius after gluing the board to the neck.... so what happens if I have to sand down a bit and the dots are no longer centered? What if I forget and have to do them later simply by mistake? I've seen a number of jigs I liked in principal... but they all had some short comings. Probably the closest I've found to liking was the acrylic one I saw that had the dots in a row all spaced out and some clamping jig that allowed you to line your neck up with it. Probably makes amazingly straight side dots but it was a larger jig that took some serious time to make! Also, each scale had to have an acrylic template! For each dot size! And acrylic will wear out with use so you likely have to make new templates every handful of guitars! Seemed wasteful to me... but the concept was sound! So I made this. I have a template for each sized dot I want to use. Since they don't use much acrylic it doesn't matter if I wear one out with use... it's cheap to make another! It allows me to adjust the height of the dots to exactly my liking; even on a radiused board already attached to the neck! Finally, notice the little lip that is used to register onto the top of the fingerboard for the height. It's very thin. This is so that it's registering ONLY at the very edge of the board and therefore the jig is radius-agnostic. I basically use it as follows: 1- Adjust height of jig hole to preference being sure to check both 3rd and last-dotted fret since a drastic radius will have slight thickness changes due to the neck taper. 2- Put some tape on the bit to mark desired depth of dot holes. 3- Use standard "draw an X between the frets" technique to find the horizontal center for the dot. 4- Place jig over center of X and drill, allowing jig to determine the vertical center of the dot. 5- Glue in dots. Chris

I've got my money on knowing why it happened. Here's what I did. 1- Pulled it out of the oven... got really excited 2- Went straight to the sander to level the faces (more heat) 3- Went straight to the resaw and cut it down the center thus releasing the inner core to the cold in a rather quick and drastic fashion I'm sure I could avoid any and all non-permanent warping by simply adding some patience hahaha. Chris

Forgot to mention this, but 24 hours under weight and they went, and stayed, perfectly flat again. Perhaps that's a benefit of their plasticity? Chris

No one else? I figured with how much people hate sanding that there'd be some real time saver nuggets out there. Chris