Doc

I've got a friend that uses a ton of this stuff. His name is Arlin Liss and he has a website. He builds outrageous humidors. Big bucks, superb craftsmanship. Google Liss, cigar humidors. He probably can tell you everything you ever wanted to know about the stuff. The stuff isn't as hard as Honduras but it is not as soft as fir or such. Some of it has phenominal grain. I've seen a lot of quilted figure. If I was going to use it for a guitar I'd probably use it as a face cap. Get a chunk and tap on it and see what it sounds like. The thick stuff just costs too much to use around here. Don't even want to think what 8/4 figured sapele over 12" wide would go for in Virginia.

It's sort of obvious that you have never had a job where you built anything for a living. You're paying for shop rent, heat, electricity, the truck to go to the lumber yard, taxes, insurance, taxes, more insurance, tools, the dumpster out back, bandaids, peroxide, sandpaper......... My small shop has about a year's salary in tools in it. Oh, yeah. I have about thirty or so years of experience. They don't sell that online. Einstein proved that time is money. I bill my shop time at $60 an hour and I don't get to keep all that much of it by the time I address all of the above items.

I like not sending stuff to the dump. The only thing is that you won't find a lot of grain pattern in most kitchen doors. Check with some kitchen cabinet builders. If no one there builds furniture on the side they sometimes have odd sraps with a lot of figure that they'll sell for lunch or beer money. White oak tht old shoud be great. The pores in it are almost solid so it doesn't suck up finish. It should also be completely stable. You may not need to cap it. Some of that stuff has a great grain if it's quarter sawn. I've used an old finisher's trick on oak. The tannin in it will react with ammonia fumes and turn the wood a really great warm brown color. I build a tent from plastic outside, put whatever I'm fumong in it, and put a bowl of ammonia on a hot plate inside. It would probably take a day or so to do a guitar. You have to check it every hour or so and ammonia fumes are nasty. You absolutely have to wear a mask and goggles that seal. The first time I saw this trick they did the whole inside of a restaurant,. I was the new guy so I got the job of going in to check the color.

I like Deft. The spray cans do a good job. It's a type of nitrocellulsoe lacquer. It holds up well. It sounds good (to my ear) on acoustics. I've got an olf Epiphome that I redid in '75 with it and it looks and sounds great. The stuff is a little soft as far as lacquers go, but its easy to rub out. Vinyl sealer is weird stuff. It does build fast, and there are times when it will seal stuff that nothing else will, but I've also had jobs go to hell in a handbasket and the sealer seaemed to be the culprit. Lowe's sells the rattlecans of Deft. Also their sanding sealer. Don't use the quart can stuff over anything but stain. It is a brushing grade lacquer and the slow dry solvents will pull a lot of sealers.

The 3M masks aer great. They will filter out almost anything that you will encounter doing this work Remember one thing though, and that is that these masks do not supply oxygen. They just filter out the bad stuff. You still need to move the bad air out and the good air in with an exhaust system. Also if you let the fumes build up you will get zero life from a set of filters. There are cases of folks using a good masks who still die because they are using an unventilated basement shop and the fumes drive out all of the O2.

Thanks for the compliment. Lacquer shouldn't be cracking like that unless it's pretty old. I've never seen that happen before, You have something strange going on. The only thing that I can think of is that maybe the lacquer is reacting with something else that you used. If you used a chemical stripper or a stain that isn't compatible you could have this happen i guess. What else did you do? Stain, stripper etc. I'm really intrigued. Valspr is a couple of steps up from the usual paint store stuff.

Don't use toothpicks, use a dowel. You need to have as little glue and as much wood as you can to insure a good hold for the screws. If you use tooth picks the screw will tend to work to the empty space in between them. Also make sure your glue is good and dry. If you put a screw into wet glue it can rust it up and weaken it over time.

What kind of oak is it? The different types really act differently. Red isn't as stiff or heavy as white, for example. It should be as stable as any other dense hardwood, if it's properly dried. If it's a hundred years old it shouldn't be an issue. Buy it from someone reliable who can check the moisture content for you.

Where can you get custom pray cans mixed? I can't count the times that that would have bailed me out of tight spots in the past. None of my local paint suppliers can do anything in under 24 can case lots and it takes 8-10 weeks. I could really use the name of a supplier that does single cans. Some of my commercial customers get flippy when I show up with a turbine rig to do touch up on furniture.

It sounds like what is happening is that the glue lines are telegraphing through. Are the "cracks" only on the glue line? If so you just need to put more finish on it and sand it back down. The stuff you used is probably Nitrocellulose lacquer. Just an inexpensive low solids type. It has a tendency to shrink back pretty dramatically as it dries and show any inconsistancies in the wood.

Hendrix, I'm glad you're making some progress. The cloudiness may have been caused by the wood filler not being completely removed. This will cause what you have described. If the dye will dissolve in lacquer thinner or acetone it probably will dissolve in your sanding sealer. Have you found a clear top coat yet? With the resrtictions on supplies that you guys have I'm sort of baffled as to what to recommentd to you. You might try an antique or furniture refinisher. That's who Liberon targets most of their stuff to. They might be able to steer you to something.

