ADFinlayson

There are some parts I really don't like about guitar building - I don't much enjoy anything to do with slotting fretboards, hammering or levelling frets. I don't much enjoying preparing blanks, resawing a billet of wood with a hand saw is no fun at all, in fact I'm still aching from bookmatching some walnut at the weekend. But, I do like having done all those things. Now that my finishing has taken a big leap in quality, my favourite stage is seeing a the figure pop with a coat of lacquer on it. But honestly I really enjoy the whole process in making a functional piece of art, and all the small jobs that I don't enjoy soon get forgotten when it's got strings on it.

There are so many options for darkening up mahogany. You could use a water-based or alcohol based dye, you could use artist oil paint thinned with mineral spirits, a dark grain-filler or just use a tinted finish, any of the above (apart from the grain filler) could be used to tint poly, oil, lacquer etc. But all of the above aside, every piece of wood is different, so you should always do testers on your off cuts, find something you like then finish your guitar.

That's good to know, you have confirmed my suspicion that I don't currently have a lot of use for a scroll saw I've finished fretting the two, used nickel silver wire on the ebony and stainless steel on the rosewood. Rosewood was a real pita, glad I ran out of fret wire

Here’s the next episode, finished off the inlays https://youtu.be/1cZGlbNJ9Fs

They do, but I still find the saw has a habit of pulling the piece back up, and my logo is very delicate just to left of centre. Here’s the next inlay instalment

Thanks @Bizman62 It's a 1/4" blade, I had a look at laser cutters a while back, the ones I saw that weren't crazy money stated that they wouldn't cut shell. I guess a scroll saw could also work well but the blade is going up and down like a hand saw.

Forgot to post episode 14, so here's 14 and 15.

thanks bud, much appreciated. It's a lovely looking wood but so hard on tools, hand cutting fret slots in it is not fun!

these things happen, you shouldn't bin it though, you've got lots of exotic wood binding strips and inlay material there!

you could just stick the flat side to a flat surface and plane the top flat with a hand plane, no4 would make quick work of it, then perfect it with a radius beam once it's cut down to dimensions.

Avoid the little Fender Mustang GT amps, while it has loads of cool features, including bluetooth and a built in looper (which is why I bought it) it sounds utterly dreadful. I had a blackstar ID Core 40, which sound fantastic, really liked that amp. But the circuit board completely failed after 2 years.

You should, these results have surpassed my expectations by a country mile. Can’t wait for the next opportunity to spray a guitar

Well in finally got round to buffing today, only had some polish and elbow grease to work with, but this is what I got

I really like using the razor saw, it's so fine that it cuts into really hard woods like ebony quite quickly, so I find it's much quicker than just marking the slots and going at it with the fretsaw.

based on where your fretboard ends and the neckthrough joins the wings, you could get away with having plenty more material there at the heel and still have a very shreddy neck. I'm sure you're design is plenty enough wood in strength terms, but I don't think it would hinder playability if you wanted more. Looks great anyway, really like the natural finish you're shooting for.

The last time I used crimson oil, I had that same issue after a few coats. I found the best way to sort it out was to pour a load more oil over it and sand it in with 600 wet and dry until it was smooth, it worked well. Then I wiped off the excess as the big man says.

The lapel mic was a free gift from @Urumiko and has made a huge difference to the audio quality. It's hard to find the sweet spot for volume because it's relative compared to other youtube videos you've just been watching. Just finished episode 13, fret slotting

Beautiful work, that binding jig you're using, can you explain how it worked, more photos? I could do with something similar.

In my limited experience, any wood I've worked with that has some kind of figure other than the grain, e.g flaming, quilting, that normally runs perpendicular to the grain, common with Maple, Walnut, Limba etc - there is usually some shimmer/chatoyance, but as @ScottR says, it's visible in the blank and is enhanced by finishing, not created by finishing. That figure is far less common in mahogany. I use African mahogany (Khaya) a lot, but I've never been lucky enough to get a piece with any flaming/rippling in it. I've seen a few high end PRS where they used flamed mahogany for the body, but those pieces will be hard to come by and cost a fortune.

Was it just the music that was a bit loud? Volume is something that's quite difficult to get right tbh, It's quite easy to get the voice audio to peak but there is a fine line between that and too quiet, where mumbling is inaudible.

Episode 12

I'm getting to the point where I want to use a buffing wheel to buff my nitro finish, I can have a go at doing it by hand like I have on previous builds but going forwards, I want a machine to polish my guitars for me. But I'm struggling with a few things: 1. What is the smallest mop size I can get away with to polish a whole guitar (neck and body), clearance is a concern so the guitar doesn't run the risk of knocking into the motor, bench, wall etc. 2. What is the appropriate speed for buffing nitro? most of the entry level bench top machines I've seen are 2000+ rpm. Had a look at the stewmac machine and it quotes 715rpm being suitable for delicate finishes - I'm not going to be getting this one (although it looks ideal) £500 + a lot for shipping and I'll get hit with a lot of import duty. 3. If I was to buy a small 8" bench top buffer, what's the largest mop I could safely fit to it? Providing I can make clearance a non issue by mounting it on a plinth. 4. Am I barking up the wrong tree entirely? Are there other, better tools for this job? Cheers Ash

What about a black grain filler with clear gloss over it, that would make the body wood stand out against the binding a bit more and still have a nice natural wood look. It'll look amazing whatever, is that a signum bridge I see there?

Awesome job on those sound holes, they look so delicate, and it's nice to see the bit of Ovangkol finally go pop. So if you've started the course again, does that mean there is a new build in the pipeline?

That's a really nice touch with the magnets, I always struggle to find nice pieces for a truss rod cover, the fretboard offcuts are almost never long enough to get the grain going in the same direction.