Scratch Pine Toronado: Body Finish Do-over

Due to a catastrophic clear coat fail, the scratch Toronado build languished in the corner of the man-cave.  After a hiatus of almost 12 months, I've finally gotten around to resurrecting it. I couldn't rightly abandon my first (and only!) scratch body build, now could I?

The cause of this build's untimely demise was yet another issue with Acrylic as a finish. Once my current builds are done I vow never again to cross Acrylic's dark path! Everything seems OK with an acrylic finish until you try to assemble the thing. But, as soon as you screw into the acrylic, chances are it will lift from the surface in a bubble and you'll hurl the thing across the room. And it seems to be worse the thicker the clear coats are. Grrrrr! Maybe poly will serve me better in the future.

Anyway after dusting the body off I sanded it back completely, added a whole new coat of black dye, and got the Tru-Oil going. After 5 coats things are looking good already. I didn't apply the dye as darkly this time around, opting for more of a trans-black look. The pine grain is standing out nicely although the colour is looking a little blotchy. That's to be expected with pine, and truth be told I'm not that fussy.

Lots of grain in the pine to see, but some blotchy patches too.

Honestly, any variation in the finish is good with me; whether it's beautiful grain or colour blotches. I'm not even sure whether I'll even bother getting the body up to a full gloss this time around. I'll just keep applying layers of TO until I'm happy, but I'm kinda digging the satin oiled look the early layers of Tru-Oil give. I might leave the shiney to the chrome and pickguard for this bad boy.

The Toronado is a really nice shape, am I right?

I gotta say, coming back to this build I forgot how much I love this body shape. It's a little Tele, little Jazzmaster, and a little Jaguar-esque all mixed into one. I think after this one is done I'll get on and start another, this time maybe just in a simple Amber or Yellow. I will have to start from "scratch" again though as my MDF template is ruined.

Jazz Bass: None More Black

There's not much happening in the man cave at the moment, what with 3 builds hanging with un-cured Acrylic clear coats. Luckily there is still another build that can progress while I patiently wait.

Over the last week I sanded the body of the JB-1 Jazz Bass build down to 400 grit and applied a trans-black dye job using Black Colortone stain. To pop the grain this time around, I didn't sand back the first coats to remove most of the colour. Instead, while the dye was still wet, I used a clean wet rag to literally drag the colour out of the surface; leaving the deeper grain still coloured. I repeated this several times, re-applying the black and dragging it back out, until I was happy with the overall effect. It's not a technique that will work if you want grain popped in another colour (eg black under blue etc) but for the same colour pop it works extremely well.

Trans-black finish shows the grain nicely

With the dye on, I was able to begin the clear coats on this bad boy as well. Make that 4 builds now hanging in the drying room (ie my shower recess). But at least this one needs plenty more coats.

In terms of assessories etc. I'm currently considering an all black look - black pickguard and black control plate cover. It may be a little over the top, so I'm reserving judgement for the moment. I'm also considering a custom 3-ply black pickguard that also covers the control plate area. Something like this:

An interesting pickguard option. Seriously considering!

Not sure I'm up for the fiddly edging required but again it's on the list for consideration.

12 String Telecaster: None more Black

With the glue spots fixed on the veneer of the 12 String Telecaster, it was time to finish the sanding on the rest of the body and get the black dye on there. Having already sanded the body comprehensively to 180 grit I proceeded to sand with 240 and 320 grits until she felt really smooth all over. I then raised the grain with water a couple of times, knocking the raised grains off with some 400 grit.

With the body smooth, out came the black Colortone. I gave the body 3 rounds of dye before I was satisfied with the coverage. There are a couple of places on the end-grain that aren't accepting as much dye as the rest (this usually happens on the horns and in the cutouts) but overall I'm pretty happy. There's also a patch around the ferrule holes that is taking more stain than the rest of the body. It's very possible that this area didn't get as good a sand as the rest. Let's chock that up to a little DIY character.

