First time build, LP-1MQ

[Cannonfodder82]

After all the overwhelming support on my welcome thread, I was feeling a bit guilty for not having started a build thread yet. So here it goes...

I received a kit for my birthday from my beautiful wife after she had been listening to me babble on about PBG for about 6 months. After cracking open the box, I found that she had bought me an awesome LP-1MQ kit.

So, I've been reading a fair few build threads and it I'm pretty sure the way I want to go is stain the quilted maple veneer with black ink to pop the grain then Dingotone over the top with the colour I'm after (blue, in this case).

Before I go ahead with it, I just wanted to clear up a few things;
1. Is there a general preference on brand/type of ink? I'm mainly concerned about whether using cheap printer toner or something will fade over time...
2. It seems that most advice points to not sanding the maple veneer before staining black and then, once dry, lightly sand with 320 then 400 grit to pop the grain. Does this sound correct?
3. Assuming I use a water based ink, it sounds like I should rub on the black ink, then wipe the veneer down with a damp cloth to remove some excess ink from the 'peaks' before sanding. Should this wiping be done when the ink is still wet or wait until it dries?

Sorry about the wall of text, let me know if I need to work on my forum etiquette... Thanks again for the help.

Cheers,

Jono

[UpperCaseH]

Never be embarrassed to ask all the questions you need to!

I've never done a grain pop with ink before, but I've used inks to make a burst pattern (I ended up stripping it off, not because the ink was a bad idea though! I just didn't like the colours in the end).

I understand that some inks fade and some don't. I have no idea which ones do fade, but you can get light-fast india ink from an art supply place for less than $10 a pot. The pots are tiny, but there's probably enough in there to pop grain on 2 or even 3 guitars. You want to dilute it to 1 water in 3 ink or even further. 50/50 seemed too dilute for me but I was trying for a colour, not a grain pop.

You don't want to sand too much on the veneer, but if you're careful you won't have any problems. Just be aware that it's really thin. I did 320 - 400 on my telecaster and it came up OK.

I don't know when exactly you'd wipe the ink back off, but the one time I used ink, "a damp rag" did exactly nothing to the colour after 24 hours. I ended up using goof-off to get it off again. I'm sure someone who know more than I do about it will tell you exactly how their process works though!

[Andy40]

Hi Cannonfodder....it has been a while!

I tend to agree with Uppercase H and you are correct in not sanding the veneer prior to staining. Couple of points I would add.

Any stains you are attempting, if not tried and true on the forum, you should use a test bit of wood to check how good it is. I went through a number of well known stain products and printer ink which to me only provided lacklustre results. You are only going to stain it once, so making sure its what you want before staining the guitar is important.

Check the veneer with a wet rag prior to doing anything to see if there are any glue spots as you may need to deal with those prior to staining.

Personally, I pop the grain with timbermate rather than black ink as it gives me some "padding" for sanding before I start ripping into the thin veneer.

Good luck mate, ask as many questions as you want.

Edit: DB posted recently that you should watch out wiping a wet rag on a thin veneer as it may cause bubbling. I should have mentioned this soz.

[Ghaynas]

Hi Cannonfoder, I'm a newbie like you and I'm still learning all I can. I just came in to say hello and that I'm going to read this threat because I'm waiting to build an LP kit too. By the way I'll tell you that I've learned a lot with threats of the two great teachers that had answered already. Andy and UpperCase has both of them very interesting threats, I recommend you to read them carefully because you will find a couple of things that may be good to know.

[FrankenWashie]

Never be embarrassed to ask all the questions you need to!

I've never done a grain pop with ink before, but I've used inks to make a burst pattern (I ended up stripping it off, not because the ink was a bad idea though! I just didn't like the colours in the end).

I understand that some inks fade and some don't. I have no idea which ones do fade, but you can get light-fast india ink from an art supply place for less than $10 a pot. The pots are tiny, but there's probably enough in there to pop grain on 2 or even 3 guitars. You want to dilute it to 1 water in 3 ink or even further. 50/50 seemed too dilute for me but I was trying for a colour, not a grain pop.

You don't want to sand too much on the veneer, but if you're careful you won't have any problems. Just be aware that it's really thin. I did 320 - 400 on my telecaster and it came up OK.

