Rooks RCA-4!!!

[Gary B]

I'm really sorry to hear this rook it was looking so good.
I dont know enough about staining to know why this would happen but I am sure you will find away to recover the situation.
Good luck with it.

[Simon Barden]

I'm only on my first Tru-Oiled kit, but it was noticeable that even after using the Tru-Oil sealer, the Tru-Oil itself was picking up stain from the top which was visible in runs over the binding. I am only using a single colour, so it had no real impact on me.

The oil itself is a solvent so any stain pigment is likely to be partially absorbed by the oil and redistributed as you rub it.

I suppose you have to be prepared for this with the first couple of applications and with a burst 1) work from the centre out to the sides, so that you are moving a lighter pigment over a darker one 2) use a new part of your cloth each time you add more oil so you don't rub darkened oil into a light area and 3) don't rub it it hard - apply to the surface, wipe it on (centre to edge) and leave it be.

Thinking about it, although it doesn't seem a natural thing to do, you'd probably be best leaving small gaps between each wipe, so that you aren't dragging TO that has had a chance to absorb some stain over the rest of the body and blending it together. Then once the TO is dry, then go back and wipe oil in-between the gaps only. Maybe repeat this a couple of times before you start doing the whole body. Once there are a couple of coats on, you shouldn't get any significant colour leaching.

[rook]

The oil itself is a solvent so any stain pigment is likely to be partially absorbed by the oil and redistributed as you rub it.

This I did not know. Thanks again, Simon. You're super helpful dude. And as always, I appreciate your help!

I've only ever used true oil on single colours, and it's always been great. I see now that the solvent itself was likely helping smooth out my stain work. Live and learn.

I'm really dreading having to start from zero on this stain. I'm gonna spend some time today to see if I can sand back where the highlights were supposed to be. Hopefully it is salvageable. If not, well I guess it's back to square one.

I suppose the worst case scenario is that I end up having to do another burst. Not so bad. Doing the first one was super fun.

Back at it!

[rook]

I'm really sorry to hear this rook it was looking so good.
I dont know enough about staining to know why this would happen but I am sure you will find away to recover the situation.
Good luck with it.

Thanks man, it is a little upsetting. But hey, I've learned something new so it wasn't a total loss.

I'll do what I can to salvage it. Gonna take it really slow with sandpaper and see if I can pull off the true oil and re-sand the burst.

If that doesn't work I'll redue the whole thing with the knowledge that I learned doing it the first time. If that's the case, it'll probably turn out even better.

At least that is what I am telling myself!

A few hours ago I was a whining baby about the whole thing. All part of the process.

Thanks again for the support, Gary!

[Simon Barden]

Do you dare take a photo of the Tru-Oiled top for reference?

[rook]

Do you dare take a photo of the Tru-Oiled top for reference?

Sorry for the slow update. Came down with a cold and it sidetracked everything until I felt better. Which I do!

So, I'm back at it. Sadly I didn't take a pics of the brown mess I created. But there was not much to see other than a guitar that was basically all diarrhea brown.

I ended up sanding back the centre area to the wood.


This pic makes it look a lot darker on the edges than it was.

I then started reapplying tru oil using Simon's advice, staring from the centre out, carefully keeping the regions separate.

After about 4-5 coats, the amber colour of the Tru Oil was making the ash darker than I wanted.
I think this was actually a big source of my problem. I've used tru oil in the past, but only on maple. Although it adds a bit of amber to the maple, it is nothing compared to what it does to the ash. The ash goes turns very brown.

I suppose I could have used a light wood filler underneath, but I wasn't eager to re-sand again so I tried another technique--

I ended up mixing some of my powdered Mahogany and Black aniline dyes into some of the true oil to darken it up.


I let it sit for about 8 hours to let the dye dissolve.

I applied the tinted Tru Oil around the edges. At first there was no result, but after about 5 coats, it started to show. I continued adding coats until I had a contrast that I was happy with. It's not quite as blended as I had originally wanted, but I'm still pretty happy with it!

Here's how it currently looks:




I doubt the tinting the tru oil is the preferred method, but it's worked for me in this scenario. And at this point I am just using the regular tru oil over the whole top.

Starting to wet sand between coats now and it's starting to look pretty decent I think.

[rook]

I feel my last couple of posts have been kinda downers so I wanted to share something a bit more fun.

And what could be more fun than volume and tone knobs?

The knobs that came with this kit are solid knobs, but I wanted something a bit different. I ordered a couple different sets of 8 sided knobs from Ebay. Similar in style that you see on Rick basses. But somehow I ordered the wrong size. Even after measuring. Twice!

The first set was way too small and the second set was hilariously huge. I guess I'm the Goldilocks of knobs.

So onto something else...

I noticed on some vintage Ricks they were using diamond shaped knobs and I really liked the look. They call them Oven Knobs, I think.

I didn't find anyone selling them, but I did come across a cool 3D model that someone had made and posted on Thingiverse that looked similar.

My local library has 3D printers so I went and tried them out.

Here they are mid print:


Here they are raw from the printer:


I tried tested different colours - pearl, white, and silver.


In the pic above you can see the green tape on the knob top. That was done to all of them prior to painting.:

And here they are painted:

[Sonic Mountain]

Awesome. 3D printers are great fun.

[rook]

Awesome. 3D printers are great fun.

Yeah. I wish I had one at home! Started mocking up a custom truss rod cover. That's my next 3D project. Hopefully it'll work out!

ALSO-- your sea foam Jazz Master is a work of art. Wow. Amazing work! Been using that thread as a way to convince my bandmate to do a build of his own. Great work. Looks fantastic.

[Simon Barden]

Cool knobs. Do they stay on the spit shaft pots OK with just a regular round hole for them? It looks like the shaft hole was designed-in rather than drilled afterwards.