H's LPA-1. How much more black?

[UpperCaseH]

Work being a bit sporadic right now has some major downsides, but sometimes some there's upsides, Like being able to sit outside in the sun sanding a guitar on a tuesday morning.

I remembered to look for glue spots this time. Found a couple of obvious ones on the face and got rid of them

Are the darker patches just below the binding also caused by glue? If so, sanding and sanding doesn't seem to remove them and I'm a bit hesitant to use Goof Off so close to the plastic binding.



Also, I thought that the cap was solid ash. Apparently not, looks like it's thin-ish ash veneer over... baswood? Or something? It looks like I've sanded through the veneer right at the front of the bottom of the neck pocket. No biggie, it's gonna be pretty black there anyway so it probably won't show much if at all. Am I right about this? To me, it looks like you can clearly see the ash/something/ash-veneer in this image.

[Zandit75]

That is a weird looking set up, but you're right, it does look like an Ash veneer on top of something else. To me it looks almost like some sort of pine!

[gavinturner]

Hey H,

Yeah these Ash LPs have a thin veneer (like all the LP kits) on top of an Ash body. The idea I think is to provide a nice '1-piece' look on the top with some nice Ash grain over the top of a 2-3 piece Ash body.

cheers,
Gav.

[Fretworn]

An answer to your first question is yes, those patches below the binding is glue that has leaked out when the binding has been installed, and yes you will need to deal with it one way or other.

[UpperCaseH]

Righto, thanks. Used Goof Off carefully on the spots, took about an hour and half to get them all with goof off, wire brush, and sandpaper.

Nothing else on, so I sanded the whole thing to 180, masked it ready for timbermate, and am gonna get that on and maybe partly off today.


Edit: Smelly cocoon stage:

[wazkelly]

G'day H, agree with Zandit in that the sandwiched timber is very light and end grain is displaying similar properties to pine as from memory cross cut Basswood grain seemed to look tighter than that. Either way they are both light and fairly soft and therefore prone to dings and easily damaged.

How about the amount of stink generated from wet timber mate! Such a plastic smell but so worth it in the end.

[UpperCaseH]

Spent about 5 hours sanding this morning

First stain coat's on the back and sides. Looking sorta how I wanted, I'll see how a second coat goes. It's Feast Watson Japan Black, and their walnut stain darkened significantly on the second coat of the j bass. Darker would be nice.



I'm in two minds about the top now. Plan was originally a more dilute black stain to make a "transparent" kinda finish. Now I'm thinking about either a deep red or even a light-medium wood colour.



(still slightly damp from being wiped down of timbermate dust)

[UpperCaseH]

Bah!



Guess I missed a glue spot.

Any advice that would mean I shouldn't spot sand it, use goof off, rub a little bit of timbermate back in there, re-sand, and re-stain?

Rest of the back looks just like I wanted.

[UpperCaseH]

OK, that worked, spot removed and the fix is unnoticeable It's "blacker" in real life, the way the light's falling makes it look lighter/browner than it is in reality.



Only a minor bit of bleed onto the binding, and doesn't seem to have stuck very much. Nice crisp line over most of it. Better photo of the black.



And... now that I've seen it like this, I can't just black the top too. The contrast is too cool.



So what to do? Stamp ink red? A "natural"-ish colour? It's not quite pretty enough to just put the clear on and call it good, but I want to keep a contrast between the back/sides and the top.

I want the binding to look the same on the neck and body. That means I'm either gonna have to find a non-yellowish clear coat for the body, or be exceptionally careful masking the fretboard but not the neck binding for tru-oil.

Also got the headstock done and neck stained all black, looks pretty neat but no photos because it's still damp and hanging in an awkward spot (and they're both just inside for photos, the smell of the FW stain means they dry outside).

[wokkaboy]

nice fix H, that's looking very nice. I think ared stain on the top would really make it pop nicely. I'm not sure how light fast stamp pad ink is. What is the black stain you used ?
EDIT just saw it's FW, you might as well stick with FW cedar would look nice