Blue stains on flame maple cap?

[Stiryx]

Hi everyone,

Starting my first build on an ES-1GL and have came accross something weird when sanding the maple cap. There are a few blue stains on the front only, I don't believe these to be glue stains as I removed 2 small dots of glue that were yellow in appearance.

First picture shows the largest affected area, however the F hole binding has a tiny touch of the blue leading me to believe these may be glue stains. I successfully removed the yellow glue spots using the wire brush trick, but nothing seems to touch these blue stains and I am worried about sanding through the cap soon.

Has anyone experienced anything similar, or are these just glue spots that seem to not go away?

[Simon Barden]

It's not a maple cap, but a 0.6mm thick maple veneer. It's normally not necessary to sand the cap with anything but the very lightest of sands with fine grit paper. Without knowing how much you have sanded, I fear you may have sanded through the veneer and can now see the glue that holds the veneer to the ply beneath. Or it may be excess glue that has seeped up from the bottom through most of the veneer.

On the f-hole picture, I can't really see any blue in the photo, but you probably do have some glue showing between the binding and the veneer top.

You can only really try to apply some glue remover, such as Goof-Off, and see whether it improves matters. Otherwise you can only try to stain the top and see how it comes out. You may need to rethink the finish and maybe try a sunburst where the burst pattern covers over the problem areas.

[Stiryx]

Thanks Simon, I have only done a very light sand with 240/400 sandpaper to knock off a few bad scratch marks and to clean up the yellow glue spots I removed. I have refinished thin veneers on pianos and there's no way I have sanded through.

The blue stain was there right out of the box, and unfortunately I think I will have to be spraying this with a blue or dark nitro to hide the stain, as even if it does hold a stain it is going to be very noticeable through the butterscotch dingotone. I would like to try and use the butterscotch though as it set me back $40 and I would probably never use it on any other build besides this hollow body.

[Simon Barden]

It really shouldn't have come like that. Drop Adam an email and see what he can do.

[wazkelly]

I suspect it is the ply underneath showing through as the veneer is ever so thin.

On my recently finished ES1 I was trying to sand back the original stain whilst attempting to save the veneer and what you have there is exactly what was visible before going through the last of the rice paper thin veneer.

I could be wrong but if going for a light coloured stain that area near neck PUP will be hard to disguise.

Plan B could be to sand the whole maple veneer off as I did and you may be surprised as to how good grain might be on the ply underneath. This leaves a blemish free top thus allowing you to do any choice of finish colour.



Need to go easy with the sanding on lumps leading to upper and lower horns as so easy to go down through layers of veneer and ply.

To see how it turned out click on link for build # 7 in my signature below.

[Stiryx]

Hey Waz, as I stated above to Simon unfortunately the blue stain was there right out of the box! I still have all the flame maple veneer showing up so maybe ill have to try a dark blue or black dye to hide the stain (if it takes). Was really hoping to use the butterscotch though so won't pull the trigger yet.

[wazkelly]

If wanting to stick with butterscotch i would sand the veneer off.
The amount of glue lines & spots are so hard to get rid of just to save what is typically an average piece of flame.

Sent from my SM-A520F using Tapatalk

[Stiryx]

Thanks for the advice mate, I have emailed Adam to see if he knows what the problem is and will go from there.

[Adam Barnes]

Hey stiryx, i had a similar thing with a quilted top it got less noticable as coats of finish went on, my guess is its a filler in the ply underneath the veneer and the veneeris so thin its showing through

[Stiryx]

Just to update everyone, have emailed Adam and unfortunately it seems like someone in the factory has been getting blue and red paint on a few guitar bodies (contaminated gloves maybe?).

Probably going to try and spray the guitar body in a satin black now, don't have much experience spraying solid colours though so not sure on the future results. Guess I better find an area to spray!