Tuff Dog Tele

I agree with Wokka; you'll need more blending with the stains. The color nevertheless, is wonderful!

should work out fine, you might find some very light sanding with a gentle grit will help blend - go easy though , you know how thin these tops can be

Gave the dog a gentle run over with a bit of 400 grit and it really tamed the BS stain, added another coat this morning with a bit of attention paid to the inner margin to stop it becoming a hard line.

I'll give it a few days to dry and then touch the edges again with something finer and hit it with another CG coat before letting it rest before the intensifier stage

Attachment 18611

What are your plans to feather the burst transition area a bit more? It does look a bit of a hard line at the moment.

There certainly are plans in place Simon and prior to the coat of Black Stump today the margin was very nice.

Having said that if you go back to the very first post you'll see it's not a traditional burst.

Next will be a light sand at the margin with another coat of CG before flatting off and intensifier

It's certainly not. The transition area is quite small and the outer area is very dark. Hope it all works out for you, Dave.

So do I Simon, but in saying that it's going to be a player not a show pony but I reckon I'll get a finish I'm happy with.

Given that I don't have the skunk stripe on the back to match the neck as per the original I'm half tempted to have the neck match the guitar, black on the back with a pale CG on the face of the headstock and of course the waxed maple fretboard ( maybe more alcohol is needed to work that one through )

Hey Dave, the dark neck with maple fret board sounds great but not so easy to do compared to a rosewood board as there could be some stain bleed under masking tape due to the maple on maple construction.

I'm hearing ya Waz, I think a lot of Coopers and red for medicinal purposes may be needed before I took that step :D

Just one of those things that wandered across my conscious the other day.

Another example of my odd thinking which I can't share at the moment is a song I'm working on with my "band" buddies, I threw them a progression in Dm and challenged them to come up with a song Max bless his heart came up with a very reflective piece called Brown Bottle.

As most on here am aware I generally live in the country music genre but this one has taken off in a different direction with the arrangement being predominantly organ & bass with a rather overdriven guitar solo, I found a really nice Hammond B3 / Leslie plugin and it's come up a treat. Long way to go before it is ready I want the vocals redone and need to add licks in the spaces but it has a nice smokey nightclub blues feel to it.

Max hasn't heard what I've done to it yet so it will be interesting to get his reaction. When we did the guide track he said I can hear steel in places here or maybe strings, little did he know

We're adding pedal steel to a few of our songs over Easter so when I have their blessing I'll share once mixed properly

Better wash the faded black T shirt so you are appropriately attired for the unveiling of their new song as it sounds like a flanny shirt might be a bit out of place with the dark tones suggested.

Thinking through the masking dilemma and reckon that if you put one fine coat of clear on the 3-5mm edge of the maple fret board top you should then be able to mask and stain with a bit more confidence and once dark bits are fully cured reverse the masking, lightly sand off the original clear if no longer wanted and proceed to finish off front how you intended.

Or you could attempt something like this....

Attachment 18670Attachment 18671

If the fret board was masked the dark effect would have stayed on the back but for this build I wanted that dirty look all over. Easy enough to stop at the actual fret board level but that means you have to re-do the side fret marker dots.