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The Hossenfeffer III Build
- Thread starter Gilmourisgod
- Start date
The tools I use are adequate at best. As long as you keep the cutting edges sharp you can make them work. My poor little $100 nine inch band saw has cut everything from soft maple to katalox and purple heart, just takes a little longer to do the work
My progress slows to a barely perceptible crawl as spring chores eat all my free time, but a little micro-progress is better than none...
This dowel jig is one of my best tool purchases, it just works perfectly. I'm surprised more people don't dowel-register neck thru builds, seems like the only way to do it, but I don't see many other builders bothering. This will pay off when I go to cut the pickup and bridge recesses, this isn't slipping.
Through various tiny measurement errors, the neck beam is something like .005" thicker than the wings, so a little scraping and sanding needed, but the edges will glue up tight and clean. have to be really careful not to dent these edges now, they are knife-edge sharp.
I was reluctant to embed my shiny (and expensive) tail piece in bondo to make the body recess template. so I tried to cut it by hand.....
and failed...... Despite my best efforts, it turns out I suck with a file on MDF. It's very close, but not close enough for this cocobolo top.
So it's back to Bondo Boy. I wrapped it in two layers of tape and greased it up with caranuba wax, hopefully comes out of the mold clean. If so, I'll use the Bondo negative as a one-time template to make a permanent MDF one.
nice to be back, hadn't realized how addicted I've become to TB during the Great Server Shutdown of 2021
This dowel jig is one of my best tool purchases, it just works perfectly. I'm surprised more people don't dowel-register neck thru builds, seems like the only way to do it, but I don't see many other builders bothering. This will pay off when I go to cut the pickup and bridge recesses, this isn't slipping.
Through various tiny measurement errors, the neck beam is something like .005" thicker than the wings, so a little scraping and sanding needed, but the edges will glue up tight and clean. have to be really careful not to dent these edges now, they are knife-edge sharp.
I was reluctant to embed my shiny (and expensive) tail piece in bondo to make the body recess template. so I tried to cut it by hand.....
and failed...... Despite my best efforts, it turns out I suck with a file on MDF. It's very close, but not close enough for this cocobolo top.
So it's back to Bondo Boy. I wrapped it in two layers of tape and greased it up with caranuba wax, hopefully comes out of the mold clean. If so, I'll use the Bondo negative as a one-time template to make a permanent MDF one.
nice to be back, hadn't realized how addicted I've become to TB during the Great Server Shutdown of 2021
I completely agree about using dowels on neck through builds. This will definitely be how mine gets built.
It is very frustrating to cut out templates in MDF, so I really admire your bondo trick!
I scammed that bondo trick right off TB. The poured epoxy resin version I did for the control cavity cover in a pinch was a little nerve-wracking, so I think I'll stick to bondo. I've read that brown packing tape WILL NOT stick to bondo, but, per usual, I grabbed what I had on hand, some crappy masking tape to wrap and create a minimal friction fit for the tailpiece route. I always test my templates on scrap anyway, I have one shot at getting it right on the top. Last time I tried this with masking tape, the tape kinda got glued to the mold, hopefully slathering it with wax did the trick.
I did the same thing, only it was the wings that were too thick. I put them in the router jig and took off almost 2mm and they are still proud just a hair. Seems like too little to chance hitting in the jig again. It's a lot of surface area to take down a few .000's by hand. But I'll have to. I don't have a plane,....I'm wondering if the 5" orbital would be a safe bet,...or even make a giant manual sanding block.
Yeah, it’s too little to risk a router jig, I’m just going to sand/scrape it all flush with my Random orbit sander.
I have to start thinking about finish, leaning towards Tru-Oil, but I want grain fill. I don’t think I can wet sand with Tru Oil as grain filler, the maple layer will get stained with either cocobolo or mahogany slurry. Thinking about Solarez UV Grain Filler, anybody tried it?
I have to start thinking about finish, leaning towards Tru-Oil, but I want grain fill. I don’t think I can wet sand with Tru Oil as grain filler, the maple layer will get stained with either cocobolo or mahogany slurry. Thinking about Solarez UV Grain Filler, anybody tried it?
- Apr 18, 2008
- 16,011
- 1
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- Disclosures
- I'm highly opinionated and extremely self-assured
I’m about to order some Solarez to play with.
Yup. SolarEZ grain fill is good stuff.
Quick work with a sharp plane.
Hard block can work too. Orbital may not flatten evenly.
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You can wet sand with Tru Oil and it forms a slurry that will fill the pores, but I didn’t have much luck with it when I tried it. The paper just seemed to gum up and skate across the wood. The problem with Hippie Sandwich is that the darker wood tends to get ground into the lighter, not sure I want to risk it. Most grain fillers I’ve tried either don’t really work, or they shrink back after a while. Supposedly Solarez doesn’t, I think I’ll try it, on scrap first, of course.
