Pablos RC-4

Geez pab that colour is gonna look sweet man. Been thinking about a ricky myself.

Cheers guys. Wokka, only pulled a few tiny bits you wouldn't be able to see and that white mark is just a smudge of timbermate, gone now.

Since there's been a bit of interest in the templates etc. Here's a just before pic.
http://i.imgur.com/nKpW1Nw.jpg
Because this rout will be completely exposed, if I buggered it up it would have meant going with a solid colour or improvising some sort of cover neither of which I want to do. Still have to carve out the corners a little to get the pickup to fit. Fingers crossed.

nice work Pablo, love the idea of a clear router baseplate so you can see what you are cutting. Next time make the template 3 or 4 times bigger so you can clamp it !

Alrighty, exciting progress!

First up, I carved out the corners ever so slightly so now the pickup fits very snug. Happy times.
http://i.imgur.com/hpYf39K.jpg
Not totally perfect, but good enough.

Shielded the cavity with conductive paint.
http://i.imgur.com/yOHZ3HK.jpg
After a final sand, ready for colour.

First go around with the ink. I was going to thin it out with some water, but that never got me a colour I was happy with. So, straight ink.
http://i.imgur.com/8Tf4gWn.jpg
This was the last of the sunlight for the day, so it's the best pic. Promising.

It was a still a tad too light, so after a couple of hours, I hit it with another round but only on the outside and then feathered it into the middle for a subtle burst.
http://i.imgur.com/y3jxETG.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/h9yS1T9.jpg
Crappy pics under a flouro light so the colour is not too accurate, but it's darker and I'm quite pleased with the result. I'll see if I can get a better pic in daylight this afternoon.

A nasty surprise confronted me when I pulled up the tape though.
http://i.imgur.com/kvlDijx.jpg
Ouch. I'm using 3m painters tape, but it might be getting a bit old. Must be more careful from now on. But, this pic has the best representation of the actual colour.

Tonight I will scrape the binding and possibly put one coat of tru oil on to seal it before masking again and fixing the damage. :)

Jeez that cavity is clean as a whistle pabs, beautiful. That blues damn stunning too, what's the plans for the back?

Thanks mate. Back will be the same as the front.

looks awesome Pablo, glad the ink worked out, so your going to do another colour coat to deepen the blue ?

Really awesome colour Pabs. Got me very interested in using ink now! Thus is going to be a killer bass!

Cheers,
Gav.

That is a fricken outrageous colour Pab, gonna look stunning.

That is sweet as mate! Stunning colour. :)

I'm glad the ink suggestion worked out for you. Now I've finally helped you out, to start making up for all your helpful suggestions for me! :D

Cheers fellas. Brodie, you are a frickin champ. The ink has been a tremendous success. It is the easiest stain I've ever used. I highly recommend giving it a go, Gav. It is close to idiot proof to apply. Uploading some more pics to imgur atm. :D

Great job Craig, very neat work and the blue is just right

Pablo can you please post a pic of the ink you used ? wouldn't mind giving it a crack sometime !

Here you go Wokka.
http://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.c...ml_be_blue.jpg
About $10 from officeworks. Probably enough to do two guitars.

cheers Pablo, look forward to seeing yours after clear coats. Will you be using naughty room oil ?

Indeed Wokka, will be starting tonight.

Made some good progress last night. Cleaned up the binding.
http://i.imgur.com/MXecDSO.jpg

Masked off the front and hit the back and sides with more ink.
http://i.imgur.com/mgIDJyy.jpg
Some of it ended up a little green, nothing off-putting though. The back has come out a bit darker than the front, unintentionally, but works really well. Happy little accident.

Masked off the face of the headstock and coloured that too.
http://i.imgur.com/UX0qKhz.jpg

And started messing about with designs for the truss cover. Went through a few ideas, from really tame...
http://i.imgur.com/8EhXqqV.jpg
to a little bit crazy...
http://i.imgur.com/f3uvhym.jpg
which I really like. I think this will be the basis for the end product.

Then managed to put it all together for a peek at how it will end up looking. I'm gonna keep those pics to myself though. You guys are gonna have to wait. :)

Also ordered the last few bits and pieces like smaller footprint tuners and a 3 ply pickguard blank. Applying the tru oil, polishing and setting the neck should keep me occupied until they arrive. Things are happening!

Looking schweet! The ink even takes to Rock Maple nicely, which can often be a problem with other stains.

I reckon that second truss cover looks a bit like a massive tongue. :P
Kinda quirky, which I like.

