mattharris75

A burst would be another new process for me. The dyes I'm using are alcohol based. From what I've seen it looks like doing a rubbed on burst would be pretty easy with water based dyes. Not that I couldn't switch over and go that route... I watched a video on youtube of Big D guitars doing a 'nuclear' burst that I really liked. But his example is on a burl guitar, which certainly gives a different effect. And again, I'm not sure it wouldn't be too 'matchy matchy' with the cocobolo. This is going to take some thought.

Yeah, I love the look of PRS's Tiger Eye finish. But honestly, I think it translates better to quilt than flame. There's more black in my test piece than is evident in the image that I posted, but it's still not as dramatic as theirs. And, honestly, after looking at the guitar and how dramatic the cocobolo fretboard is, I'm now questining whether or not to do a dyed finish, other than perhaps some sort of simple light brown to enhance the grain. It really looks prety awesome as is, lots of contrast. What do you guys think?

Turtle shell green.... Good idea, maybe if our next kid is a boy I'll do that for his. Here is the maple jack plate spacer that I made, and how it sits on the guitar. It's 6mm deep and is 5mm wider than the jack plate all around. I think it's going to look pretty cool once it's finished and part of the guitar. Just one more little contrasting element. Lousy cell phone pic...

Thanks Scott, I'll give that a try on the next go round. I originally did it this way in attempt to get a 'tiger eye' sort of look. It turned out OK, but I think I can do better.

We've all been there. Certain you did everything right and left scratching your head afterwards... Sucks. At least it's not a terrible fix!

Thanks guys! We had a little jam session last night, the 3 year old on drums and vocals and me on guitar. I berlieve we've got a hit on our hands with "The Monkey Jump Jam", she's got quite a talent for songwriting! So I think she's really going to enjoy this thing once it's finished. Been doing more work. I decided to go with a strat style jack on the back like my bass builds, so I cut the jack hole on the back of the guitar. The problem is that the body is not as thick as the basses, so I've cut out a flamed maple plate to go under the jack plate which will be both decorative and give me a little more depth to work with. The big thing is that I did my first finish test. And I learned quite a bit! For one thing, it's extremely important to be consistent with sanding back the black when using lighter colors on top. I kind of haphazardly threw this together, and my surface prep and sanding back were marginal, and the result suffered for it. But of course, I learned a lot of what to do and what not to do when dying the top, so it was quite helpful! This is black/scarlet red/yellow. The black was sanded back quite a bit, the red slightly less, and the yellow is full strength. I'm thinking I might get some dark brown to replace the black, and sand down both it and the red a bit less on the next attempt. I like the variation between the colors, and the overall orange tone, but I think it can be richer and more consistent if I make those changes.

Well, my daughter turns 3 tomorrow. Time flies! And I suppose it's about time for me to make my 'annual progress' on this build. Actually, over the course of this year we've moved (had to build out and set my shop back up), had several surgeries, and had all sorts of 'real life' get in the way... But now that the shop is set up and I have a little free time, I've gotten back to it. I've worked on cleaning up and deepening the top carve, and done a little bit of carving to the back, as well as cutting the control cavity and control cavity cover. I found a piece of wood that was a pretty close match for the cover, but it's not quite perfect. Really there's not a whole lot of wood working left. At this point it's just massaging a few things in the carves, adding the cavity for the jack, the tuner holes, and doing final sanding. Maybe I'll actually have it ready to spray some finish this spring! Fingers crossed!

That pickguard idea looks awesome! Do it!

Agreed. He has some great stuff.

Thanks guys. My friend who I built the wenge bass for recorded a little snippet of his instructor playing around on the bass tonight. Thought I'd post it:

Bad things happen in 3's... cross your fingers... :/

Wow!

You know, I really thought I had a good shot at winning this thing until Shad Peters entered his guitar. That thing is amazing, it really is the embodiment of a dream guitar for me. It reminds me of a more aggressive version of Paul Languedoc's guitars that he built for Trey Anastasio of Phish, and I have been lusting after one of those since I was in college.

Love the idea behind the strat/tele hybrid. And that walnut top is beyond beautiful! Great job, as usual, Wez.

Raising this thread from the dead... We just finished building out the shop area of our new house. It's a 3rd car garage stall. The ceiling is 12 feet, and the shelves go all the way up to 10. 18" deep shelves on the bottom, and 30" deep on top. Finished with 2 coats of minwax polyshades. To the left you can see the 7' long laminated maple butcher block work bench. We also ran power to the front of the bench, and mounted a 4' fluorescent light fixture over the bench area, which has a switch on the back wall. I'm also thinking of doing some pegboard or something similar along the back wall of the work bench. Haven't decided for sure yet. Facing the bench/shelves, on your left is the tool box, the belt/disk sander combo, and the oscillating spindle sander. On your right is the bandsaw and drill press. Beyond all the stationary tools are a pair of home depot/lowes generic storage shelves, one on each side of the stall. I haven't had a chance to figure out exactly where everything is going to go yet, but I'll probably store the router table and thickness sander underneath the bench. I won't really be able to get out there until early August to start organizing it, since I am recovering from hernia surgery and won't be able to lift more than 15 pounds until then. Bummer...

Wow! Gorgeous! Mind telling where you picked up that Mac ebony veneer?

Absolutely the most beautiful uke I've ever seen! Can't wait to see the guitar version!

Holy crap, that macassar ebony (I assume...) is amazing! I doubt I'll ever need or use this veneering process, but I will certainly enjoy watching and learning.

Beautiful choice of woods and great looking workmanship. Hope it turns out well for you!

Let's call her "Twiggy", because she's long and lean! 34" scale, 24 frets, 16" fretboard radius Woods: Wenge top Ash back, (with black grainfill) Neck: Mahogany, black limba, and black wood fiber composite Macassar Ebony; headplate, backstrap, cavity cover, and fretboard Finish: KTM9 over Z-poxy Hardware: Hipshot ultralight tuners Tonerider P/J pickup set Link to build thread: http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.php?showtopic=33467 Pics:

I applied it with a credit card. Wiped it across the grain. It worked OK, but required a bit more sanding afterwards than I would have liked. I may have to try wiping it on like tru oil. On one guitar, I cut the z-poxy 50/50 with denatured alcohol on the last coat to thin it out and have less work to do after that last coat. But that was after a couple of thick coats to fill the pores. If you look at the back of the bass that I just finished, all the amber color on that came from the z-poxy. The ash was a typical 'ash white' before the z-poxy.

That is going to be amazing when it's done. Such a deep, rich color. I noticed the same with Z-poxy, it really has darkened up the surfaces that I've used it on, in particular on redwood burl. It made it a similarly dark, deep, and rich color. I've loved the effect so far, but I can see there might be situations where it would darken it too much...

Thanks everyone. Here is a shot of the new owner with his bass. For a little more sense of scale, he's 5'6", not a particularly tall guy. It hangs very nicely, no neck dive. The density/weight of the woods, the light tuners, and the extra couple of inches behind the bridge make up for the fact that the upper horn only comes to about the 15th fret.

Here we go, some finished 'glamor shots'. Glad to finally have this one off my plate. Looks great, plays great, sounds great!

Sounds like a good problem to have!