It reminds me of French croissants. Yummy!
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First project: Folk Bass DIY upright
- Thread starter NKBassman
- Start date
It’s not quite perfect, but it is pretty well finished, so that’s something. I’m calling it the rat tail.
Gryphon's beak. If there was a rat-tail, that would be poking out one side of it waiting to be swallowed all the way.
Might need nostrils.
Might need nostrils.
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Gryphons being notoriously camera-shy, I borrowed from an owl.
It’s been a hot minute. I’ve been battling a sinus infection and some general burnout, so I've been working pretty sporadically in the garage/shop lately.
I cleaned up the curves on the headstock carving a little bit more and then moved on to finishing.
I started with a diluted wipe with my ebonizing solution, but it was immediately apparent that it was going to be impossible to get the douglas fir neck to even remotely match the maple mounting beam and (maple?) glue on scrolls using the iron acetate alone. The difference in response to the chemical ebonizing between the DF and Maple is dramatic, maple going a dull grey and douglas fir going almost black. I didn’t take any pictures at this stage apparently and moved straight to Plan B without really giving it any real thought:
After a few wipes with the diluted ebonizing solution, I threw down a light coat of Minwax “espresso” stain over the maple bits to darken it close to the ebonzied colour of the douglas fir. Then I lightly sanded back the headstock relief carves and added a bit of “redwood” stain for some contrast. Lastly I gave the neck a wipe with some espresso stain diluted with Minwax "Natural" to lighten it slightly and was happy with where that ended up. It now matches very close to the stained maple mounting block.
These pictures are after all the staining of the main neck was done, but before/after the contrast staining of the headstock carve. It’s a bit darker than I initially imagined, but I also intend to scrub in the first few coats of tung oil with some medium and fine scotchbrite pads, so it will lighten up a bit still. I plan to emphasize this in the "money" playing area of the neck to try to achieve a bit of a worn-in look on the back of the neck. You can already see some of the subtle bursting I tried to achieve with the stain alone, especially in the sunlight pictures.
I also accidentally attached a pic of my hot pepper haul from this weekend. Habaneros and “Basket of Fire” chillies… not sure what I’m going to do with all these yet. lol
I cleaned up the curves on the headstock carving a little bit more and then moved on to finishing.
I started with a diluted wipe with my ebonizing solution, but it was immediately apparent that it was going to be impossible to get the douglas fir neck to even remotely match the maple mounting beam and (maple?) glue on scrolls using the iron acetate alone. The difference in response to the chemical ebonizing between the DF and Maple is dramatic, maple going a dull grey and douglas fir going almost black. I didn’t take any pictures at this stage apparently and moved straight to Plan B without really giving it any real thought:
After a few wipes with the diluted ebonizing solution, I threw down a light coat of Minwax “espresso” stain over the maple bits to darken it close to the ebonzied colour of the douglas fir. Then I lightly sanded back the headstock relief carves and added a bit of “redwood” stain for some contrast. Lastly I gave the neck a wipe with some espresso stain diluted with Minwax "Natural" to lighten it slightly and was happy with where that ended up. It now matches very close to the stained maple mounting block.
These pictures are after all the staining of the main neck was done, but before/after the contrast staining of the headstock carve. It’s a bit darker than I initially imagined, but I also intend to scrub in the first few coats of tung oil with some medium and fine scotchbrite pads, so it will lighten up a bit still. I plan to emphasize this in the "money" playing area of the neck to try to achieve a bit of a worn-in look on the back of the neck. You can already see some of the subtle bursting I tried to achieve with the stain alone, especially in the sunlight pictures.
I also accidentally attached a pic of my hot pepper haul from this weekend. Habaneros and “Basket of Fire” chillies… not sure what I’m going to do with all these yet. lol
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Lets talk rolled fingerboard edges for a minute. Is there a preferred technique or method? How much roll over is too much?
Roll over being presumably the same thing as round-over or "easing the edge?"
When the strings start going over the edge, it's too much. So, if the strings are close to the edge, not much. If the strings are far from the edge, more could be done, or you could make the neck narrower. Primarily a matter of comfort when playing so long as it does not go so far as to cause problems with the string landing on the board.
If you have a lot of real estate I guess you could use a round-over bit, but filing/sanding to suit seems more typical.
First coat of oil scrubbed in with a Medium scotchbrite pad. The stain came off the front of the headstock much more readily than elsewhere and so my “burst” got away from me a little bit, but I’m in the process of fixing that. I think I’ll add some red to that spot actually. I like the way the rub-back turned out everywhere else.
That's what I was going for, so I really appreciate the comment! thanks.
Personally I use bore oil on my ebony fingerboards. It's what clarinet players use on their ebony instruments.
Given the DIY garage-built "theme" of this project, I should check how much 10W-30 I have left.
Found time to fix my oversanding on the headstock and slap on another coat of oil.
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No new pics to share, but I got (at least?) two more coats of the Watco Tung Oil on the neck over the weekend. I think that's about 4 coats on everything now except the front of the headstock where I had to re-stain that patch. It's pretty much completely stopped soaking in now, so I think we're done. On the last application yesterday it only took a drop or two of oil to cover the whole neck top to bottom... night and day compared to the figurative gallon that it soaked up on the first two coats. I don't want the surface to build to the point that it starts looking plasticy, so I'm going to stop here and move on.
I'm going to leave it alone and let it set for a few days now, and then degloss the business part of the neck for a super smooth satin raw-wood feel. In the mean time, I need to start reassembly and begin working on the final bridge, nut, and tail piece.
After doing this oiled neck finish a couple of times now, I'm almost feeling confident enough to strip and refinish the neck on my favourite Fender P4. It's "just" a typical Highway 1 P, so not really anything special in the grand scheme of things, but it's one of my favourite choices in my current pile of basses.
I'm going to leave it alone and let it set for a few days now, and then degloss the business part of the neck for a super smooth satin raw-wood feel. In the mean time, I need to start reassembly and begin working on the final bridge, nut, and tail piece.
After doing this oiled neck finish a couple of times now, I'm almost feeling confident enough to strip and refinish the neck on my favourite Fender P4. It's "just" a typical Highway 1 P, so not really anything special in the grand scheme of things, but it's one of my favourite choices in my current pile of basses.
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Since that's a rather vague product description, the answer would be mmmmaybe?
If it's legitimately an oil-based product, any oil or alcohol dissolved tinting products should work.
