willliam_q

Thanks, I’ve been wondering If I should even add the blue as I really like it also. I’m surprised at how nice the crimson stunning stain shots are considering people didn’t like their premixed stuff.

1st coat of purple on the body now, will let it dry and sand back. I’m surprised the repair at the pickup cavity is hidden more rather than being more obvious. Let’s hope it stays that way.

Stained the headstock. this is the first coat of stain and not dry yet. I darkened the blue more so than in the test pieces and after putting that down put purple straight over the top. Grain looks a bit flat so might need to sand back a bit and stain again to pop it. I’m just nervous as it is a very thin veneer . Also notice the small line where a piece of veneer was joined with superglue. I’ll have to paint a black(or maybe a purple?) burst to cover it up. I’ve also lacquered the faux binding on the body and am waiting for that to dry before staining the top.

Finally got testing the stain shots on some test flame maple. There’s not much in the bottle, I would say each would do about 4 guitars...maybe. I agree that blue denim is very light and probably not one to use on its own although I didn’t try darkening it down too much. It seems a nice colour in more or less concentrated form. The purple gets pretty dark with 4-5 droppers in a small amount of water the premixed crimson stuff definitely looks too light from their demonstrations. given that BigDGuitars on YouTube uses Angelus dyes, I’ve looked at that and it might actually be better value for money. If I hand stain more in the future I might look towards those, their colours look nice too.

Congrats Scott on goty! Well deserved.

Yes @mistermikev I love the way it turned out. I knew the flamed top was nice but didn’t realise how nice it would actually be. I got a bargain on that top too, I think it was about £40 delivered from eBay. cant wait to get this thing finished now that I’m this far...the impatience is starting to set in

Bit of colour testing today, very rushed but think I’m decided. i used Crimson Colour Stain Shots, the purple and the denim blue, it seems slightly lighter in real life but I’m hoping some clear/oil over the top will make it look like in these pictures. It’s still wet in the pictures and has dried much lighter the smaller piece is basically just purple, not sanded back, and a small amount of blue over the top. Whilst it looks good in pictures the flame looks a bit flat due to not being sanded back. the larger piece is purple, I didn’t wait to let it dry and sanded it back a reasonable amount but still a bit of colour there. then applied the blue which made it too light. So I went over by one small layer of purple. I really like it, the blue and purple dance on the flame so I’ll have to remember my method when it comes to the actual work. for those interested, I liked the Crimson stain shots, the purple took approx 4x full droppers in a small amount of water. the denim blue is very light, I probably did about 5x full droppers but thought it still too light. I probably wouldn’t recommend it on its own but like it combined with this purple.

I think there would still a bit of meat left on a 22fret neck to put a truss rod wheel in but would need to be calculated. Might mean moving the neck pickup a hair closer to the bridge. nice job on the skunk stripe. I found the what worked well for me to put the end round over for me was to use a chisel to make the rough form. Then use a long narrow strip of sandpaper pulled over the roundover to form it, with lots of test fitting. I also found mine was an easy fit without glue but when I put it together it looks perfect.

Thanks all, plenty of advice so I’ll do plenty of testing!

Yea, I find those guys tend to be 2nd hand car dealers looking the best price, they’ll text not phone. They’ll also text everyone else on gumtree at the same time to see who bites. they’ll always offer a lowball offer as plenty of people are desperate to sell. i once had a guy offer to swap his Ford Fiesta with my low mileage Bmw 325i coupe...I told him to get lost as well

I want to do a Danish oil finish on my guitar. Being a flamed maple top I want to dye it purple, the limba body will be grain filled with the oil slurry method. For those unfamiliar I intend to sand the wood and oil together which creates a slurry to fill the pores. I also want a faux/ scraped binding. my question is about what order to do things? My thoughts are: 1. mask off and lacquer with a brush/ apply danish oil with a brush (not sure which here) for faux binding 2. apply the purple dye using various layers of purple and blue to get flame popping through 3. apply a sealer coat of danish oil to the top to lock in and protect the colour 4. apply oil to the back of the body and sand it in to make the slurry grain fill 5. apply final coat of oil to the whole body i’d appreciate if anyone could highlight any issues with my approach and alternative suggestions. whilst I have full spray equipment I want to stay away from painted and lacquered finishes this time. thanks

I’m intrigued now so I’m going to ask...what is this secret recipe?

