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I tried the clamp sandwich and although it was MUCH better, it still wasn't perfect. I got one little spot on a blank that still had 'dye weep.' Granted, it was a part I was able to cut out on this over-sized blank so YAY! No losses there. However, this was enough to make me experiment further. Someone had said that, if I'm doing things right, the only time I should be afraid of warp is when I'm in the initial dry phases. If the blanks, after being dried, stay away from moisture then I should be fine in later stages without clamps/weights. I'm defining "away from moisture" as ONLY in the ziplock bags long enough for them to cool down, and at all other times either fully submerged in resin, or in the oven again. With that in mind my process now looks like the below. I'm 3 blanks in with this process without a single hint of failure: 1- Use the sandwich-with-clamps method ONLY in the initial drying phase. Dry for minimum 48 hours, usually 60. Generally around 220-250 degrees 2- Cool in airtight ziplock bags only as long a necessary 3- Do standard soak or short-vac cycle 4- Cure standing upright on edge in oven for 8 hours at recommended temp (I use a C-clamp near a corner to ensure it stays standing up) 5- Do standard full vacuum cycle 6- Again cure 8 hours standing on edge It seems that for the cure cycles there's still some negative consequences in using the sandwich. Maybe there wouldn't be in a better oven (convection maybe?), but for me that seemed to be part of the issue. I'm thinking that without adequate airflow through the sandwich it was hindering the blanks' ability to get fully up to temp... even with 8 hour cures. That or maybe the sandwich didn't allow for even distribution of heat and so some areas didn't stay at-temp long enough to perfect the cure (which I believe is 185 degrees for at least 10 minutes where there temp CANNOT fall back below 185). So far this seems to be the best process. If that remains true this may be the final post. If not... I'll be back hahaha. Chris

Number 1 piece of advice: not all DXF/PDF plans found online can be trusted. Whenever I'm using them I always find myself having to mod/fix them. This isn't a big deal if you're not worried about aftermarket parts being compatible... but if you're doing templates for Fender-style guitars this becomes a big deal. Before selling I'd buy parts to make sure that they actually work with whatever you're cutting out. My $0.02, Chris

I bought the Black 2.0 and painted in my Chevy symbols on my truck with it. It's black alright... but it's not AS black as the videos, etc. make it out to be. Also, I talked to Stuart and if it's used in a high-rub situation (like a guitar) you have to clear-coat it for protective purposes... and there are REALLY matte clears available... but any of them are going to alter the Black 2.0 even more so that it's less flat. FYI, Chris

What do you mean by "replace" middle pickup? As in, take it out and put in aluminum honeycomb... done? If so it'll do nothing... besides look like aluminum honeycomb. It's not a pickup, magnetic, etc. Chris

What do you mean by "replace" middle pickup? As in, take it out and put in aluminum honeycomb... done? If so it'll do nothing... besides look like aluminum honeycomb. It's not a pickup, magnetic, etc. Chris

