Duke

Hey guys, selling a soulmate telecaster neck. Info is here:

http://acapella.harmony-central.com/showthread.php?2792798-FS-Soulmate-guitar-neck-gorgeous!&p=43204607#post43204607

Really nice job man. How does it sound?

Wow, looking great so far.

Done.

UPDATE. The veneer didn't come out the way I wanted it to. I sanded it all off, and I stained the body. Currently adding more coats of tung oil, it's coming out pretty sick.

Things left to do:

-Apply another coat of tung oil

-Clean up the binding with steel wool

-Apply headstock decal, and hidden decal on back of body (friends request, lol)

-Apply more coats of tung oil

-Copper shield pickup cavities

-Install electronics, final setup, etc.

-Polish it up!

The problem is that I really can't afford a good paint job right now, and I'm certainly not about to screw up a good guitar trying it myself...I think I can still rectify the situation.

Funny thing is that it looks exactly like the mahogany picture you posted. Trust me, I know what basswood sounds like, plus basswood is very close grained, this is not. This is one of my favorite sounding guitars. Also, black guitars are always a failure. You actually think black guitars look good? lol.

The original guitar:

Aside from all that,It rarely pays to take the paint off of factory guitars.They use just random scrap pieces of wood and in my opinion it never,ever looks good.

I think it would look better if you repainted it...White would go good with the fretboard.

Dude, I bought the guitar in the store. It's a blackjack. Omen's don't have a set-neck.

Basswood does not look like this:

That's how it looked with the tru-oil. See that discoloration? I just need to fix that one part and it would look pretty decent. Maybe if I just bleach that one spot? Even if it doesn't completely match the rest, that dumb dark spot wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb. But I just don't want it to interfere with any other chemicals.

Looks like mineral streaking.And not mahogany...rather looks like basswood.The streaking makes me think poplar,but I suppose it is possible for basswood to have mineral streaking?

NOT mahogany.

What did that guitar used to be before you sanded away the logo?Is it a Schecter Omen?Those are basswood.

It is mahogany. Trust me, I know so, lol. The grain is super porous when its not filled. It's a Schecter Blackjack C-1 EX baritone w/ a modded purpleheart fretboard.

Looks like it could be natural, but my first thought was sealer too. Does the Tru-oil sit equally on the light and dark areas when applying? Some of the poly sealers I've taken off in the past were crazy thick and bit right into the wood grain at significant depth.

Any chance of a closeup of the surface?

The tru oil sits well, but that portion of the body comes out dark, as expected. I'll try and get a closer pic.

Here it is. That is not a shadow, that's how it actually looks raw. I've sanded it down twice before and it doesn't go away. What the hell is that?

Hmm yeah, the bleach may be a bad idea. Maybe I should just use the stain to get a uniform shade throughout?

I'll try to get a pic.

Thanks for the reply. I'm not sure why I'm sanding to 1500, I just figured might as well. I've definitely sanded it down completely. The dark spots are due to it being a 3-piece body, it seems that I got one bad piece out of three. It's like the entire upper part of the body has a black line going across it, and not in a natural (or good) looking way.

Nice job man. I only hope mine turns out half as good, lol.

So here is my current situation:

I have a guitar that was previously refinished and tru-oiled. I didn't like the way the finish came out. There were a few dark spots in the wood, like whole blotches of wood were much darker than the rest. It wasn't due to the tru-oil, as I have the top sanded down and those areas are still darker than the rest of the wood. In addition to that, there are some white "specs" in the wood, like a grain filler or something.

Here is my plan right now:

1. After I sand everything to 1500, I plan to bleach the wood, to eliminate the dark spots.

2. After I re-sand/prep the body, I need to grain fill with something. (or not? the grain feels kind of full thanks to the tru-oil. I've heard of people using tru-oil as a sealer before.)

3. After prepping again, I'll apply several coats of Minwax red mahogany stain. (Now, some concerns of mine. The fretboard is purpleheart. If I stain the neck too, will I need to mask off the purpleheart, or can that just be sanded out?)

4. After the stain is completely dry, I'll apply several coats of Minwax Tung Oil. I know it's not "real" tung oil, but since it's a varnish, I think it would effectively seal the guitar. I think I've heard of the stain + tung oil combination being done before.

Now, does this seem like a valid plan? Would this work in theory? lol.

Here's where we're at. Everything is sanded down to 800 grit. Still need to glue the headstock veneer, then wetsand to 1500, then its stain time.

An oversized pic for your viewing pleasure. Almost done with the cutting. Need to sand the sides to make them round.

I think you need to start resizing your pics. other than that, looking good.

Thanks, will do.

So I have both sides of the veneer cut out. Here's the next issue: I need to straighten the edges where each side meets at the centerline. When doing veneers, do I have to have them perfectly exact, or can I just overlap them (at the centerline)? I would imagine that overlapping would create a slight hump in the middle.

So it took several weeks to get all the sealer off. Fun!

Cutting up the veneer tonight. Hopefully will get one side glued tonight. Still need to straighten out the veneer a bit.

Here it is currently. Sealer still needs to be taken off the top and the sides.

Some sick wood grain going on!

Fretboard before

Fretboard with dye applied (don't worry, hasn't been wiped off yet!)

Practiced tonight on some extra pieces.

OK so, tip for anyone out there, the Minwax wipe on emerald green stain stuff is not good for tops! It comes out like paint and application is just yuck.

I applied the stewmac bright green dye with some alcohol mixed in. No sanding, very rough, just testing to see how it would react with it. It's coming out a little more turquoise than I would like. The one on the right is the one I tried the minwax **** with.

Nice, that came out good.

Got the flame maple veneer in today, 4 sheets of it. This stuff looks great, can't wait to see what this is going to look like.

Watch that leather dye. It stains ANYTHING!

I just dyed a rosewood fretboard with it a few weeks ago and it started to discolor the side dot inlays. Test a little bit

out on an inconspicuous spot first. It says it doesn't stain the inlays, but better safe than sorry.

The side dot inlays are bound and painted, do you still think it would mess it up? Other than that, does it dye the board well and look good?

So for my next project, I'm refinishing a friend's schecter. It had a boring black paint job, and now we're going to sex it up a bit. Here's a list of what is going to be done to it:

-Fretboard dyed black (stewmac stuff)

-Everything sanded down, back, sides, neck are going to be minwax tung oil finish

-Flame maple veneer on the front, deep green stain, minwax clearcoat spray

-1 hole plugged, 2 volumes knobs, 1 3-way switch

So far we have the front sanded down to sealer. He's going to help out on the sanding so once we get the whole guitar past the sealer the fun will begin.

If anyone has any suggestions for this project, feel free to chime in. For the stain, I have both the stewmac green stain and also a wipe-on minwax emerald green in a tube thing. I'm going to experiment on scrap first to see which one will be the best. I haven't heard of anyone using the minwax colored tube stuff, but if it's anything like their other products, it should be easy to apply.

We were considering removing the fretboard because of the lame tribal inlays, but I didn't feel comfortable with that quite yet. I may do a refret in the future.