If what you're looking at is black to gray staining you're probably not going to get it out. They are probably either mineral stains or fungus. You can try painting just the areas with wood bleach, but I definitely wouldn't bleach the whole thing. If you just have to have a wood tone stain it increasingly darker until the stains don't bother you anymore. It may wind up pretty dark but it probably got eh finish it did at the factory becoase of those stains.

The Prevals are no match for even a mediocre spray rig, but if you have no other options it beats the doors off of a brush. They are essentailly a user loaded rattlecan. If you want to shoot something like metalflake you're stuck with either a Preval or a bunch of cash outlay for decent equipment.

Let me share some hard earned advice. Don't use your finger to apply the pressure. (I won't go into detail about this.) Use a somewhat pointed pusher of some sort. Don't mess with it and give it plenty of time to cure all the way. The reason this works so well is that super glue has the same solvent properties as acetone.

Those things are made for homeowners to spray stain on decks and fences. They just don't atomize well enough for real woodworking. You are going to have problems getting an even coat of stain. Look for a gaget called a Preval. This is a disposable spray gun. It comes with a small glass container and has a gas cylinder sitting on top. I pay about four bucks american for one and you can shoot about 16 ounces of fluid per cylinder. Does an adequate job for the budget impaired. I use them in my basement shop and in the field for touch up. Not as good as a $400.00 gun, but not that much worse.

I'd worry about a crack starting and going through the whole body. You've got a sharp lookin' piece of maple there. Hard brittle (for wood) maple. A 90 degree corner with a tight fit and a resistant neck in it is a disaster waiting to happen. When the central heat comes on next winter and your body shrinks a couple of 16's or so you could hear something like a gunshot. Built a piece of furniture about 15 years ago and let a architect talk me into doing something like what you have there. The second one that I got to build for free looked better.

I'd drill that sucker out with a Forstner bit first. I've had knots cause pieces of carbide to go zinging about my shop too many times. There is enough of a hardness difference that it can cause disasters.

Anyone have a suggestion for a good tuner to use to set intonation? I've been using a little digital cheapie for years for tuning but it has no range at all. I'd like to get a good one, but I don't need a lot of whistles and bells.

Use the compass trick from my last post and undersize your template. Nothing is easier.

If I was doing this I'd glue the marquetry to a 1/8" solid piece and thus stabilize the whole affair. The problem is that all of the different woods that yo are using shrink and swell differently. Granted not much but it is enough to cause long term stability problems. Doing this also gives youthe ability to take the fretboard off in one piece if you should ever need to do such a thing. Like your truss rod breaks. If you try to remove an unstabilized marquetry board you'll get a jigsaw puzzle.

The only difference in a gloss, satin, or flat finish if the amount of flattener in it. This is some white powder that looks like chalk dust. It's the gunk at the bottom of the can that you stir up. If you don't stir flat and shoot it it will be gloss. You really should rub out every coat. You don't have to, but to get a really smooth result rub it out through at least 600. For a true satin finish use maroon, then grey Scotchbrite. This will leave some really fine scratches , but that gives it the satin look. Isn't Abralon great stuff? For those who don't know this is a product made by Mirka. It was originally designed to be used on solid surface. It is a 5 or 6" foam pad with the grit on one side. You use it with random orbital sanders and if you have a large surface area, like the back of a guitar it really is wonderful.

There is no masking tape taht will suvive stripper to my knowledge. It all turns to useless goo.

First check your blade. I braze up my own and about every fifth one I have to redo 'cause my machine get the shimmies. I would definitely bolt the sucker down. I like to bolt down all machinery. Check and make sure that you don't have any sawdust under your tires. A small chip can cause real problems with the bigger blades. Just curious what are you cutting that you need a 1 inch blade? You can resaw with a smaller blade than that, if it's sharp.

Here's another one McFeely.com. Look under threaded inserts and go for the steel ones. They also sell really high grade square drive bolts that work a lot better than Phillips head.

Makavelli, Sorry if you find me intimidating or obnoxious. I am not being that way intentionally with you. My goal here is to pass on what I've learned the hard way over the last couple of decades. One of the problems with your initial post was that several of the issues that you brought up had just been discussed at length in several posts. Specifically cleaning and oiling a fingerboard. This leads one to assume that you took a quick look at the old threads, and didn't go any deeper. Sorry to make a snap judgement. Some answers. There aren't a whole lot of absolutes with what we're discussing here. Number of coats and such are highly variable depending on how heavy a hand you have, what you're shooting and how you prepare it. There are pretty much as many opinions, both right and wrong as there are finishers. There is not much here that can be done or even taught in 15 minutes. Primer serves many purposes. It does seal the wood. It gives you a smooth surface to lay down color and clear coat. It also can provide a base that adheres to the base surface, be it wood or old finish, and that the top coat will stick to. Some things just don't work on each other and need an "insulator" in between them. Being in the UK means that you use very different terminology from us Yanks. You also have much more restriciton on what you can get to use. I've had a bunch of Brits and Scots work for me over the years and have learned the differences. If you need a translator feel free to ask,'cause it does get confusing. Again sorry if you feel that I jumped on you. Just as an editorial comment, with a handle like Makavelli one tends to invite some amount of sarcasm. Feel free to direct e-mail me with specific questions. Doc '