Ben's RCA-4 Build

[wazkelly]

On my 1st of 6 builds drilled bridge holes early on and ended up with swelling during the wet sanding process. On the next 5 i delayed drilling until ready to assemble and that was less stress and free of any problems.

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[BJMtz]

I got the courage and started staining this morning. I did a few test samples on some spare timber and the mixture I really liked was 1 oz water with 1/8 teaspoon stain. I masked the binding in a way that I could only do the back right now. When the back is done I will peel it off and do the front. The back and the front of the headstock looks really nice and I'm pretty happy with it. The back of the neck is pretty blotchy though.

2 questions: should I sand between coats of stain since the water is raising the grain (if so what grit)? I was going to ask about what can be done about the blotchiness but as I'm typing this it looks like it's drying up pretty evenly.

[BJMtz]

One more question, how long should I let each coat dry before I either sand or reapply more stain?

[wazkelly]

Nice colour.
The part where neck meets rear of headstock looks like it could have been a bit shinier from initial sanding?
240 grit is probably all you need to use for a light sand all over, but you may need to drop back to 180 around the sections that didn't take up as much stain.
As for drying and curing times, no idea as local weather conditions can have an impact but would suggest giving it a day or overnight, at least 12 - 24 hours before moving on to the next stage or layer.

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[BJMtz]

Should I sand between coats?

[wazkelly]

Maybe? Depends on how rough the texture is.
I tend to get a couple of stain coats on to a point where it looks fairly good and even all over then start applying full stength Tru Oil. 1st coat done with a 1" paint brush to prevent dragging any of the stain around. If after 1st coat it still looks a bit dry and raw, 2nd coat done with brush again. Best to buy a couple of brushes as they don't clean up good enough after one use and should be thrown away.
After initial couple of coats it may look and feel a bit lumpy, scratchy, whatever, and suggest switching to rag and full strength TO until you have minimum of 6-8 coats and then do 1st wet sand with 1200 grit.
Alternatively you could start wet sand applying the TO from about coat # 6 by using small 2" square bits of 1200 wet & dry paper as the sands and smooths the finish back in on itself, acting like a filler to some extent. Whilst still wet i have reverted to using a rag as well to wipe over surface after the wet sand to help smooth things off.
Repeat with another 4-6 coats and do 1500 grit wet sand coat or just do 1500 proper wet sand.
To end up lookong like glass you may need to do this several times and switch up to 2000 grit W&D paper.
Above is what i have done latest ES1 build, and getting nearer the finish line it needs light 2000 wet sand every 2nd or 3rd coat to give some tooth as the surface gets to shiny & slippery for subsequent coats to grab onto.
Hope this helps.
Cheers,waz

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[BJMtz]

Maybe? Depends on how rough the texture is.
I tend to get a couple of stain coats on to a point where it looks fairly good and even all over then start applying full stength Tru Oil. 1st coat done with a 1" paint brush to prevent dragging any of the stain around. If after 1st coat it still looks a bit dry and raw, 2nd coat done with brush again. Best to buy a couple of brushes as they don't clean up good enough after one use and should be thrown away.
After initial couple of coats it may look and feel a bit lumpy, scratchy, whatever, and suggest switching to rag and full strength TO until you have minimum of 6-8 coats and then do 1st wet sand with 1200 grit.
Alternatively you could start wet sand applying the TO from about coat # 6 by using small 2" square bits of 1200 wet & dry paper as the sands and smooths the finish back in on itself, acting like a filler to some extent. Whilst still wet i have reverted to using a rag as well to wipe over surface after the wet sand to help smooth things off.
Repeat with another 4-6 coats and do 1500 grit wet sand coat or just do 1500 proper wet sand.
To end up lookong like glass you may need to do this several times and switch up to 2000 grit W&D paper.
Above is what i have done latest ES1 build, and getting nearer the finish line it needs light 2000 wet sand every 2nd or 3rd coat to give some tooth as the surface gets to shiny & slippery for subsequent coats to grab onto.
Hope this helps.
Cheers,waz

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That's a huge help, thanks Waz.

[BJMtz]

So this is where I'm at after 4 coats of stain. I did two, sanded with 320, then did two more. I'm really liking the color and I think I'll stop here. I will go over it again but this time with 400 and very, very lightly to get it smooth. Tomorrow I'll pull of the tape and see how the binding looks.

[BJMtz]

Pulled off the masking and the binding is in great condition. No stain seeped into any of it, I'm very happy. Now the tedious task of taping off slim top part of the binding.

[BJMtz]

Staining is complete. The binding cleaned up nicely and the color looks great. The sides have some flaws but overall the neck and body look awesome.