Angus SG, I know, I know....

[Andyxlh]

Hmm, maybe not what you wanted but it looks good to me from what I’ve seen. Good luck with the alteration.

Thanks, I guess it isn't awful, but not what I had in mind, I'll play with it until it is either fixed or I paint it a solid colour. Unfortunately I suspect the latter!
Shame really as the clear is going on lovely would be a very nice clearcoat finish I'd say.

[nitroburner1000]

You might be right re the original body, although I suspect it is the air brush tracks in the stain as well...

In my humble opinion as a painter, stain is always better applied by hand, it always beds in better and you have more control with the finish.

[Andyxlh]

In my humble opinion as a painter, stain is always better applied by hand, it always beds in better and you have more control with the finish.

I thought that too, but my first go was by hand. It seemed to grab very quickly in the dry timber and was a blotchy mess which is why I sanded it back and sprayed it.
I think I'll leave it a while and come back to it at a later date when I've had a good think about it!

[Sonic Mountain]

I think it's just the variance in the timber. You'd have to be very lucky to get 4 bits glued together that are similar enough for it all to look even. I got pretty lucky with the Sonciaster but even it has a fair bit of variation. My SG looked blotchy and uneven when I was trying for what you are going for here so I sympathise. FWIW, I think yours looks quite nice - sure it's not the stereotypical Angus look, but its still pretty cool.

[Simon Barden]

My recent experience is that spirit-based stain goes on a lot better than water-based stain and unless you leave it for far too long before adding more stain, doesn't leave watermarks. However, the spirit-based stain (suitably thinned with metho) seeps in to all the tiny stress cracks in the binding (especially prevalent on the sharper bends), so is best used on non-bound guitars. Water-based stain seems to sit on top of the binding. I'm assuming that the spirit (alcohol) based stain has a much lower surface tension than the water-based stain, so gets into any cracks a lot more easily.

This is not definitive, as I first used water-based on my ES-1/330 build, then scraped it off the binding and then used the spirit based stain after sanding the finish off. That's when I got all the stain in the cracks in the binding. But it may have been the initial scraping that exposed the cracks in the binding.

[Andyxlh]

Hi Simon,
Had that exact problem on my semi hollow LP build. Yes it is a spirit based stain. I have masked the neck carefully, let's see what happens.
I sanded it back lightly with 400 and applied another layer of stain, and than clear. This seems to have helped, the stain takes ok between the laters of clear and has darkened the finish somewhat, hopefully hiding the differences in tone. It looks great under artificial light, but it is in daylight it looked a bit rough, let's see tomorrow. At least I know this technique works, and I can continue darkening it until it is less apparent, saving me sanding it all back a second time.

[Andyxlh]

Hi Sonic,
Yes I think you are right re the timber rather than the spraying. Good, I'd rather it wasn't my cockup! I think with additional darkening I can live with it, I do prefer this to a solid colour. If I go solid it could be white, or perhaps the hot pink I threatened before?!

[wazkelly]

Just keep adding more stain and eventually it will all end up much darker thus disguising the mismatched timbers.

Sent from my SM-A520F using Tapatalk

[Andyxlh]

Just keep adding more stain and eventually it will all end up much darker thus disguising the mismatched timbers.

Sent from my SM-A520F using Tapatalk

So another vote against the pink, again?

[FrankenWashie]

While still preferable to the green that shall not be named, I think hot pink may be a travesty for this guitar.