Embarrassing admission....Happy Number 38 guitar to me.

[ozzbike]

Looks great!
Interested to see how this one comes out.

Thanks for the interest.

I went to Bunnings today.....Golden Teak and now some Elm stain in the arsenal. The Cabots range has an interior and exterior range of spray Poly. Both appear to be oil based. I got a can of both Gloss and Satin.....$6 per can dearer for exterior stuff. I bought the exterior stuff.

I think I will see how the shellac has dried this afternoon.....put an extra coat on the back before I went out.

I think it will be Elm on the back, and another coat of Golden Teak on the sides..... I like the look Tru oil gives the wood.....maybe three coats of it then hang for a week and then spray Gloss all over the body.

The neck I am going to finish with the Satin.....will let it hang for about a week now.

The headstock will get a couple of gloss coats and then some decals and then some final coats of Gloss and a good buff. I hope the colours come out alright.

[ozzbike]

Nope...the look with the Elm is terrible.

After Xmas...sanding time....The Yellow sides look good though.....Maybe a sandwich with Maple on the front and the back.

Anyway.

Merry Xmas to all. I hope you and your family get a little time together, in person, via phone, or zoom.

[ozzbike]

I have sanded back to bare wood on the back. One coat of Maple stain on the front and back....and then three coats of Tru-Oil on the front and the back.

Tomorrow I will check out the Faux binding and the real binding.

Then some taping up will ensue and then I think the side will get one more coat of Golden Teak. Then three coats of Tru-Oil on the edge.

I then want to let it hang for a week or so and then a light sand to either 320 or 400 grit and then the coats of spray Polyurethane begin.

Piccies in the morning.

[ozzbike]

I don't mind the colour mix. The front and back have had three coats of Tru Oil....sides just colour. I have sanded the white binding with 400 grit paper this morning.....the Faux Binding has taken on an amber colour from the poly.

I found a big gouge in the front of the guitar just forward of the control cavity.....I thought it was just a surface mark and had surface sanded lightly. Very loose fibres and bigggg hole opened up. Not all the way through....but seeing as I had to fill that I found everything on the front...sanded and filled.

Some colour on the front again tomorrow.

[ozzbike]

The body is getting Gloss Polyurethane all over....first three coats on this morning.

The headstock will be gloss poly.....I am thinking I may stain the fingerboard....and then gloss poly it too (Maple.)

The back of the headstock and the neck will get satin poly.

I like how the colours work under the poly.....with three coats of Tru-Oil and then hung for a week.

The Faux Binding has worked well and seems to nearly balance out the bright white binding....nearly.

Edit:- I sanded the binding to 400 grit....then lightly brushed some water based gloss poly on it. After the stains were done I sanded the poly off as the white binding had taken on a brown tint...but only in some places. The top edge was slowly scraped with a stanley knife blade just held in my fingers. Sanding did not work...scraping was it.

I found two very very small cracks on the bottom left bout of the body with some fine Golden Teak stain in them from the sides. Not a drop from the Maple stain on the top.

Hint...do some prep work for binding. Wow I say. Thanks for the ideas I got guys.

[wazkelly]

Good colour mix Ozzie.
The sandwich effect looks great.

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[dozymuppet]

That finish is looking so good. Tidy work.

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[ozzbike]

Waz and dozy...thanks for the kind words. I hope 2021 brings cool projects to you both.

[ozzbike]

I had a look at the neck and the body today.....over 24hrs hanging and drying. The fact that wood is a natural product is both confusing and beautiful. I find lines and areas where the stain does not penetrate...and other places where it looks like a tide mark.

I am happy with coverage of the stain, and today I put the headstock logos on. A new process I saw on YouTube. It worked really well.

I bought a roll of expensive clear packing tape. I then used my colour laser printer and printed the desired logos on normal A4 paper at higher colour density.

Then cut a section of tape bigger than the desired decal. Then put it down on the front of the decal words/designs. I then used the soft round edges of a rubberised pair scissors to rub the tape down on to the printed decal. About 2 mins of rubbing.

Then cut close to the decal. Drop the cut out decal into a bowl of room temperature water and leave for 5 minutes. Softly use my fingers to roll and ball up the paper on the back of the tape until it was clear with the printed decal being the only thing left behind.

I then dropped the decal onto the headstock and dabbed the water dry. They I used an old bank atm card and pushed the water and air out from under the tape. I then hung the neck to dry for about four hours. I then repeated the bubble squish again with the atm card.

I will let it hang until Wednesday and then spray a couple of coats of Poly over the tape. Then hang for a little...maybe a week and then sand to 600 (wet) and see if it hides the edges of the tape effectively. Maybe some more coats after that....mmmmm....loving the poly it is so easy to spray even for a spray Gumby like me.

[Trevor Davies]

Hi Ozzbike,
I have tried the same decal method using packing tape and laser printouts. The process works well. It takes me quite a few layers of tru-oil to cover the edges though. Hopefully the spray poly works well.