FINEFUZZ

I love the headcap, but I would agree that adding a burst to pull the tonal qualities of the darker wood down around the edge of the body would really tie it all together.

As someone who is also in the midst of their first build, I think yours is coming along very nicely. 

As someone who is also his own worst critic, I have come to realize that time heals some mistakes.

There are projects I messed up on that really irked me, but now when they are done, I cannot remember what those mistakes I don't see were.

57 minutes ago, Prostheta said:

I wouldn't give too much credence to Ben's ideas. A lot of them are off track to dodgy and some are simply dangerous. I have a particular hatred for YouTube "educators" who make light of safety, especially that of their employees since that falls foul of the law very very quickly. Another conversation, another time.

Oxidising is not the correct term for a tannic acid and basic iron acetate reaction, if I recall. Substitute iron instead of steel wool as you'll get a better product with less blue or red colouration. I cook my vinegar in a double boiler to speed up the reaction. Really nice bit of woodworking there in your video and a super result! How did you prepare your own solution?

<edit> Oops, crossed wires....I thought that you posted the ebonising video, @ShatnersBassoon! Sorry @FINEFUZZ

I dissolved steel wool in vinegar.   I looked for a vinegar with the highest acidity.  It took one week to completely dissolve the steel wool.  I know it helps if you degrease the steel wool.  After the walnut was shellacked, it appears almost black.

I have not tried a nitro finish before.  I love amber shellac, but not necessarily the way it ages. 

I may consider doing a suspended die on one of the layers of clear.

We are hoping to get a building where I can spray some of the stinkier stuff.  Right now, when I use lacquer thinner in the basement, you can smell it on the second floor of the house.

I have had tremendous success with oxidizing walnut with vinegar and steel wool.

This was my attempt:

Yes!  Congratulations, it is well deserved.

Thanks all for the feedback,  It seems like everybody is on the same page about clearing the maple.  I actually hadn't considered the extra attention that maple will require to get it prepared to receive clear.  I would imagine, however, one would't take it past 600 grit much like preparing base coat for clear coat.

What type of clear is preferred for maple- nitro? 

I have had this bass sitting around for over a year now waiting for me to pay it some attention. 

I still struggle on what direction to go with this thing.  The paint has been selectively stripped off parts of the guitar to give me inspiration for its potential.  Some joker added a p-bass pickup at some point and painted to poor thing with a paint that seems to have not had enough hardener ever added to it.

At the heal of the neck, there appears to be some old clear.  Because of this, would it be a safe bet to guess that this was a maple burst? 

If I were to paint it, the ugly pickup rout could be filled.  The dilemma is: were this intended to be a maple burst, I would feel a little bad about covering it.  The middle position does sound alright, and the damage has already been done- so maybe it should stay.

Any insight?

It looks like some sort of confection made out of wood.

Dark does look more classic and it would be complimentary to the burl on this build.

55 minutes ago, Prostheta said:

What sort of cost does this sort of service run at, whether you're taking in a master yourself or half and half? This is fascinating and a great window to peek through.

I actually don't know what the breakdown of costs are.  This is a foundry run by artists who are flexible with working with the customer.  I would guess labor must be at least $60 an hour.  When I did my boar heads they gave me a price break over a certain quantity.  Having them cast me six boar heads cost almost the same as casting four.  For the heads- I did all the wax, metal and patina work.  I think the total cost was under $800 factoring in the cost of bronze at $6.00 a pound.  

The foundry will provide a quote to me before they go forward with the casting.  If I were to do a quantity, the price would most likely decrease.  I really hope it will cost me less than $500.

1 hour ago, Prostheta said:

Wicked. I love how you're very deeply invested in this project (no joke intended), especially when it is one that few people would have the knowledge to handle. Very cool.

Do you have friends at the foundry or something? It sounds either very costly to contract out as a one-off job or "you have a guy".

Thanks for the kind words. 

No, I don't have any foundry friends and I have only done the one other bronze project, so I am completely basing the cost off of that experience.

It is not a cheap job, but I soften the blow by doing all the other labor myself.  A lot of people would just take the master ( the primed part I used to make the silicone mold ) to the foundry and come back to pick up a finished gleaming bronze part.  I will do all the wax chasing, metal finishing and patina work myself.

The wax will contract a little.  This wax is, however, formulated for slush casting and has a low-shrink rating. 