The back is a bit patchy, but black dye is like that.

After I was satisfield with the back and sides I went back to the front veneer. Here I played with a little more dye, trying to get it into the flame figure as much as possible. I did this by applying some colour, letting it soak for a little while, then pulling it back out with a clean wet rag. Trouble is, pulling dye back out again is a bit of a balancing act - teetering between popping the flame and making the rest if the grain too lifeless and grey. I think I managed to get a good balance in the end. I also attempted a subtle black burst around the edge.

A subtle black burst? Can you see it?

All in all I'm very happy. I'm very interested to see what the lacquer does to the grain here. Hopefully it will pop it even more and give me a little chatoyance. Fingers crossed! I took the tape off the binding to let the body hang and dry completely, and man - she looks even better with the stark white strip around the top. The only thing that could have been better is two strips of binding top and bottom!

Much better without the tape.

Tomorrow I'll start to spray White Knight Clear Gloss Acrylic and we'll really get to see what she's going to look like. While I wait for the coats to dry I'll be able to get started on the neck which is going to get the Fender Vintage yellow treatment - fretboard and all.

12 String Telecaster: Goof-off to the Rescue

Well more progress on the 12 String Telecaster today after a few days procrastinating over my glue issues. Resigned to the possibility that a solid finish may end up being the only possibility here, I decided to break out the Goof-off adhesive remover from Bunnings and give the glue spots some curry.

Goof-off glue remover - a bacon saver!

I made three passes over each glue spot. First I applied the Goof-off with a rag, rubbing hard on each spot for two or three sloppy applications. Then i took a clean rag and rubbed the same spots, trying to draw as much of the chemical back out of the wood as possible. This process I repeated three times in total, using up a good quarter of the container in the process.

After letting the body dry completely (this stuff evaporates pretty quickly), I then hit each glue spot with some 240 grit sandpaper; sanding until the (dye) tide lines around each glue spot couldn't be seen any more. I risked sand-through with each swipe of the paper, but there wasn't much alternative. It was with trepidation that I then broke out the black Colortone dye to see how successful my ministrations had been. Turns out they had been quite successful indeed!

A much better dye coverage second time around.

Fortunately there were no sand-through patches to be seen. Not only that, the dye had soaked into the previously bare patches remarkably well, with most of the glue spots now completely invisible. There still remains the faintest few spots around the bottom binding, and I'm still not sure what I will do about these. I'm not too keen to get too much of the remover on the binding, so I'll possibly use the wire brush during final dye application to try and get more dye in there. Either way I'm immensely pleased with the results. Looks like I somehow dodged a bullet with this one. Hats off to Goof-off. It gets a high recommendation from me after the results I've seen today!

12 String Telecaster: Fucking Glue Spots

Ok, did I say that the 12 String Telecaster kit had no obvious glue spots? Well, I was wrong. I got the kit out today to do some more sanding and to hunt for possible glue spots on the flame maple veneer (just in case :o). I'm leaning towards a trans black finish on the top, so I applied a weak wash of black dye to start to pop the grain and as a pre-colour just in case there's any glue spots to uncover.

A weak wash of black dye to highlight any glue spots.

The flame started to pop alright, but unfortunately I uncovered glue-a-plenty on the veneer. There's big gloops of glue around the binding near the neck pickup route, and it continues around most of the top half of the guitar. How the hell do you spill so much glue getting the binding on there and not clean it up?

A real mess around the binding

I'm pretty pissed off to be honest. These factories will build a kit with the thinnest of thin veneers to save money, but will then slather glue all over it to make finishing said veneer next to impossible. I don't know how I'm going to clean this glue up without sanding right through the veneer. I might try a few rounds of Goof-off Adhesive Remover on there to see if it helps, but I'm not holding out much hope. At this rate my nice flame maple 12 string is going to be covered with a solid colour finish. Not happy Jan!!