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Fire-staining disgruntles me. Large, horrible pics inside...

F this S. I'ma drink beer the rest of the night. Where's my Cabo Wabo... damnit...


So I made the terrible mistake of trying to use an industrial-grade sander for fine detailed work. DURRR. Here's the proof, on the flame maple veneer glued to a 2x6:

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The figuring all but disappears. It didn't even leave behind some gentle lines of red, like previous tests. BOOO. HISSSS. BLOODY WANKERS, as English hooligans would say.

So, I glued another one, and restained it, and today I sanded back by hand, using 80-grit paper, and I didn't get any better results:

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Looks like the butt end of a butt. The sanding shows more of the ripples of the uneven 2x6 underneath, than the figuring of the maple. As Denis Leary once said, "I'm jutht not happy! I'm jutht not happy cuth my life didn't turn out the way I thought it would be..." Life sucks! Get a helmet!

My brother says, the glue and/or wood backing is messing me up. It's only 1/32" thick, so perhaps the glue just soaks into the veneer, killing/filling the grain?

For comparison, here's the veneer I did before gluing to the 2x6 boards. The first shows the sanding back, then the yellow over, and how the red bleeds into the yellow and turned everything more or less a shade of orange, as opposed to the intended solid red and bright yellow:

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And a closeup:

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This one certainly shows the defined deep red lines, and the contrasting yellow. It's just the bleeding that I'm not yet happy with. Just tell me that these recent tests failed cuz the veneer's too thin to glue, and I've gotta keep trying with the curled up sheets anyways. As long as it's a legit reason for the glued veneers to turn out so differently, I'll be content in my wasted efforts and sign it off to learning experiences.

Musiclogic gave me the excellent strategy to do the red, sand back, seal the red with a thinned quick coat of clear lacquer, then dye the lacquer with yellow and coat over the sealed red. Then I'll avoid the bleeding orange effect.

Hey Todd... got any more of that quilted maple I bought from you? Any scraps of that stuff you might wanna toss my way? Cuz I'm gonna run out of these flamed maple veneers... heh heh...
 
Okay.

New board, less figuring, but better results. It's a 1/8" by 5" by 8" sample. Took Musiclogic's suggestions, so this is red dye in alcohol, 4 thin t-shirt rubbed coats. Sanded the red back. At first, I didn't think I sanded it back enough. Turns out I did just fine. Then I did two thin coats of thinned clear lacquer. Then I dyed the same thinned lacquer yellow, and did two medium coats.

This photos are under BEAUTIFUL daylight earlier today. Yummy sunlight:

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The top half of the board was completely sanded back after the red coat. The yellow overlapped the undanded bottom half just a little bit, and the very bottom 1/4 of the board is red without any yellow over it. I shoulda marked it off with a black line or something, so it's a bit easier to discern from each other.

I'm almost liking the idea of solid red, sealed, then yellow over it, without the sanding back. Heh heh. OH THE GLORY OF DISCOVERY! As if I didn't have enough options, after taking the pics, I went to the Detroit Autorama and saw COUNTLESS hot rods street cruisers vintage rods and muscle cars, all with such flamboyant, aggressive, INGENIOUS paintjobs.

After I'm done with this bass, next project, same body design but straight bevels instead of rounding everything over, and then a solid bright white with pearl metallic, and all beveled edges get an argent-black metallic.

Exactly like my brother's geetar!