IB-7 Custom Kit and Community Input

Hey guys,

so ive just gotten word from Adam that my kit has arrived and shown a picture, im absolutely keen to get this guitar and what it will turn into. As its got the triple black and white binding I thought id grain fill the ash with a dark black and sand it back, leaving a black striped natural finish and the front either natural or grey to show off the flame. Reminds me of liquorice allsorts. I love the fact its a ebony fretboard with no inlays, I want to spend a good amount of time doing hemispherical fret ends. Also as its a set neck I want to carve the heel into the body and make it a nice smooth low profile to glide along. Finished with tru oil, ive never used it but ive seen plenty of people make some nice guitars with it on here. Hardware im not sure what brand yet but im thinking brushed stainless. Honestly I think it'd be cool to hear what you guys would fantasise doing with it, might give me ideas. No ideas are shunned. Im keen to hear them.

https://imgur.com/a/UWAuGhH heres a link to the picture.

Cheers everyone,

MBM

Noice, very noice! Look forward to seeing how it goes! Your plan sounds the business, best of luck with it.

Looks great! Sounds like a good plan, not sure where the brushed stainless parts come from, but going over chrome with very fine wire wool brings a similar finish, has to be very fine abrasives though or I think just looks scratched.
Looking forward following this project!

Hi Bushy, definitely looks nice and clean pieces of timber to work with.
Wondering how thick the maple veneered top is as they are quite often very thin and extremely easy to sand through, particularly when doing grain filling.
If very thin i would suggest using a good quality black fountain pen ink applied full strength and wiped all over until dry, then 24 hours later wipe as much off with a 'just damp' cloth to soak back up as much as the black ink as possible. Don't worry too much as there will be lots still trapped in the grain you are trying to pop. If there is still a little bit of a dull greyish appearance just do a feather light sand with 240 or 320 grit to knock it back to natural.
Doing the same thing with ebony timber mate requires more delicate sanding and quire often ends in tears and lots of swearing.
Cheers, Waz

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Thanks Washie, ive waited so long (6 months?) , so im quite scared on this one.

The brushed steel sometimes you can get the odd high end hardwares with different styles or materials, I know schaller bridges have a vintage copper.

I should've replied to everyone in one post but oh well, cheers waz. Curious so the black ink comes out fairly easy with a damp cloth? Im really wanting the flame to look as best possible and not be ruined by a dark stain, last guitar was a disaster and ruined the spalted maple. Ive tried wipe on poly finishes before but that ended up in frustration and scraping with an old super cheap auto card. Are there any threads on tru oil?

Thanks,

MBM

Plenty of builds done in Tru Oil.
I have done all 7 of mine with TO as the top coat finish.
Only thing to bear in mind is the slight amber tint and the stuff seems to go a shade or two darker as it ages. Not so bad on things with mostly brown tones, not so good on bluish tones as they tend to end up with a hint of green.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mr Bushy Man

and scraping with an old super cheap auto card.

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Whoa....Now I'm going to re-think my vow to never setting foot in their establishment again.

cheers, Mark.

Haha King, i wouldnt go that far, it didnt last long. Snapped right in two.

Thanks,

MBM

You can get a nice flat grey metal finish if you bead blast chrome or stainless. It's basically sand blasting with tiny glass beads instead of sand, much more gentle. Lots of Auto elects and small engineering /repair shops have them, I bribe my auto elect with a 6 pack to use his. :D to get the brushed look, sand in one direction only, not back and forward. Really only works on bigger areas.
Hope thats of some help

Ohhh okay sanding in one direction. Ill have to test it on some old butter knives or something ahah. Cheers Dedman! Bit scared as i want to get something like hipshot hardware.

Thanks,

MBM

Alright guys so ive just gotten the kit today, its actually gorgeous has a really nice veneer on the headstock. I was wondering if there was a specific order you guys do when doing a kit, fretwork, staining, gluing neck, tru oil etc, marking out hardware?

Thanks,

MBM

Doing a dummy build comes first. You need to make sure that the neck is straight, the neck body join is accurate and that the scale length is right before doing anything. Also make sure that pickup routs are clean and the correct size. There are different schools of though regarding is you drill holes before finishing or after, but your choice of finish can also affect this decision. Personally I normally do the fretwork near the end, but some people do it earlier, or while they are waiting for the body finish to cure.

Thanks fret, im waiting on some free time to get some sandpaper, steel wool etc. I need some black dye because I want to do a black-grey gradient. If im doing a wipe on poly finish, what dye will work under it? Water based?

Thanks,

MBM

Both water and spirit based dyes are basically the same basic pigment in different application mediums. Water based dyes seem to penetrate slightly less than spirit ones (but still sufficiently to do the job), and don't seem to get into the tiny stress cracks in binding like spirit dyes do. But being water-based, they will raise any loose grain, so will need a light sand afterwards and are more prone to leaving 'tide-marks' if the edge of the dyed area dries out before the wood next to it has been dyed, so it's important to apply it very wet and quickly.

