Ash Stratocaster: Finally Got the Blues

Well, finishing and assembly is finally completed on the Ash Stratocaster build. The Colortone blue and Acrylic finish has come up a treat, especially with the ebony Timbermate to pop that gorgeous ash grain. To be honest I couldn't be happier with how she has come out.

A few people out there have questioned the choice of a Vintage Amber neck, and if I had my time again I'd probably go a natural neck with the blue body colour. But all in all, I still think the amber and blue combination works well.

Despite issues with pin holes in the Acrylic clear coats, the finish finally came up beautifully. The pin holes were caused by the ash grain not being completely filled and completely sealed before the lacquer went on. While I solved the problem in the end with repeated application, it's a lesson to be learnt for next time.

I still need to do a complete setup before I can call her 100% complete. This includes a fret level, adjustment of bridge saddle height, and the filing of a brand new bone nut. She already plays very nicely indeed - straight out of the box as it were. The Tru-Oiled neck is so smooth! With a fret job and new nut I'll be able to dial the action in and she'll be a real joy under the fingers. Stay tuned for more updates!

Ash Stratocaster: Ready for Polish

After a day of rain and no way to spray outdoors, the weather was bright and sunny today and I was able to get the can of White Knight clear acrylic out for a final coat on the Ash Stratocaster. The surface was beautiful and level after my previous ministrations, and the final coat went on like a dream. Both the front and back look really beautiful now - it's amazing how much it has helped enhance the underlying grain!

Final Clear Coat for Polishing. The Ash Grain is Looking Amazing.

Nothing for it now but to let this final coat cure for a few days under the IR lamp until the smell disappears. Patience is a virtue at times like these - or at least having a second build to be getting on with! I've learnt from previous experience that there's no point polishing until the curing is done. Disappointment is sure to follow! I am very excited to see this build put together though...

Ash Stratocaster: Clearing, Levelling, Rinse and Repeat..

More levelling and clear coating today on the Ash Stratocaster. Firstly, I took the acrylic clear back with 800 grit wet-sanding until both my shoulder was aching and I was stricken in terror lest I sand through to the dye. The top was *almost* level - just a few grain lines poking through - but I decided more clear wouldn't hurt.

Surface levelled with 600 grit. It's not perfect yet, but it's getting there!

After a good clean it was on with two more coats of acrylic gloss. Man, now she really shines - and the shinier she gets, the more the blue is enhanced and the grain pops. And it's just amazing how different this blue Colortone looks inside the cave versus out in the sun! Anyway, here's the new shine:

Two more coats and a bake under the IR lamp. The shine is getting there!

Looking pretty good! After these two coats nearly all of the grain has been filled. You can still see a few small grain lines that remain in the clear:

It's shiny but some grain lines remain. Back to the 800 grit!

One more round of 800 grit wet-sanding and a final coat of acrylic should remove these lines and allow one more coat of clear to complete the job. After that she'll be ready for curing and polishing. It's gonna to take a week or so to cure fully under my heat lamp (I'll basically wait until all the smell is gone from the surface). But the curing starts on Friday! More levelling to do before then. Better rest my sanding arm!

Ash Stratocaster: More Acrylic from the Can

Today I spent time getting more acrylic lacquer onto the Ash Stratocaster. Yesterday I managed 5 coats - representing most of a full can of White Knight Clear Acrylic Gloss. Today I applied 2 more coats, flattened the surface somewhat with 800 grit paper, and then applied two more coats. Between coats, both yesterday and today, I have had the body in front of my IR lacquer curer (outdoor heater from Bunnings) and that has helped speed up the process brilliantly.

The lacquer is slowly building up a gloss finish.

More uneven grain on the front means more rough places to take care of.

The back is much more level then the front, and looking good!

The result is a guitar body that is starting to level up, but is still a little rough in places where the ash grain is still showing through. In these places in particular, there area few "pinholes" that I will need to take care of with some carefully placed lacquer. That's a job for tomorrow before I flatten the surface again with 800 grit. Hopefully with a couple more coats she'll be ready for a final wet-sand with 1500 and then 2000 grits, followed by a polish with Meguiars compounds.

While the body has been curing I have also been able to slowly build up coats of Tru-Oil on the neck. Currently there are now 7 thin coats over the Vintage Amber dye, and she's starting to look nice and shiny.

7 Coats of Tru-Oil on the Neck and She's Looking Good

Not only does she look nice, she is really starting to feel nice too. I have been applying 0000 steel wool between coats, and between the 6th and 7th coat I gave the whole surface a light wet-sand with 1500 grit. A few more of those and she'll be ready for the decal.

Today I bit the bullet and ordered a set of Stratocaster Gold Hardware from the good folks at Pitbull Guitars. I'm hoping that the gold will put the finishing touch on this axe. I've never seen a blue axe that didn't look amazing with gold. Here's hoping!