Keen to see this baby done!

wow Pablo love how this is turning out. Another GOTM major contender I can see in my crystal ball !
How many coats of ink did you put on the front and back/sides ?

Damn that's looking nice, I love the vibrancy of the headstock, what colour tuners you thinking about?

Thanks guys.

@Brodie. Haha, yep now I can't see anything but a tongue! I've still got plenty of time to refine the shape of it, but maybe I should call it 'bluetongue'. Lol.
@Wokka. One and a half on the front and one on the back. The wood just sort of stops taking any more ink when everything is covered evenly, the excess just rubs off. It's a bit odd, but it makes it dead easy to come back 10 minutes later and fix spots you missed first time around. My 'subtle' burst has faded to almost nonexistent.
@Barge. Tuners are just a fairly simple chrome number. Had to do something a little different from the old elephant ears.

Sexy colour man. Gonna be killer when complete, can't wait to see it all shiny.

That colour just jumps out at you, that is going to look sweet as when complete.

Pab might sound like a dumb arse question but does the ink dry to the point of rubbing and no ink comes off.

Not a dumb question at all Jarrod, because as I found out this afternoon, no. After scraping the binding, I had a slight blue tinge to my hand. No smudges though, I guess by it's nature it's supposed to stay a bit damp. I was a bit worried that the tru oil would make the colour run, but seems to have worked well.

Looking absolutely stunning Pabs. Interested to see how the blue stands up under the Tru-oil. I did a Turquoise top recently and the amber in the Tru-oil turned it basically green. Just something to be aware of. Looking at Fred Yen's build though it didn't seem to happen to him.

cheers,
Gav.

All good so far, Gav. I think ash has a tendency to green a bit under blue and there are greenish patches but nothing I can't live with. Question: when you wet sanded your Florentine, did you use water or more tru oil?

Tried my hand at wet sanding today, here's the result.
http://i.imgur.com/zqYwxXfh.jpg
Didn't go so well, lol.

Don't know if I haven't put enough on (8 coats) or I didn't use enough oil to lubricate, but started taking colour off fairly quickly.
http://i.imgur.com/0Cti4WXh.jpg
Oh well, start again.

More timber mate, more sanding, more colour, more scraping and we're back to a respectable stage.
http://i.imgur.com/SRmKUkNh.jpg

On the other hand, the neck is coming along nicely.
http://i.imgur.com/DWVhJ1V.jpg

What a bummer, ay... :/

Lookin' good again now though, so hopefully it all works out this time around. :)

I was going to say the tru oil has been going on thick and fast, but in truth it's been thin and slow. Very boring process, but after 10 coats I think I'm almost done.

http://i.imgur.com/b5SYFMi.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/wIi6CPZh.jpg

Not quite as smooth as I'd hoped and after the last wet sanding debacle I'm not too sure how I will proceed. Anyway I need to leave it for a week to cure now. Ho hum.

looks nice and shiny Pablo, good job. Yes 10 thin coats of tru oil can be monotonous

it looks killer Craig, very cool

Yeah, that's a really cool shade of blue & the finish looks great. I've never fooled with Tru Oil, but after seeing results like yours I will definitely give it a go.
Always nice when a project is on the home straight - isn't it?

Thanks guys. I've pretty much decided to just polish after the week is up and see how that goes. I really want to start putting this thing together, don't think I could deal with another redo.

The blue look great under the Tru-Oil and well framed by the binding

Looks great Pab. I cant think of anything worse than a redo. Ive had do it and really takes the enthusiasm out the build, so ten out of ten for jumping straigbt back on to it.

The blue looks awesome.....

This looks just epic Pabs, I thought it looked cool before the tru oil went on but... damn!
It's gonna be fricken mind blowing once all the shiny bits go on:-)

EDIT: hey nice comeback from the wet sand disaster too man, definitely a devastating blow.

Thank for the kind words guys. To be honest, I have been really quite disappointed in how the tru oil has been going on until the last few rounds. Frustrating mix of the ash not really giving me the colour I wanted and the oil exaggerating my not quite fine enough sanding. Pushing on though. Here's hoping the polish brings out a decent shine.

While I love how tru oil goes on necks, not sure I'd use it on a body again. We'll see, probably just the mid way doldrums.

Bumping this thread just because....

1000 POSTS!!!!!!!
http://molempire.com/wp-content/uplo...happy-troy.gif

Also going to see Veruca Salt tonight! Today is a good day. :)

1000 posts, correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure that's your shout, Scotch for me thanks;-)