H's JBA-4 Fretless

[UpperCaseH]

I just wasn't expecting it to be so purpleish - was expecting deep and dark, but more brown-red than brown-purple if that makes sense.

But I listened and tested it first and avoided a whole lot of hassle!

[wazkelly]

How does it look if you add a bit of the Japan Black?

For most of my builds I experimented on scrap pine ply wood mixing up various ratios of colours or dilutions before settling on something. Also let those samples dry for a day or two and then added some TO as that also changes colours ever so slightly too.

Amazing how colour charts or samples in a hardware/paint store look nothing like what comes out of the can, plus the underlying colour tones in the timber also play their part. Generally browns are made by mixing various ratios of red & black together. Just gotta look at your computers printer to see that only 4 base colours are used to create all the shades of a rainbow. It all comes down to how many parts of which goes with what to achieve desired shade or colour.

[UpperCaseH]

I added a bit of black to one end, and it still didn't look great to me. I'll try again tomorrow when it's actually dry. I had to go to the shops tonight anyway, so extended my trip, picked up some Walnut, and applied that to the other side of the maple offcut and to the pine scrap, and also over some of the mahogany.

Can't tell how it looks in the light I have available. Tomorrow I'll add some black over that and see how it goes, and I might also try mixing the walnut and black before application and give that a shot.

I get how colour mixing works in the context of a computer screen or print, but the way the stain interacts with the wood makes this a bit different (well, different to me - obivously the same basic principles, but it's a bit harder to work with than photoshop!) I think I'll have a good time experimenting until I find something I'm happy with, and the small bottles of prooftint are cheap enough that it's not an issue to try different things.

I'll get the tru oil ordered tonight.

[UpperCaseH]

Right hand side is the undiluted Walnut. Left is the undiluted Walnut with a 50/50 diluted Japan black on top. It's redder in the pic than to the eye. Looks almost identical on the maple as on the pictured pine.

Plan is to do 2 coats of Walnut on the body, then if it still looks light despite the ash and ebony timbermate, go over it with the 50% black japan.

For the neck, I'm pretty sure I'm going to go natural, but I'm considering doing either the headstock or the whole thing in body colour. I'll have to think about that some more.

[UpperCaseH]

Sunny spring days where I don't have work are a great motivator to get things done!

Fretboard's done. Couldn't be happier with it. Sanded through in a few small places last time, recoated those, and now spent the morning very carefully sanding those bits back and then polishing the whole thing up to ~6000 with micro mesh pads. Those things are great





Now I'm going to very carefully slice around the masking with an x-acto and remove the tape. Then onto the body stain!

I say this a lot, but there's no way I could do this without all the help from everyone here. Hopefully one day I'll be able to contribute some advice

[FrankenWashie]

Sunny spring days where I don't have work are a great motivator to get things done!

Fretboard's done. Couldn't be happier with it.

Now I'm going to very carefully slice around the masking with an x-acto and remove the tape. Then onto the body stain!

I say this a lot, but there's no way I could do this without all the help from everyone here. Hopefully one day I'll be able to contribute some advice

Duuuuuude! THAT IS FREAKING EPIC! Well done man, that has some serious lustre to it, you should be immensely proud of that, especially given the issues you had early on. Great job!

[Dedman]

awesome job man!

[wokkaboy]

fingerboard looks unreal H, well done and was worth the patience has paid off !

[andrewdosborne]

Look fantastic well done

Sent from my GT-I9506 using Tapatalk

[UpperCaseH]

Aaaaaand the first stain is on the body. Don't think it needs any black on it from here. I think I'll gently sand it, do another light coat, and leave it at that.





Also got 99% of the tape off the neck. The glue had hardened it in places. I got a couple of bleeds and runs that I'm not sure how to fix beyond just sanding them until they're gone.



In future, what I'd do is to mask 3 layers so that none of the tape that hardens is in contact with the neck, only with the un-hardened tape below it.

Edit: It's tempting to try a mild burst with the black japan though...