NotYou

Is it totally black, or is it blueish? Wiping naphtha, acetone,or alcohol on rosewood will extract the color.

I soaked some rosewood in alcohol in a jar and I use it as a dye. They liquid is totally opaque. It actually works pretty well for certain things.

I just set up a guitar and was able to get the lowest string action I've ever felt. But (and there's always a "but"), if I play it unplugged, there is a slight buzz in the middle frets (around 5-10). If I play it through an amp, even straight with no distortion, it's completely inaudible.

It could fixed easily by raising the bridge a little. Better yet, I think if I tighten the truss rod a little, I could keep the low action and get rid of the buzz (I'm a light picker and I'm keeping this guitar).

I'm pretty sure I know what I'll do, but I'm just wondering what you guys would do in this situation. Would you leave it as is, or try to fix it? Does that slight buzz when unplugged bother you?

I had a hard time deciding between Quarter and muggatu. I voted for muggatu, though. It's not a ground breaking concept or anything, but it a very solid design. Still, I always love Quarter's work.

Wow. I don't generally like Teles, but that looks great. I hope you get some sound clips.

I made some knobs for it today:

Worst injury was taking some steel wool/wd 40 to some rust on an old iron bench vise I picked up free at a yard sale. It sliped out of my hand onto my toe.

That one made me cringe

Since we're talking about injuries now, my runner up was done with a Dremel. I was trying out their router bit (I didn't have high hopes, but I was pretty curious). I didn't stop to check the direction the blade was spinning and it ran down the wood and down the length of my finger. "Shredded" is the best word to describe the result.

I drove home covered in blood (with one hand, obviously) and greeted my wife like that. I wouldn't let her see it for a couple weeks. It was a big gory mess for a while. Surprisingly, though, there wasn't much scarring, just a little where the skin grafted itself back together.

Injurys!!

The worst Ive ever seen (by far) was actually on a drill press

A guy I used to work with was just drilling a bunch of ply sheets like he did everyday, however this time he somehow managed to get the drill caught under his wedding ring. The force of the drill snapped his wrist, threw him round the back of the drill and finally ripped most of his finger off.. Ever since that day there is VERY strict no rings policy in my shop.

Holy crap! I leave mine at home because they get in the way sometimes and I'm always afraid I'll scratch something (Nothing worse than re-sanding due to a new scratch), but I think having my finger ripped off and my arm broken might be a little worse

This isn't about guitars, but it's related to the no rings in the shop rule. I have an uncle who rebuilt a Olds 442 a few years ago. He was working on the wiring or something and got his wedding ring caught. I'm not sure what happened exactly, but he said it got so hot it was glowing. He couldn't take it off because he couldn't touch it and he wasn't near water. He just had to sit there with his hand out until it cooled.

That's another reason I don't like wearing rings while working.

Hm... I have never seen a belt sander that did not move towards the operator... Your talking about a mounted upright belt sander, right?

Its an upright one, parrellel with the floor. It moves away from you when you use it correctly, and I decided to move so it went towards me. \

Mine was one of these (the disk):

Good times...

Real men use walnut.

BTW, I love how smoothly conversations here can go from maple usage to blubber roles. It really is amazing.

Fingerboard or back of neck?

Some like tru-oil, for the fingerboard, I'm a fan of that or linseed. For the back, tung oil/shellac come to mind.

True shellac is not really an oil, but a fav.

for the back of the neck...How about danish?

I vote Danish as well. It's also good for some fretboard wood.

That looks really great

Like Wez said, use leather dye is good for wood.

You can also use India ink, just be careful if you finish over it (blot it for the first coat or you'll rub it off). Some India inks contain shellac, so they actually finish the wood by just putting them on.

You can make your own by adding lampblack to shellac (alcohol works for lampblack as well as shellack flakes). It makes a great pitch black finish.

Ahh, sander injuries. I think that's a right of passage now.

Last year I sanded off the end of thumb and the side of my index finger. It was, without question, the most intense pain I've ever felt. I've never come closer to crying over physical pain (since I was a kid, of coarse). I almost went into shock it hurt so bad. There are lot of nerve endings there.

I was trying to thin a wooden humbucker ring and I didn't realize I was getting it thinner than the space between the shelf and the sanding disk. It suddenly slid through as I was pushing on it, so I pushed my hand, with my weight behind it, right into the disk (it was a coarse grit. I don't remember what exactly, though).

I'm cringing just thinking about that. Once the adrenaline wore off... holy sh*t.

It grew back though. The skin was hollow for a while, but there isn't even a mark left now (other than nail is a flat on top now instead of curved). Don't ask me how that works.

If you think it's safe to clean something off your hands with lacquer thinner, dry 'em 98%, then go grab a painted guitar body, think again. \

The best hand cleaner ever:

I learned about this stuff in art school. It'll take oil paint right off your hands and brushes, but it works for most things in the shop, especially if it's something oil based.

I didn't know you could do that

I've been looking for a good way to make nickel look aged or charred for a long time. I still haven't found anything. I have found some chemicals that turn nickel black and brass brown. I think it might look good on open back tuners. I don't know how it'll affect the lubrication, though. If I get ahold of some junk ones, I want to test it out.

All debate about burning or not aside, it's kinda retarded not to take the re-usable parts off first... like the bridge. Now it'll be charred & scorched up.