Spirit based stain seems more forgiving to apply. Being alcohol based (thin with metho) it dries very quickly, but unless an area has gone really dry, then adding more stain to the edge of the stained area doesn't leave tide marks and it's easy to go back over with a stain-soaked rag and rub in more colour. But it does get into those stress cracks in the binding; you get lots where the binding is bent round sharp curves and almost none on the more gentle curves.

And you won't be able to scrape it off the binding, so you'll need some way of protecting it. Water-based stain seems to sit on top of the binding, so it may need a scrape back to clean plastic, but not penetrate the cracks. So if you go spirit-based, then I'd suggest carefully masking around the binding, apply some poly over the top to seal it, then stain the wood. You'll probably then need to scrape that poly off the binding again to remove the stain on it, but it should then remain pristine.

Both types will 'work' under a wipe-on poly, though the solvent in the poly (or any finish you use) will liberate some of the pigment, so you need to be really careful if you try and do a sunburst using stain, rather than just a single colour, as the pigments will blur further as you wipe the poly on . Brushing the first coats on can help as it seems to move the poly around less than ragging, though you could use a poly spray can for the first couple of coats to really minimise any colour bleed, before reverting to wipe-on.

Thanks Simon!

Really appreciate all the advice im getting, I think im going to go with water based as ive got the triple purfling and the binding on the guitar, dont want those nasty cracks showing up. Does the green shed supply anything like that? Should I go off the back of the can for how long I should wait in-between coats? And should I stick to one side at a time, do the front, the sides then the back?

Cheers,

MBM

Hey guys!

Alrighty, so ive been to hell and back trying to get this flame veneer to pop on top. I started with a mixture of artist oil black and mineral turps, going through the typical process of raising the grain etc. Much to my dismay it came out grey looking with all these speckled peppery looking dots, i sanded it back and sadly did not have my dear flame. I kept going anyway, using sanding sealer and going onto the wipe on poly stage after leave that for a few days. Today i looked at it and decided no, i will redo this, it is not worth it. After a few hours of anger induced sanding with coffee breaks i had removed the poly, sealer and disgusting colour. I had that speckle left there still, i tried pulling it out with excessive amounts of turp soaking etc but it didnt work. So i decided hey, lets try to pop this grain again, i found my spare fountain pen ink from last build and happily started popping the grain, as before the contrast between the blonde and black speckles caused displeasure on my eyes. I made it darker so you wouldnt see the speckle, it worked hah. Now its a chocolatey brown, sadly the flame just wont give me what i want, the headstock is gorgeous, one coat of brown ink and it was shimmering. I guess ill start the process for the front all over again. https://imgur.com/a/o1xMN2W pictures arent very clear, theyll be up soon. If youve got any tips to make the grain look better on the body before i wipe on poly, itd be much appreciated.

Cheers,

MBM

Damn! But as long as you end up with a playable guitar that is the main thing. Most of us have discovered that the guitar often has different ideas to us about what it wants to look like.

BTW, is there a "bald" patch on the bottom edge of the front or is that a reflection?

Yeh its a bald patch ahah, sadly it wont take there, veneer sanded through or something of the likes. In the end i want a beast of a guitar that has some hella riffage. A guitar like that isnt going to be pretty so im not too disheartened. Ill love it either way, maybe next kit will be a pretty specimen.

Maybe Japan Black instead as that allows some of the timber underneath to be seen?

Black inks & dyes can be tricky to use and quite often come out some crappy shade of brown. I have always considered doing a weathered black look and from past experiments good quality fountain pen ink seems to be the best bet, applied full strength, allowed to dry for at least 24 hours, and then wipe as much off with a 'just damp' cloth to soak back up as much as you can. This leaves more of the full strength colour in the grain and removes most of what tends to sit on the surface.

Rarely had a stain idea go to plan as each bit of timber reacts differently and you end up just having to make the most out of how things progress.

Sorry about the lack of activity ive had, i went on a tangent and renewed one of my old kits that i thought looked absolutely disgusting, ive provided images of what it was before, the aftermath of bad application of wipe on poly sigh. Ive ventured into can applied poly and i must say i love it. Everythings going well, i need to pick up another can of gloss for my 7 string ib kit, the lp spalt is done with satin, sadly the lp spalt has a better flame then the flamed IB7? ahah oh well, ive noticed some errors on my custom that i didnt see till now such as; split in fretboard near the nut, mustve been kept together by the nut still being screwed there? Also the fretboard hasnt had enough glue to the neck and has some empty spots under it. Ive also decided to make my own custom leather cavity covers! Ordered in some black offcuts and made some prototypes :) Another thing, ive bought an old fashioned wax seal stamp with a calligraphy v imprinted on it (For my last name) and i intend to make some cool logos, even as far as moulding and casting some copper of it, screwing it on or routing etc. I have spare cigar box wood laying around im going to use a nice piece for the truss rod cover. Hope you guys enjoy whats coming! heres the link https://imgur.com/a/PKXnE6O

Cheers,

MBM