H's TL-1Q, first build.

G'day H, great to hear you have saved the finish and now back on track. Probably feels a bit like Ground Hog Day but if you continue in the same way as you did on your Fretless Bass you will bring home a ripper finished product.

My DT dramas began about this time last year and went on all through the summer as the South East Qld humidity seemed to cause all sorts of dramas. I think it probably works best in fairly dry, warm, low humidity or fairly stable climatic conditions. Quite often if you only have one or 2 days spare per week to work on your axe those perfect conditions may have already passed whilst you were at work.

The stains and intensifier are awesome but it can get tricky after 3rd intensifier and at the start of the top coats. I wonder if using the DT neck finish would be the better way to go as it is supposed to cure harder?

I'm impressed with the DT neck finish. Mine's ended up feeling similar to my old ibanez bass (which was a POS but I actually preferred the neck finish to my fender, so... yeah). I do wonder if it'd work out well on a body too. Should probably have given that a shot to see what would happen instead of going straight to tru oil.

Oh well, 6 or 7 coats of TO on now and it's looking shiiiiiiny. I'm getting a bit of streaking but it's sanding out with a couple of passes of 2000 grit paper, so I'm not worried.

What's really interesting is that the TO is showing up every little bit where my prep wasn't up to scratch, which I didn't notice on the J bass - presumably because I did a much better job on that after learning on this!

Yeah, I can relate to that as my 1st build reveals a bit of inexperience whereas on the 3rd it turned out the best. It helps having a couple on the go at once that way you can be finishing some bodies and necks without worrying about the stuff in the bottle going off before you get around to using it again a few weeks/months later.

For what it is worth my 3rd was an Ash body and found it a much nicer timber to work on than basswood.

Yep, unless I want to sand it all back and start again (not happening!), at some point I'm gonna have to say "good enough" on this one.

That said, I feel like I can experiment a bit on this one and not worry too much about scratching a perfect finish, and it'll be nice to be able to take it out to my acoustic-playing mate's place with my tiny home made amp and not worry about what might happen to it once the beers (wines, rum, some clear stuff from an umarked bottle, the rest of the rum, etc) do their thing.

With that in mind (experimenting, not drinking just yet), I've noticed the tru-oil has yellowed the binding, and not in a bad way - it's gone quite a nice cream/beige/whatever colour. Looks kinda vintage/aged. Anyway, how could I treat the bright white pick guard to a similar colour? I'm guessing just hitting it with TO would be a no go as it would just scratch off quickly.

I suppose I could hang it up outside and smoke under it for the next 15 years, but has anyone got any non-carcinogenic ideas about how I could match it with the TO-over-white binding?

No idea other than suggest looking for an aged antique white if there is such a thing on eBay. I know there is for Strat Vol & Tone knobs.

I was very tempted to source a clear pickguard on my Tele or go naked but decided against due to oversized neck PUP rout and all the copper tape shielding that would have been on show in a predominately blue body. That tape would have stuck out like dogs .......

Another thought was to find a mirror or brushed aluminium scratch plate to tie in with the chrome control plate and all other chrome hardware. In fact I did purchase a mirror Strat Trem Cover to do just that and the plain white scratch plate, even with the creamish binding seemed to look best.

You could try some old tea bags. Give it a good smear, let it sit, repeat a few times and see if you can get the tannins to leech in at all... maybe even a tea bag soaked in Tru Oil. Don't know if it would have any effect and you'd definitely want to test it on something first, maybe even the back of the pickguard, and see what happens. It shouldn't really work, but the quality of the pickguard material may be the deciding factor.

I don't think it's worth trying to stain it with tea, coffee, or anything else. It's just so shiny I reckon everything will wipe straight off. Thought about heat too, but I reckon it'll just warp or melt if it gets hot enough to darken.

I've run a bit low on spare cash, so I might put the white one on (should be ready to assemble this week some time) and think about a cream or parchment replacement in the future.

A lot of "clear" lacquers are actually a bit yellow, TO might work if you give the pick guard a light sanding so it's got something to hang onto

I think I read somewhere that you can sand or polish plastic scratch plates with super fine sandpaper, mainly to take out existing scratches but could also help take the edge off so it would take a coat of something.

Contact paper from a craft type store might come in a light parchment colour and be relatively cheap but personally I would just run with the white as that is what I did on my Tele and it has the aged binding look from Tru Oil too.

Nice save H, no probs with Tru oil over DT, we've all done it. get ready for a million coats though