No, it's fine. Nickel has a much higher melting point than you can achieve like that. It won't burn either. If anything, it'll clean it, in a way.

I actually left it on in the hope that it would look burnt, but it still looks brand new. I was also very careful about the whole process. I only burnt what I wanted to. The guitar sounds and plays exactly the same, but it looks much better, IMO.

I've showed some progress photos around and it's about 50/50 love/hate. I fully expect at least half of the people who see it to hate it. One guy even got a little angry

I did more than burn it too. It looks like it spent some time in the seventh circle of hell.

I'll post the completed photos soon. I did a refret and I still need to wire it up. This is just to show how I went about it... before the blow torch, that is.

This was on my website for sale for a long time, but I decided to keep it for myself and make some changes.

It never fails, I use medium or water thin super glue on something and it takes several seconds to a minute to cure. I get the slightest drop on my finger and I am stuck to something in less than 1 second.

I think I've mastered the art of tearing fingers apart after touching CA glue. Once you get over the weirdness of it, you just have to grab the skin and pull.

I know I'm probably preaching to the choir here.

Thanks for the comments everyone! I didn't assume I'd get votes, but it's nice to know my work is appreciated. You'll see something completely different from me next month.

Notyou: Man your guitars are more art than anything else. I really dig the way you go about your work. I couldn't gig with one, but it would be an awesome talking point hanging on the wall. Don't get me wrong i would still play it. The knobs look blue, im not sure they are, maybe its just the photo but black or dark brown would look better IMO.

That's iron that was painted onto the wood (that's part of the reason I was able to rust it). It does have a bit of a blue hue to it, but it's the same stuff that's on the pickup rings and the headstock. It matches better in person. I think I should have emphasized that more in the photos.

In time, probably a few years, it'll all start turning black. That's my theory at least.

I'm number 11!

I didn't expect this kind of guitar to get far here, to be honest. I'll be entering a shiny wood porn guitar next month, though.

I'm still kind of undecided. There are lots of great guitars this month. Hitones is a great concept, but I'd need to hear it. Actually, I'd love to hear it. AccidentalChef's is probably my favorite. I can't get past the gold hardware though. I love everything else and I know the hardware is replaceable, but I still can't overlook it. It's just a preference, though. I love the binding and the top and back wood.

The others are all great too. But those were my top picks. Great work everybody!

And, hey, how 'bout NotYou's guitar? Eh? Eh?

BTW, I just wanted to clear this up:

Notyou - Im digging the overall vibe your builds have, some real cool features, the only thing I dont like is the bridge- Im not sure how well that will intonate

The intonation almost perfect. All of the strings are dead on except the A and B strings which are sharp by less than 5 cents, which, in theory, isn't perceivable to the human ear.

Inkscape is great for making templates and altering existing designs too. It's becoming more and mor popular with guitar builders (at least those of us who don't want to actually buy software)

"Ain't got a Name"

I'm not going to have anything else finished by the deadline, so I thought I'd submit this one. It was a custom build (it's already been shipped).

Body:

Chambered (maybe semi-hollow)

Wormy/spalted soft maple top

Honduran mahogany back

Black walnut binding

Neck:

Black Walnut

Cocobolo fretboard

Ebony Binding

Hardware:

Hand-wound pickups (around 8k ohms each)

Buffalo horn bridge & nut

Gotoh 510 tuners

Finish:

Rust (real rust grown on the wood)

A bunch chemicals

Probably some of my own skin

Hand rubbed water based poly

All photos here.

http://pfeisterguitars.com/Pfeister_Guitar.../DSC_1909_1.JPG

http://pfeisterguitars.com/Pfeister_Guitar.../DSC_1904_1.JPG

http://pfeisterguitars.com/Pfeister_Guitar.../DSC_1860_1.JPG

http://pfeisterguitars.com/Pfeister_Guitar.../DSC_1890_1.JPG

Great info, thanks for that.

At least i know now that my dremel is up to the challenge of routing that ebony,

i guess that's what you've meant, or at least i don't see how i could cut a leg-sized piece of ebony with a dremel.

Great bits btw, i thought diamond would cost my last shirt and a arm, but that is actually very reasonable priced.

Any thoughts about my method of processing that ebony?

They're cheap because they aren't sharp at all. They grind very slowly, but, because they're diamond, they'll grind through anything.

And make sure to wear a mask. Ebony dust and smoke is horrible on your lungs.

That's a saw horse.

You can cut that with a Dremel for sure. I've done much worse things with mine. Just be patient with it. Diamond bits work well for this sort of thing. They can be needle thin and still cut. They don't cut fast, but they'll cut through ebony (or even metal) without a problem.

Edit:

I have a set of these (the long skinny ones on the left). If you go slow, they'll cut through anything:

http://www.garrettwade.com/diamond-burr-sets/p/19T05.01/

By "slow" I mean you move slow. Keep the Dremel at high speeds.

thank you for responce.What kind of finish do you use over those surfaces?waterbased?nitro?poly?

It's an acid blocking acrylic then water based poly. The acid blocker needs blotted on softly and the poly is diluted then wiped on. At least that's the best method I came up with.

I'm still running around right now, so I can't go into too much detail. The chemical that untimely makes the rust is copper sulphate (the result of mixing sulfuric acid with cooper oxide) on iron. It's potent stuff, so you also need an acid blocking primer (and wear gloves ) How you get it really looking like rust is the tricky part.