Australian/New Zealand Luthiers Forum

It's been a pretty long time since I last posted, but these are two I finished at the start of this year. The soprano ukulele was one that I gifted to a musician I initially promised to make a ukulele for 13 years earlier, and the tenor is one I made for myself.

Tenor - Figured Redgum top, headstock veneer and cavity cover. Phillipine Mahogany body. Queensland maple neck. Black Walnut fretboard. Mother of Pearl dots, single humbucker with volume and tone controls.

Soprano - Flamed Queensland Maple top, headstock veneer and cavity cover, dyed with Angelus leather dyes in a blue/purple burst. Body is Australian Red Cedar with dyed maple veneer centre stripe. Neck is Queensland Maple with a little bit of figuring. Fretboard is Buddawood/Australian False Sandalwood with MOP dots. Inlay on the top is done using Crimson Guitars inlay powder and Starbond thin CA. Body binding is black/white plastic.

Both instruments have been finished with Crimson Guitars guitar finishing oil over UBeaut shellac based sanding sealer. String through construction, with Ernie ball strings (top 4 strings from a set of 8's for the soprano, and a set of 9's for the tenor). These are also the first 2 instruments that I have put my name on and numbered.

All feedback is very welcome, thanks for looking!

Hi Ian. Nice, individual and distinctive, a little bit quirky. Definitely worth putting your name on.
I don't know ukes, and have never made an electric. However, I have been planning to do a blue burst/fade sort of thing like you have done. I really like that. I also use hand applied oil finishes rather than spraying. So, I have two questions for you:
1. Did you have any problems with the oil finish lifting or smudging the blue tints as you applied it? Or did you put some sort of sealing coat over the colour before applying the oil as a top coat?
2. What are your thoughts on the Crimson Guitars oil finish product? I have used Tru-Oil and Hard-wax oils, and I am always interested in comparisons of different products for luthier applications.
cheers
Mark

Hi Mark,

Thanks for the positive feedback! Happy to answer your questions...

I did see a very slight transfer of the colour when I applied my initial sealing coat, but more in the sense of seeing traces of blue/purple on the cloth, rather than seeing any change in the colour of the instrument. I did a coat of "UBeaut" sanding sealer prior to applying the oil coats, which I do on most timber projects, It's a shellac based, non pore-filling sanding sealer which seems to work very well with all the different finishes I have used it with. One thing I did to minimise any potential issues with smudging was to apply the sanding sealer with strokes from the centre to the edge, working around the body. That way if there WAS any transfer or smudging, it would follow the gradient of the burst, and be going from the lightest area to the darkest, reducing the possibility of it being visible or noticeable.

Regarding the Crimson Guitars oil - I have been very happy with the results I've obtained with it, and I have used it on 3 instruments now (and one or two other small timber projects). The penetrating oil seems to build a solid base, and the high-build oil does a good job of building a good finish quite quickly. I haven't used Tru-Oil personally to compare, but I do know that the story is that when Ben at Crimson was developing the product, he worked with an industrial chemist to "reverse engineer" Tru-Oil, and then improve upon the formula to give an easier to use, overall better product.

Thanks for the tips Ian. What you describe for the finishing routing is much the same as I had planned, but I am always anxious when making it up as I go along. It is very reassuring to hear from someone who has actually made it work.
Cheers and HNY
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