Ok, I’m retracting point #1 above. I no longer think the issue was due concentration as I’ve now seen the exact issue happening with much lower concentrations of dye (1.33oz/gallon). I’ll explain what I’m seeing and what I now believe is happening: I would see cured resin on the surface and foil after a few hours in the oven at the right temps and therefore pull it out under the manufacturer’s statement that the resin either cures or it doesn’t. Since I was seeing hardened resin it must be done curing then. It troubled me a bit that a decent amount of color would come off on my gloves though. I’d then go sand the piece and it’d look great... for a few minutes. At which point I would start to see dark pinpoints appear in the pores... these would grow, and then depending on how severe the issue they might even spread to connect with one another to darken the surface in areas. Same would happen when I’d resaw the pieces. A couple things that I found improved the situation with varying degrees of success: 1- vacuum cycle the piece again in another color or clear and cure. This worked well for some lesser cases. I also then re-tested that juice’s curing ability on pen blanks and it didn’t appear to negatively affect the juice. 2- washing the blanks thoroughly in water and then weighting and stickering them. This was a great learning experience for two reasons: firstly you could watch color come off these failed blanks so it really highlighted the issue well, and secondly this also taught me that a little water, weight, and time was all that’s needed to fix any warped pieces. Like I said above, it’s still wood! This washing process has an extremely high success rate! But even though I have backup plans... it doesn’t mean I don’t want to get to the bottom of the issue! I was glad I had been taking absolutely minutiae-level detailed notes as I started noticing colder days, shorter cure cycles MAY be a factor... which would imply that this is a partial-cure issue... which apparently can’t happen. I now no longer believe that. I fully believe this is a partial-cure issue where the majority of the resin cures but some is left liquid that later seeps out. I might be wrong, but that’s my current thinking. Someone suggested to me that my 55lbs of steel weights may be acting as a heat sink and causing my wood not to get as hot, as quickly, as the rest of my oven. So as always I went about making experiments to test the theory! Why I didn’t think of this before is beyond me and I’m embarrassed... but I got rid of the weights and simply used C clamps to clamp my plywood-and-stickers sandwich to keep everything flat and deter warping. DUH!!! I also placed my digital thermometer’s probe inside this sandwich against the billet’s surface (instead of just out in the oven), and then sat there watching in the cold. Results: My thermometer doesn’t even read out anything under freezing... the oven dinged that it hit 200 degrees right as the probe first started registering! After an hour sitting there the probe was only reading about 140! It took 1:10 to finally reach the required 185 degrees to start curing... and that was only the surface of the wood! I can now easily imagine how 2.5, up to even 4, hours might not have been enough time to fully heat to the core of the wood with 55lbs of heat sink steel involved! I ended up keeping it in the oven at 200 for 5 hours and then a 3-hour blast at 250 for extra safety; which brings me too another point, I’m also not convinced that higher temps ‘drive out more of the resin during curing’ like the directions say it will, especially if it’s already had time to harden by the time you do your safety heat-blast. In the end this billet it looking great! There were almost no fumes coming from the oven exhaust when I was done (gunna watch more for that now as a potential indicator), almost no color came off on my gloves, the clamps kept everything nice and flat, and after sanding the surfaces and waiting over night I’m not seeing any weep issues! I know this is a sample of 1, and I haven’t resawn it yet, but I’m feeling pretty good about the result! As always I’ll be back to be verbose as I learn more, Chris

Pretty cool build. I'm an offset fan so this is up my alley. But from a deisgn perspective I'd recommend a few things to explore: 1- Your treble-side horn does not fit the rest of the body, I'd look at a re-design there 2- Your pickguard on the upper horn doesn't keep equidistant from the edge near the nec (which can sometimes work, but it doesn't here). My guess is because you're trying to maintain the "curve" visually coming in from the pickguard on the bass side. GREAT design decision... but the recommendation I'd make is to (like point #1) modify the horn so that you both maintain that line as well as keep equidistant. 3- There's an almost "flat section" at the very tail-end of the pickguard. I'd suggest rounding that out more elegantly in either a CAD program, or if by or utilize a French curve. Keep up the fun! Chris

Many ways: set on ortho, or grid snap, or hold shift while rotating. Chris

If you have Rhino why are you still using Fretfind2D...? Here's how I do multi-scales in Rhino: 1- Go to the stewmac site and use their fret calculator to find the distances for some common scale length (25, 25.5, whatever) 2- Plot those out on a line with dots for each fret and the bridge location 3- You can now use the "Scale" command to make any scale length you want by changing the scale between the nut point and the bridge point 4- For a multi-scale draw a line to your desired width for the perpendicular fret's string width (not fretboard width) 5- Draw lines at your nut for desired string spacing at nut 6- Place your two desired scales at the ends of your perpendicular-fret line 7- Use the rotate command to rotate each scale around the point where it hits the perpendicular-fret-line and rotate it until the nut-end is in the desired place 8- Finish drawing your fretboard Chris

Ok, so with more experimentation I’ve learned some important things about the process; including ones about warping! Yay! 1- You CAN add too much dye. 3oz alumilite purple in one gallon CJ was too much. Apparently chemically you CAN go up to 4oz and it’ll still cure... but I found at 3oz it wasn’t mixing with all the dye and thus I had, as far as I can tell, free floating dye in the mix. I’ll be sticking to 2oz or less per gallon moving forward. 2- Stabilization is a bit of a misnomer! To someone like me that implies dimensional stability... wrong. Not sure how to articulate this but I’ll try: the stabilization process stabilized on a micro-scale, NOT a macro scale. So in the end you may have saturated cells with acrylic but that does not mean it’s not going to behave like wood still. And burl being burl it will move. Dimensional stability is NOT the outcome of the stabilization process, especially in very large pieces made from wonky material. But what that does mean, since it still behaves like wood, is that you can indeed wet it, weight-and-sticker it, and let it dry flat. Best, Chris

