Hi All,
This is my first time posting in the Luthier forum. Been lurking here for quite some time ogling over some of the awesome builds you folks do. I always thought “I am not worthy” to be part of this community of artisans. Well gosh darn it, I decided I had to try putting myself out there, since I have been doing woodworking for quite some time and have a fair amount of tools. If I try and fail, well at least I know it isn’t for me.
Well, I am working on a project that I think will come out pretty decent for a first build, well I guess it’s a half build since I’ve been working on a body for a prefabbed neck. If this works out well, I’ll try my hand at fabbing a neck later. To keep the costs down in case I created a total pile of trash, based on a suggestion here (forgot who it was), I bought a 1x8 by 8 ft piece of poplar from Lowes, cut it in four 2 ft lengths, laminated pairs and edge glued them to make a cheap body blank for around $23. I won’t go into the details here. I plan on starting another thread as sort of a photo essay of what I did, since I was too impatient to stop and post descriptions along the way. I also picked up a $39 Kmise 5-string neck off the ‘bay and a set of cheap tuners from Guitarfetish. I already have a set of Bartolini pickups and a bridge in my stash.
Anyway, here’s a picture of the body that I made and the neck I’ll be using.
It’s based on a standard Fender Jazz body but with reshaped horns. I would like to get some suggestions on the finish. Not interested in painting at all. I love the look of wood, natural, traditional stain colors, and most recently, colored trans finishes (blues, greens, reds, etc.), as long as I can see the grain. I want to stick with all water-based finishes and have been reading through the mega-thread on water-based finishing products and decided to try dyes, specifically the Keda powdered dyes and the Varathane Ultimate water based poly finish. I know this is poplar and not as exciting as the ash, mahogany, roasted / flamed / spalted woods, but I wanted to see what I could do with it. I managed to piece together the body pieces to get a fairly interesting grain effect (at least to me) that I’d like to preserve or enhance.
I’m still deciding on the final color, maybe keep it in the blue / green category to not fight against the greenish tint of the poplar. Maybe something burstish? So would the technique of dyeing the whole thing with dark (blackish) dye, then sanding it down until hopefully the grain stands out before applying the color finish be the right way to go about it? What about initial grain raising with water before applying any dye? Would sanding down the dark dye defeat the initial grain raising by exposing new grain which will raise again?
Looking for any other thoughts on colors that would work, considering the maple fretboard and not look like poopie. Was thinking of hand wiping the poly, or brushing and wiping off after a few minutes. No spraying. I was also a bit confused in the other thread about tinting the finish instead (or in addition?) of dying/staining directly. Maybe I should ask there.
Anyway, thanks for indulging me on my first baby steps in the world of Lutherie.
This is my first time posting in the Luthier forum. Been lurking here for quite some time ogling over some of the awesome builds you folks do. I always thought “I am not worthy” to be part of this community of artisans. Well gosh darn it, I decided I had to try putting myself out there, since I have been doing woodworking for quite some time and have a fair amount of tools. If I try and fail, well at least I know it isn’t for me.
Well, I am working on a project that I think will come out pretty decent for a first build, well I guess it’s a half build since I’ve been working on a body for a prefabbed neck. If this works out well, I’ll try my hand at fabbing a neck later. To keep the costs down in case I created a total pile of trash, based on a suggestion here (forgot who it was), I bought a 1x8 by 8 ft piece of poplar from Lowes, cut it in four 2 ft lengths, laminated pairs and edge glued them to make a cheap body blank for around $23. I won’t go into the details here. I plan on starting another thread as sort of a photo essay of what I did, since I was too impatient to stop and post descriptions along the way. I also picked up a $39 Kmise 5-string neck off the ‘bay and a set of cheap tuners from Guitarfetish. I already have a set of Bartolini pickups and a bridge in my stash.
Anyway, here’s a picture of the body that I made and the neck I’ll be using.
It’s based on a standard Fender Jazz body but with reshaped horns. I would like to get some suggestions on the finish. Not interested in painting at all. I love the look of wood, natural, traditional stain colors, and most recently, colored trans finishes (blues, greens, reds, etc.), as long as I can see the grain. I want to stick with all water-based finishes and have been reading through the mega-thread on water-based finishing products and decided to try dyes, specifically the Keda powdered dyes and the Varathane Ultimate water based poly finish. I know this is poplar and not as exciting as the ash, mahogany, roasted / flamed / spalted woods, but I wanted to see what I could do with it. I managed to piece together the body pieces to get a fairly interesting grain effect (at least to me) that I’d like to preserve or enhance.
I’m still deciding on the final color, maybe keep it in the blue / green category to not fight against the greenish tint of the poplar. Maybe something burstish? So would the technique of dyeing the whole thing with dark (blackish) dye, then sanding it down until hopefully the grain stands out before applying the color finish be the right way to go about it? What about initial grain raising with water before applying any dye? Would sanding down the dark dye defeat the initial grain raising by exposing new grain which will raise again?
Looking for any other thoughts on colors that would work, considering the maple fretboard and not look like poopie. Was thinking of hand wiping the poly, or brushing and wiping off after a few minutes. No spraying. I was also a bit confused in the other thread about tinting the finish instead (or in addition?) of dying/staining directly. Maybe I should ask there.
Anyway, thanks for indulging me on my first baby steps in the world of Lutherie.
