Maddog's STA-1

[wokkaboy]

Hey Maddog, how much of the neck plate area can't you access ? its a personal thing up to you. I would probably remove the holder when the current coat has cured and stain it. From memory your holder is about the size of the neck plate ?

[Maddogm]

nah the bit thats affected is just washers, so will be completely covered once I put the full neck plate on

[wokkaboy]

I just had a look at the pics and saw the washers. I would remove the bracket and washers/screws and be 100% sure the neck plate covers the area the washers are just in case, you will be spewing if there are tiny bits of bare timber showing

[Maddogm]

no need to do that, can slip the neck plate over the bolts as is and it covers it fine afaict

[Maddogm]

I've been doing my staining in the loungeroom/kitchen under the assumption that the aircon would keep the temperature and humidity in an acceptable range. When the aircon played up the other day I decided to build myself a little temp/humidity monitor and discovered that while the temperature is fine (obviously), humidity is hovering a touch over the 50% mark (today at least).

As far as I can tell from reading the forums 50% is the upper limit, are there any issues I should keep an eye out for?
And am right in saying drying time increases as you go from stain to intensifier to final coats?

As well as this guitar in Mk 2 I have a cheap ukelele kit I'm staining in Mk 1 which I was hoping to have ready for the Port Fairy Folk Festival next weekend (I think it's going to fall short - one more final coat to go)

token progress shot:


that's 3 coats of stain, intensifier next

[Kick]

Just add a little salt and pepper and she's done

[Simon Barden]

50%RH is pretty average and not considered high at all - at least at comfortable room temperatures around 22-23°C. It's the standard %RH that office ventilation AC systems try and maintain. However note that most cheap temperature + humidity monitors have an %RH accuracy of around ±10%, so it could be a bit more or a bit less than you're reading.

If you want to lower the humidity in the room, (presuming a fully recirculating room AC unit with no fresh-air make-up) you could try lowering the temperature set-point right down for a while, then once down to a much lower temperature, put it back to normal. Moisture in the air will condense out on the cold AC unit coil fins as it cools the air down, and when the air comes back to temperature, the %RH will be considerably lower. But you need to keep the room as sealed as possible, and you will still get moisture being released from soft furniture and your body and breathing, so it's hard to keep the humidity lower for too long.

But if it doesn't dry at 50%RH, it's really not much use at all.

[wazkelly]

Hi Maddog, nice progress. Looks like plenty of exposed grain action that will most likely end up under the scratch plate but wondering how smooth the body is in other parts? One of the challenges with finishing off an Ash body is the finish seems to shrink back into the grain which can sometimes look really cool.

My DT experience was only on Basswood which is much smoother than Ash and in hindsight I probably applied too many coats before disaster struck. From memory it was about 4-5 base stains, between 3-5 intensifiers, and from there every time I laid down a top coat it went yuck. Tend to think there were too many layers of finish to allow it to fully cure properly and best to use the Goldilocks method of 'just right' and no more if you know what I mean, yet I was too greedy seeking a more intensely vibrant colour on each build.

In relation to humidity, at times our days can start out quite high (80-90 range) and as the day heats up that tends to burn off the humidity reading but it can still feel quite oppressively hot. Even though the reading might be below 50 or lower than 40 it still might feel too hot. Patience is the key more than monitoring humidity levels but also being sensible based on your own personal comfort levels too.

For the Uke, I think you may get one coat on and best to leave others until after the folk festival.

Hope this helps in some way.

Cheers, Waz

[Maddogm]

yeah there has been a bit of shrinking back into the grain, I was wondering if id washed away some of the timbermate with the first stain coat. There are also some bits of raised texture that I feel will need to be sanded back at some point. I've gotten myself some micromesh soft pads but I need to work out when and how to use them.

So far I've put on 3 stain coats and one intensifying coat and liking the results s far:



That's after letting the intensifying coat dry for 24hrs

[wazkelly]

Hi mate, the raised bits might be best left alone as if you try to sand them I reckon you will strip lots of colour off and may end up having to refinish large sections. Besides, it looks cool and adds character - just an inherent feature when working with Ash timber.

Intensifier has really brought it to life. How does it look in the flesh as photos do not always project a true image?