This thread didn’t seem to have a perfect place... but since it’s about process and materials this section seemed least-wrong. If you were to go about making a veneered pickguard what materials would you use to minimize things like warping? My first inclination would be to use epoxy as the glue and to veneer it onto standard pickguard material, roughed up to enhance adhesion, To complicate the question: what if this ‘pickguard’ were to only ever be seen from the front, never the back or even sides? Would that change you selection of substrate? Would you then pick, say, a thin 3-ply plywood? Would you use wood glue instead of epoxy? Would you sand off one ply face and replace it with the veneer to ensure you kept the odd-number-of-plys, with alternating grain directions, rule going? I’m brewing an idea and getting thin, stable, veneered panels will be key... Chris

I could have sworn I saw a video somewhere where, using a stretchy fabric, they were able to do this in a vacuum bag setup. Chris

I’ve started using Odie’s oil but I’ve only tried one application technique. Let’s hear the process ya’ll use. Application style? Buff by hand or machine? Etc I know you’ll have input @KnightroExpress Chris

All I have (only ever used two sheets) was some crazy figured veneer. Next carved-top veneered instrument I may use it again. Chris

There's a new company that's making composites that look remarkably like nicely quartersawn, stripy rosewood. Haven't used them, but aesthetically they are very pleasing: http://www.rocklite.co.uk/ Chris

Ken Parker loves it for his archtop's neck cores surrounded by carbon fiber cloth and then veneered with something pretty. Chris

Update: I added the pics above... seems iPhones do hold them as jpegs... not sure why it won't work. Had to transfer them to my computer and then upload them. What a PITA. Chris

Ugh! WTH?! Why does PG suddenly have issues uploading photos directly from the iPhone??? Can the powers that be extend the allowed file extensions to include more image types? I’m getting errors about that every time I try to add pics via mobile. Chris

So it’s been awhile since I’ve goven some updates here. I’ve been keeping up with the process and been trying different things. One new thing I’ve learned is that the wood (think both species as well as figure type) highly affects the process. I’ll give you an example. That really densely eyed box elder you’ve seen a lot of pics of? Well it really seems to enjoy having short vacuum pulls of initial color (something I dismissed in earlier trials on buckeye burl) as opposed to long soaks. Here’s a great example where it had a 15-minute Edge-only vacuum of read (with usual 2x vacuum length soak), cured, then same with whole billet in purple, cured, sanded, then full multi-hour vacuum in final blue color. As you can see, all 3 colors are extremely well represented: Meanwhile, I then did a similar two-color process on some maple burl (less dense eyes) where green was my 15-minute vacuum pull and blue was my main... and as you can see the green is just incredibly overwhelming the blue! Still I nice look, but I would have never guessed, after working that box elder, that this maple burl would take so much green up in such a short time! So yeah... it’ll be interesting to see if that trend holds true for other maple vs. box elder burl billets? As a side note: I’m still dealing with warping issues at the time of resaw... very frustrating! Still no definitive answers. If I find a pattern around which do vs which don’t I’ll be sure to post it here. Best, Chris

Not to mention that he buys his burls, and likely resins, in massive bulk so his material costs are likely much lower as well. Chris

It is intensive... I still think $600 is way off board though. But that's just me... Chris

Ah, yes, I was on a business page. May be different for personal ones. Actually have a buddy at facebook and contacted him about it at the time and they highly discourage this "share to win" activity. Chris

Note from someone who's done a contest on Facebook before: you will be able to see that people shared it. But you won't be able to see WHO shared it unless you're friends with them. Facebook are jerks like that. So most of your entrants you won't even know their name to put them in a hat. Instagram is a much better medium for stuff like this. Chris

Images fixed. Thanks a lot photobucket for giving me that extra work... Chris

I was in a rush this morning and agree that that picture isn't the best. I'll take a better one later. It's more vibrant than it looks here. I do love how the spalted rear area really drank up the black in a drastic way yet stopped just as drastically where the spalt ended. Should make for some cool aesthetic. Chris