I’m not self employed but I find, in IT anyway, people think they know better. I work at the local hospital and the physics guys all think they could tell me how to do my job. It’s alright until they cock up then you don’t hear from them my wife is self employed and works on an appointment basis. When she gives people available slots they still ask for one that’s already taken. Another one is the people who knew you slightly socially think you owe them something. They even ask outright for friends and family discount. I wouldn’t have the neck on me to do something like that.

Sure no problem, I hadn’t done it before either so there might be more efficient ways of doing it. I first took a piece of MDF and cut a semi-circular arc in it in a shape I liked that I thought followed the contours of the guitar horns (to join them up so to speak). then, using a router cove bit (similar but a lot cheaper than this one Router cove cutter) and a template guide bushing attached to the router, followed the template to create the arc. This cut a large semi-circular curve approx 10mm wide on the body. i then used a flush cut bit and a router sled to remove/plane off the remaining wood to depth I liked. be careful not to take the edges of the inside of you curve when doing this, I pulled the semi circular template forward a bit to prevent the router going too far. I finished it off with 120grit sandpaper to get a smooth finish and refine the curves. Hope that makes sense, can be hard to describe process in words sometimes. That looks like just the ticket! Thanks

I have an orbital sander for most of the heavy work, I can connect that to vacuum

What is it about sanding that I’ve come to dislike? This guitar has been ready for final sanding for the last couple of weeks and I just can’t motivate myself to finish it. I’m forcing myself to go out tonight. I think it’s the amount of dust generated that goes all over the clothes and into various orifices. I’m talking about nose and ears best of it is it might only take an hour or so to get it ready for finish. I have a mask and I’ll wear it but it still doesn’t make it any more pleasant. speaking of dust, my wife’s gym equipment is in the same, reasonably large, garage and it just gets covered. Any tips?

Very nice! My wife usually likes my DIY projects, but when only one of them turns out not as good as expected then the phrase ‘should have got a professional’ can be occasionally heard

Looks great mike, love the translucent blond!

First I’m seeing this thread @Bizman62. Nice work, really like the recessed jack plate. The edges look chamfered, what did you use to do that? I hadn’t thought of recessing mine but could give me ideas!

What technique did you use to get the checking?

Only got around to working on this guitar again today. Have been busy with life stuff. One of the projects the wife asked me to do was fit sliding doors on our wardrobe. now that’s done I’ve bought myself a bit of time to myself sorted the control cavity cover, I think it’s the best one I’ve done yet. It slots in and out very easy but by the time I add oil to both cover and guitar that might swell out a bit and make the fit too tight. I might have to make it slightly smaller. I’ll have to drill for the screws and counter sink. I don’t think I’ll go with magnets this time.

I just looked up spiral bits and found they come in upcut or downcut form. Is this why you would choose a down cut over an up cut? To ensure the work pulls against the table depending on spin direction?

Yes, even in rough form you have to protect the wood as dents hit In just the right spot can go quite deep. A dent to your top means either filling or sanding to get rid of the hole. If you are lucky the Steam Iron trick might work for a quick fix. I’ve never used it myself so can’t comment on how effective it is. sharp corners can be hard to rout and tear out is common. Others Builders can chip in (forgive the pun) here but you are best doing your routs in many incremental passes. Each one deeper than the next. Also using your jigsaw to get as close to the outline as possible...although you need to take into account space for the blade to drift if that happens. i often got bad tear out when routing out sharp edges on neck headstocks. I find it’s much less riskier to sand it down to the line now. Considering your guitar body shape, you could potentially rout down the long edges but stop short of the corners, then using course sand paper like 60grit sand the corners down to the correct shape. Only a suggestion and certainly more labour intensive but manual tools remove wood in a more controlled fashion than power tools and you might end up with a better result.

I have the shots so will report back on what they are like, should be starting to stain etc next week on mine

I love the build quality of the Kemp guitars, at least from photos, never seen one in person. you've obviously made your own templates, do you just use MDF or have you had them laser cut? the reason I ask is that the bearing on my router bits always digs into the MDF making my cavities slightly larger than they should be.