Ash Stratocaster: Black Burst? Um, No.

Got more dye on to the Ash Stratocaster today. What I had intended as a black burst ended up like this. Can you see the burst? No I can't see it either.

She's much darker in real-life, but looks great through the camera!

I'm not sure what happened to the black. The wood seemed to saturate very quickly and try as I might I couldn't blend the black into the blue without obliterating it completely. I think the black just darkened the entire body in the end, although the end grain has retained quite a lot of it. The only place on the body!

Anyway, with no burst forthcoming I decided to press on and get the clear coats started. In this photo there are 3 coats of acrylic clear on the body. The ash grain is still poking through the clear coats at the moment, indicating that my Timbermate grain filling process didn't fill them entirely. No matter. To be honest, even though it means that the guitar wont be as glossy as it might be, I like seeing the ash grain pattern in the surface of the finish.

Acrylic Gloss from a Can

The acrylic clear I am using for this project is the canned variety from White Knight. In the past I have used auto acrylic and my own spray equipment, but I thought I'd give this a go. It's more expensive than the bulk auto acrylic+thinner, but it is sooo much more convenient to use. I'm seeing if I can get just as good a finish with this, including the wet-sanding and polishing. The ash grain may well defeat me in this, but we'll see. Tomorrow I'll get more acrylic clear coats on and we'll see if that pesky grain is going to fill up or not!

Ash Stratocaster: Grainfill & Dye

More progress today on the Ash Stratocaster build! I finally got the body sanded to 400 grit and then went through 3 passes of raising the grain with water and sanding back down until I was happy with the smoothness.

Smooth as a baby's Wossname.

With the body smooth as a baby's unmentionables, it then was time to fill the grain. Instead of dying black and sanding back, I opted to fill the grain with dark filler in much the same way as I did with the Ash Les Paul build. For that build I used walnut Timbermate to fill the ash grain as it matched the brown hues in the burst nicely. For this build I decided to use ebony Timbermate as the black would work much better with a blue dye. I actually did a few tests with 4 different Timbermate colours against a blue background and the ebony was certainly streaks ahead of the others. Anyway, I got the Timbermate smooshed down into the grain, and a few hours later sanded it off again with 400 grit.

A slurry of timbermate pushed down into the grain and left to dry.

Timbermate sanded back with 400 grit to leave the grain filled.

Once I was happy with the amount of black left in the body (there was still a little more than I was hoping for, but it's in the grain - what can I do) it was time to start the staining. After agonising for a month over what dye to use (you've probably read the posts!), I finally decided on the Colortone blue. It's not as "brilliant" a blue as I would have liked, but with the darkness of this piece of ash, and combining that with the darkness of the ebony Timbermate, she was never going to be a "brilliant" blue anyway.

And so the dye went on for a first coat, and I gotta say, I was very pleased with the results! The blue dye combined with the ebony Timbermate resulted in a kind of "slate" blue. Very nice! It's not what I had envisioned for this build in the beginning, but I'll take it all the same! Here's a picture of the blue in the sunshine. The dye here has dried quite a bit, so the final colour will be a bit darker (a more "wet" look).

Blue dye and black grain in the sun. It's dry here so final colours will darken.

The photos give some impression of the contrast between body and grain. This will increase again when the lacquer goes on. Suffice to say I'm very happy with the way the grain pops. I think she'll look pretty good with a bit of lacquer and a brilliant shine!

And... here she is with the original white scratchplate on. Looks pretty good, but I'm now imagining a black burst around the edge and an aged cream pearloid scratchplate.

Final colour will be darker blue, but I'm also considering a black burst

What do you guys think would look best?

Ash Stratocaster: More Dye Tests

I decided to do one more blue dye test today using my pine scrap body. This time it's back to big bad blue Colortone to get an idea for comparison. I tried two colours: 100% blue and a 50/50 blue/green mix - a combination that served me well on the Solid Body PRS build. Here are the results:

Colortone dye on pine - Blue and 50/50 Blue/Green.

The top left is 100% blue Colortone. I applied two coats of blue, and used a clean wet rag after the second coat to rub back out some of the colour and in doing do highlight the grain. The top right is 50/50 blue and green. The bottom left is 50/50 blue green bursting to 100% blue on the outside edge. As usual, the "turquoise" shades don't photograph well. I actually think this blue, and even the blue/green burst, doesn't look half bad. The only question mark is the ash body, which to my eye is a tad darker than this piece of pine.

Ash is a little darker than the my test piece of pine.

To be honest, I'm not sure how the colours will transfer to the ash, but I'm optimistic that the colour shades we see on the pine could be pretty close to those on the ash. Thoughts on this colour combination?