I did some pokin around and video watching yesterday and I'm about 98% sure that I'm going to use Solarez as a grain filler.
I like the idea that it cures chemically and within minutes, so no worrying about it continuing to shrink under the finish.
But I'm still 100% undecided in sheen or what product for topcoat. I'm using wenge for new fingerboard which definitely needs filling. Not sure if I should solarez it or try the truoil slurry.
I guess whichever will hold up the best.
Have to find out which finishes play nice with the solarez filler.
Is it better to stick with solarez or polyester for finish coat, or can you truoil over it? Etc, etc. So many questions.
I like the idea that it cures chemically and within minutes, so no worrying about it continuing to shrink under the finish.
But I'm still 100% undecided in sheen or what product for topcoat. I'm using wenge for new fingerboard which definitely needs filling. Not sure if I should solarez it or try the truoil slurry.
I guess whichever will hold up the best.
Have to find out which finishes play nice with the solarez filler.
Is it better to stick with solarez or polyester for finish coat, or can you truoil over it? Etc, etc. So many questions.
TL/DR:
SolarEZ "I Can't Believe Its not Lacquer " is an excellent, easy to work with, quick curing, Non toxic, nearly odorless product.
Select your final finish sheen before going down the path.
True oil finish needs to absorb into the substrate, so applying it as a top coat over ANY other sealer would be less than successful
*I would not use the polyester as a topcoat , (its REALLY hard) the ICBINL formulae is nearly as hard as polyurethane.
The polyester is also reported to be pretty smelly. Polishing ICBNL is a challenge in that it is hard, hard enough to need a fair amount of elbow grease to polish. Far more than lacquer, or rattlecan poly/acrylic.
The dual cure Polyester (MEKP (Methyl Ethyl Ketone Peroxide) ) would make for an excellent hard coat/grain fill as polishing would not be needed since its only creating a flat surface, and as it is a chemical catalyst, absorption deep is not dependant on UV penetration alone to cure. SMELLY, cancer causing MEKP and the like diminishes one of the benefits of UV cure resins for the MI use case.
**A potential issue with SolarEZ as a grain fill (or any UV cure coating) is absorption by the substrate to an area that the UV cannot penetrate. (too deep into the wood)- so caution , with the grain fill, coat-to-cure time should be short, and
Wenge needs no finish !? Warwick (and many others) has done this for decades.
TrueOil has advantages , but durability is not one of them.
Easily repairable, but not durable. Not sure what other woods are in your build but Wenge is so nice unfinished.
As a grain fill, I have so far top coated it with enamel, and poly. SolarEZ clear has been used to encapsulate Glitter, and poly color coats.
The decision on sheen is important, SolarEZ ICBINL clearcoat only available in gloss.
Dewaxed Shellac is a wonderful grain fill. Alcohol is the carrier solvent so not bad as far as VOC emissions goes.
Almost everything sticks to it, and it sticks to almost everything. It does impart an ambering tint to the substrate, but is easily repaired. It IS very soft (not unlike polymerized oils) so not the best choice as a topcoat
Epoxy is another candidate for a grainfill-topcoat. It adheres very well, is nearly indestructible (think Bartops)
Cure time, handling, and cleanup are drawbacks..
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Not sure if @Gilmourisgod has a spray rig, but I watched some very detailed and informative vids by the Highline guitars guy on YT and he did one guitar with wipe-on epoxy and and then wipe-on solarez as grain fill/base (he didn't explain why both) and then did several thin coats of crytalac bright tone water base top coat with and a 2 stage buff. It came out amazing and his reviews on the crystalac say that there's little to no issues with orange peel, fish eye or blue hazing. I don't have a spray rig and though I think a glass-like high gloss finish looks amazing, I prefer a satin oil finish look, but I'm not excited about the lengthy oil finish process.
I was looking for the vid to post and found another vid where he uses solarez and carnauba wax to get an oil finish look, but harder and can be achieved in a few hours.
I'm very interested in this method.
@Gilmourisgod, I hope you don't mind the thread highjack. I've seen you ask about/mention the solarez quite a few times so, I figured you wouldn't mind getting a bunch of info, traffic and back&forth flowing about it in here.
I was looking for the vid to post and found another vid where he uses solarez and carnauba wax to get an oil finish look, but harder and can be achieved in a few hours.
I'm very interested in this method.
@Gilmourisgod, I hope you don't mind the thread highjack. I've seen you ask about/mention the solarez quite a few times so, I figured you wouldn't mind getting a bunch of info, traffic and back&forth flowing about it in here.
I'd assume epoxy 1st for the reason @/\/\3phist0 described, solarez penetrating too deep for UV to get to it and cure. Epoxy first would seal, then solarez for final level off.
