Al's Special Les Paul Junior

[liam_fnq]

so did you grain fill and then dye or the other way round? what's your process? gorgeous colour
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Cheers, Liam.





Cairns Loon.

[ozziebluesman]

Thanks Allen. The colour is not as dark as it looks in the picture. As you know I can't see the colour real well but I can see light and dark shades. A friend has helped me with the right dye as he is a painter and knows his stuff. I wanted a cherry red but he tells me it is more a wine red.

Cheers Liam. The filler was a timber mate mahogany which darkened up the queensland maple. Them I applied one coat of dye but it was very blotchy so I applied another coat. It is a water based mahogany stain and I may use some steel wool to lighten it up a bit but I will see how it looks tomorrow when it has dried. I plan the shellac process using the hard shellac. The top wuill be filled with a clear filler and left a la natural Smile

I did state earlier I was going to have this guitar sprayed by my friend Paul. I showed the guitar to a student of mine and he wants to buy it right or wrong. So I decided to do the finish on this one myself and sell it! I will build another les paul but a carved top next time and get Paul to work his magic on that one and it won't be for sale I hope. Wink

Thanks again

Alan
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"Play to express, not to impress"

Alan R Hamley

[Kim]

Coming up a treat Alan, this is going to be a gorgeous axe.

As an aside, if you are looking for that 'vintage' look, you can use a trick employed by the factories. When they grain fill mahoganies and the like with large pours, they do so in a much darker filler so the pours will contrast. Walnut paste filler works very well with mahogany stain, it makes a 'highlight' of the pours giving emphasis to the fact it is natural wood.

Cheers

Kim
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Pull me Finga

[ozziebluesman]

Thanks for your comments Kim.

Because the body and neck are Queenslanf Maple and very light in colour I have achieved by accident what you have just described. The old english mahogany stain is quite dark and the filler has highlighted the pores.

Cheers

Alan
_________________
"Play to express, not to impress"

Alan R Hamley

[ozziebluesman]

The back of the neck and body have been finished using hard shellac. Leave it now for a month to cross-link and then it will be buffed out to a satin finish.
img~
Now for the top finish......
_________________
"Play to express, not to impress"

Alan R Hamley