Winter Build-Off 2022: Bamboo EUB

[Max Bogosity]

That was fast! It took my vinegaroon dye a couple weeks to reach full strength. Maybe you had stronger vinegar.

It’s just regular stuff from the grocery store, but I would guess there are lots of factors influencing how fast it goes. Ratio of steel wool to vinegar, temperature, fineness of the steel wool, how tightly it’s packed, whether it’s been oiled to stop it rusting, etc. It could also be that I have a piece of especially tannin-y walnut. I applied the same dye to a scrap of oak and it turned a fairly light brown.

What's vinegaroon?

What Slidlow said. I don’t think I ever heard the word vinegaroon before 1n3 mentioned it, but it does seem to be fairly common. And it’s a totally ludicrous word, which I love.

I lightly sanded it with 150 grit paper to smooth it out again and lost very little of the colour. Gave it one more shot of dye just because, but I think it’s good to go.

 

[Beej]

Vinegaroons are animals related to scorpions and have nothing to do with ferric acetate. There, put that to bed.

 

[Flamingo21]

Vinegaroons are animals related to scorpions and have nothing to do with ferric acetate.

Can they be domesticised?

 

[/\/\3phist0]

Vinegaroons are animals related to scorpions and have nothing to do with ferric acetate. There, put that to bed.

Beat me to it. Scary looking they are.

 

[/\/\3phist0]

Can they be domesticised?

 

[RichterScale]

So, then,.....don't stain your bass with vinegaroons?

 

[1n3]

I hadn't heard of this thing. From now on, I'll be more likely to say ferric or iron acetate.

 

[Flamingo21]

Sorry, couldn't bring myself to clicking that.

 

[Jon Clegg]

Beat me to it. Scary looking they are.

They are very aggressive as well; when I lived out in the Mojave, one of those little buggers charged me on 2 occasions... it did not end well for them.

 

[Mickey666]

They are very aggressive as well; when I lived out in the Mojave, one of those little buggers charged me on 2 occasions... it did not end well for them.

Hmmm...I lived in Taft (Kern county) in the late 60's early 70's, and I don't remember seeing any of those.

 

[Jon Clegg]

I mostly saw them out on the base at China Lake, never saw them in town.

 

[RichterScale]

They are very aggressive as well; when I lived out in the Mojave, one of those little buggers charged me on 2 occasions... it did not end well for them.

I wouldn't stereotype and judge the whole lot, based on an individual. You don't know what that dude was going through.

 

[Max Bogosity]

You have anticipated my master plan to train a troupe of vinegaroons to do all my finishing for me. If they can spray acid, surely they can spray polyurethane too.

 

[Flamingo21]

This project just became even more innovative!

 

[Max Bogosity]

We had joy, we had fun, we had sanding in the sun.

Maybe not too much joy or fun. This is an epoxy sealing/filling coat. I didn't do a great job of putting it on level, as you can probably see. Lots of card scraper and sanding work.

 

[Videojunkie]

Nothing a few hours of wet sanding won't solve.

 

[Max Bogosity]

Nothing a few hours of wet sanding won't solve.

I was hoping to avoid that at this stage since I'm still sanding through to the wood. Dry sanding epoxy is pretty awful with regular sandpaper, but it seems to go pretty well with Abranet.

Latest problem is that I seem to have somehow got the neck joint pretty badly off square. Trimming and shimming will be needed.

 

[Beej]

A tip I've learned from sanding +++ epoxy is to apply it super thin and just do more coats for coverage. I find applying three super thin easily-sandable coats is much less work and time than sanding back a thick one that I think will cover everything, but still potentially needs an additional application.

 

[Max Bogosity]

In hindsight, it was probably a mistake to cut the mortise in the neck block before gluing it into the body. It was much easier to do at that point, but there wasn't much to keep it square when I glued it up. A fixture that plugged into the mortise could have helped keep it aligned.

A tip I've learned from sanding +++ epoxy is to apply it super thin and just do more coats for coverage. I find applying three super thin easily-sandable coats is much less work and time than sanding back a thick one that I think will cover everything, but still potentially needs an additional application.

That was meant to be a thin coat but didn't come out very consistent. I spread it around with a plastic card. It looked thin and consistent when I was doing it, but ended up with ridges that must have been from the card edges, plus a few runs and drips that crept around the corners when I wasn't looking. Watching youtube videos, it looks like boat guys like to put it on with a thin roller, then 'tip off' with a foam brush.

 

[Max Bogosity]

So, which part of the neck joint did I get crooked? The neck or the body? The answer is yes.

The good news is that now it's pretty square and I can put the whole thing together and even partially string it up.

The bad news is that it now bottoms out on the end of the neck tenon and needs a stupid number of shims to make contact on the shoulders as it should.

But the good news is that there are an equal number of shims all around, so it's pretty square. I don't really want to cut the mortise any deeper or cut the tenon any shorter, so I think the solution is the end of the body is going to get a veneer equal in thickness to the shims. That will also hide the end of the body plywood. I'm kind of tempted to bind the edges all around, but at this point I'd also kind of like to just be done with it.