I don't know when exactly you'd wipe the ink back off, but the one time I used ink, "a damp rag" did exactly nothing to the colour after 24 hours. I ended up using goof-off to get it off again. I'm sure someone who know more than I do about it will tell you exactly how their process works though!

From Memory, Wazkelly uses a 20 minute standard for the application to wipe off (I think?!? correct me if I'm wrong Waz!)

You can always repeat to deepen colour or effect, but once its in and set, you are stuck with chemical removers or sanding to get it out again, or covering it completely.

[FrankenWashie]

I knew it was WazKelly that gave me some tips on working with an ink pop. Here is what he posted on my Cliche Black LP thread:
"Wow Frankie, what a dilemma!

I have devilishly contemplated doing something similar to Arzi's Barncaster that would require using Black Ink Jet Ink and reckon it might just work on this. Here are some ideas.....

Wipe the black ink on with a rag and allow it to get touch dry and then wipe off as much as you can on the front and back with a 'just damp' (not wringing wet) cloth to soak up as much of the black as possible but leaving all that you can on the edges to act as a black border. Remember to keep rinsing the cloth out in a bucket of water so that it can absorb more ink on each pass.

Leave to dry overnight or 24 hours if possible then hit it again with another damp cloth wipe to see if any more ink comes off. The grain should be popping by now. If things don't look dark enough repeat step one again. After a second drying period and subsequent damp wipe the grain should be popping off the dial. Don't forget to do the back of the neck and maybe headstock face too at the same time. Don't think it will need a 3rd ink session as you run the risk of too much soaking in. Did this on my Blue Tele and it brought the best out in the flame maple top and reckon It would look unreal in shades of black through to grey.

As I have had best results with TO that would be my choice for top coats however anything goes over ink provided you give it plenty of time to fully dry so that leaves you with lots of options."

I am going to run some tests on this with India ink and some scrap maple pieces to see how it works, i'll let you know how it goes.

[Cannonfodder82]

You guys are awesome! Thanks for the great info.

FrankenWashie, I think I remember reading your build somewhere along the line, thanks for digging it up. Definitely keen to hear how the India ink goes on the scrap maple...

Andy, I see that Timbermate seems to be a pretty popular option and I agree that it seems like a safer option when sanding back the delicate top but how dark can you get it? I'm aiming for something like this;



I've been meaning to message Dingobass to see if that kind of blue is possible with Dingo Tone at the moment or if I'm better off using something else. Thoughts?

Anyway, I thought I'd better get some actual work done on the guitar so I did a quick mock build and looked for glue spots over the weekend. Here's some pics of the grain when it was wet down;



And the back;



While doing this, I found that finding glue spots on mahogany is pretty easy due to the difference in colour but finding spots on maple was significantly harder. Then I had an idea...

Tonic water glows blue under UV light. What if I wiped down the guitar with tonic water, shine a UV lamp on it and see if there are any glue stains that way (they shouldn't glow). It's clear so it shouldn't leave any perceptible trace once it's out of UV and I don't imagine it will react with glue, stain etc as it's just carbonated water with a small amount of added quinine. I'll give it a crack on some scrap pine and let you know how it goes.

Cheers,

Jono

[Cannonfodder82]

Hi guys, long time, no post...

After almost a year of the LP sitting under my bed, I decided to have a crack at staining it today...

This is the first coat of black to pop the grain.



Noticed quite a few glue spots around the binding and one in the middle that I had missed previously so I gave the whole body a sand with 400 grit, used a small amount of Goof Off and a brass wire brush and did what I could. Put down the blue coat and ended up with this;



Still had that while glue line in between the 2 halves of the maple so attempted to colour it with a marker.
After a few more coats it turned out like this;



It's still drying here so it's a bit darker but it hopefully will end up looking something like this when it's clear coated.

I used U-beaut dyes by the way, if anyone is interested.

Cheers,

Jono

[Kick]

Sounds familiair; I had the some issues with my build and I only could mask the gluespots by using undiluted balck stampink on those spots. See my sig for the build.

Nevertheless you are doing very well

[wazkelly]

Another way would be to very carefully scrape the glue line and fill with a mix of natural timber mate and the stain colour. Too much filler equals too much sanding so only a small concentrated amount should do the trick.