Once I add the bosses and some other bits to the inside of the part, it will head over to the foundry.  At the foundry they will dunk the wax part into a ceramic slurry investment.  The first layer of the investment material is very liquid to prevent air from getting trapped in the details of the wax.  Thicker subsequent layers will be built up to form a mold to pour the bronze into.

I tried my hand at slush casting the wax this weekend.  I was hoping it would be warm enough to do this messy experiment out in the garage, but it just wasn't happening.  The wax didn't even want to melt in the crock pot.

I filled the mold with the molten wax, and then shortly afterwards, the hot wax was poured back out of the mold.  The wax that remained coating the walls of to mold was allowed to cool.  That process was repeated twice in the pursuit to achieve some sort of uniform thickness. 

This process was not as controllable as I was imagining.  I had trouble preventing the wax from pooling in the mold, and I also had a difficult time pouring the wax back out of the mold without spilling it everywhere.  Now, I am in the process of cleaning up the part and Identifying these pooled areas that need material reduction.  Wax will also need to be scraped off the basement concrete.

On 2/4/2018 at 10:26 PM, SOLLYGTRS said:

Now for the one I finished. The unique this on this one is the neck radius. It’s 6.5. I had a 58 Strat with a 7.25 inch radius and though why not try some even rounder. 

This also is the debut of my new headstock logo.

 

 

That's a sexy looking head stock and logo.

Here is how this guitar will be assembled:

I haven't figured shrinkage into my pattern.  For this reason, I am not comfortable starting on the wood parts until after the bronze is cast.  Once I have the part cast I may have to move the mounting positions in the wood for the brass shell.

I know the shrink rate for aluminum, if I have to design tooling, it is normally for vacuum form tooling.  If I had added that shrink to this pattern, it would have been very small.  The other factor that I have not made adjustments for it wax shrink, as I am sure I will experience this as well.

Hopefully those decisions won't come back to bite me.

I have seen an image of the guitar when doing an image search for bronze guitar, but I was unaware of the video.  Who knew that dipping a guitar in molten metal wouldn't destroy it?  You would think the wood would move, or crack or split at glue joints.  The grain has obviously raised in the process.

I haven't really done that great of a job describing this build.

There will be a wood back, and the top will be .125"/3.18mm thick - this is target thickness.

This bronze shell will be tapped and have the bridge bolted to it.  Ideally, I would want the bridge to be part of this casting.

I am treating this bronze shell as a large extension of the bridge.  The pickups are actually attached to the wood neck.  The strap buttons and mono cable are also mounted to the wood.  This bronze shell will only contact the wood body of the guitar in the four boss positions.  When the player is holding the guitar, whether standing or seated, the wood will prevent contact with the bronze.  The outer perimeter of the bronze should therefore vibrate freely.

At this moment my calculations are showing 6.155lbs for the bronze shell

I eliminated the material between the pickups that is shown on early renderings to further reduce wight.

Conservatively, my current estimate for guitar weight is 8 pounds.

I agree that the laser does create a concave kerf when it has to cut through thicker plastic.  What is nice about thick acrylic, is that is doen't crack as easily if you are screwing your pattern to the material you are cutting.

Success!  Got over the first hurdle.

Bronze is really friendly.  They make bronze rods for tig welding so you can virtually eliminate large blemishes.  Hammering does work well for small porosity.   Bronze also combines very well to stainless steel.  I have some stainless steel hardware welded to the back of the casting with bronze.

I have also used a large washer slightly offset on a mandrel in a drill.  The offset acts like a little repetitive hammer.

7 minutes ago, Prostheta said:

No, aluminium is very difficult for a number of reasons including its tendency to dump heat as quickly as it takes it on.

Gold is so yesterday. Nobody has yet made a solid Rhodium guitar.

I research rhodium.  Bronze does plate well.

Here is a bronze I did a couple years back.  That process really made me want to explore the idea of utilitarian fine art.  These are the same colors I am aiming for on my guitar body:

I was curios about casting out of aluminum,  but aluminum cools too quickly and probably couldn't completely fill the cavity.  I would need to make a much thicker pattern for aluminum. 

Bronze flows better though thinner spaces and cools slower.  But yes, one could cast in iron, but I would imagine that would be like playing a boat anchor.   Bronze is very dense, but it can be cast thin.  Bronze has also historically been used to manufacture instruments, albeit in different manners.

What is really cool, is that iron oxide, along with liver of sulfur, ferric nitrate (and others) can be used to patina the metal.

Iron oxide makes bronze turn reddish.

Now a gold guitar, that is actually very doable.  I just need funds.