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Can't wait for my parts to get in! (Decided against an oil finish after testing, though. Just didn't get the look I wanted.)
Originally Posted by Frank67
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11-29-2017 01:28 PM
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You can do an oil finish over a dye. Rit fabric dye works fairly well, with dark colors. For black, Fiebing's leather dye is great, really black. I've done red, black, and natural. A sunburst might be possible, but more trouble than it was worth to me. I've done nitro sprays, but Tru-Oil is, IMO, the best finish for a DIY job. Without a spray booth doing nitro is not ideal, in many ways, and a spray booth is lots of trouble and/or expensive. A Tru-Oil finish is as hard and durable, maybe more-so, and easy to do, not to mention the lack of toxicity. I suppose spray paint could be done, but from a can it's going to look cheesy, guaranteed.
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Like I said, I've done test pieces and decided I didn't like the Tru-Oil as much as I thought I would. I'm going with very careful surface prep and wipe-on poly. I put my dyes in the poly so I can layer them and adjust the color as I go. Originally Posted by sgosnell
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I was listening to the In the Making Guitar Building podcast the other day and the guy Florian from Millimetric was singing the praises of Livos oil as an alternative to tru oil. I don't have personal experience with it, but I may try it on my next project. That said, I've been a fan of Tru Oil so far.
I have tended to knock it back with steel wool to a bit of a matte look, but with patience you can get a pretty good gloss too. This is before I did the steel wool on the blue one.
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Thanks a lot ! In fact i decided to take my time about this project. Week was huge. Tomorrow, I will put a new coat of tru-oil by a wet sandind at 800. Step by step. I just try to don't rush to don't make mistake. I will post few news pictures as soon as possible. Once again thank you for all your advice ! Project guitar are like good wine, always better to share right ?
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The beauty of Tru-Oil is that mistakes are easy to fix, as are later dings and scratches.
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And the beauty of anything that's not Tru-Oil is that it doesn't take a month to do a finish.
(Although there is an outfit in the UK that's supposedly making a fast-dry oil finish.)
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A month? IME the oil is dry and ready in less than a week, and it takes that long for nitro or even spray paint. YMMV.
BTW, do not confuse Tru-Oil with other oil finishes, such as Danish. Not the same thing.
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The time can vary, I think. There seem to be a few schools of thought on number of coats you should do with tru oil. If you want to build it up and create a bit thicker gloss finish that you can buff up, then I know some people who will do 30-40 coats but I also know people who do less than 10. Then I've also heard anything from 2 hours between coats to a full 24. Nonetheless, finishes can be very personal. To each their own. Originally Posted by sgosnell
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https://www.birchwoodcasey.com/Refin...ck-Finish.aspx
They recommend to wait a month before using rotten stone to polish, so I guess it answers how long it takes to fully dry
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I've never heard of using rotten stone to polish a guitar, but I guess it could be done. But using anything else, it says 7 days.
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Hi all
I'm close to finish the body for my partcaster. I wanted to ask how, Franck and Meggy, how did you proceed for the finishing ? I mean, after putting the last coat of oil, did you sand one again or just let the last coat become dry quite simply? I'm thinking to make a polish by applying a wax (briwax) with 0000 wire wool .
thanks for your help !
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Hey Sam, I've had success ending a Tru-oil finish with two glaze coats -- tru-oil cut by 50% with mineral spirits, and thinly padded on. Then wait a couple of weeks (or as long as you can stand it) and rub it down with 0000.
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I remember giving it a thorough sanding with the finest sandpaper I could find after the last coat. But it is clear to me that Meggy and Jehu are much more competent than I am. I did not really know what I was doing. I like the final result, but it did not come from researching the subject to any significant extent.
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For me, it was just a case of getting a really good final coat applied effectively - my whole philosophy was very thin coats in general, with fine wire wool (and/or 1200 grit light smoothing) and cleaning with napha (Zippo fuel) between coats. So then, before the last coat, it was a case of getting the surface as smooth and clean as I could, and then just very carefully applying a thin smear of oil, and hoping I got it dry without any dust or particles getting on there. I may well have done the front, back and sides separately to make things easier too - I think I did that on at least one of my partscaster builds. Originally Posted by Sam.Agst
Hi all
I'm close to finish the body for my partcaster. I wanted to ask how, Franck and Meggy, how did you proceed for the finishing ? I mean, after putting the last coat of oil, did you sand one again or just let the last coat become dry quite simply? I'm thinking to make a polish by applying a wax (briwax) with 0000 wire wool .
thanks for your help !
So not really expert stuff if I'm honest, but that's what I like about Tru Oil - you don't have to be an expert. I think what you've achieved looks fabulous anyhow. I do like that idea of thinning with spirit - on another forum there was a pro guitar builder showing some beautiful looking finishes he'd got that way, so I'd say worth looking into that one - I didn't know about that when I finished my guitars or I might have done that.
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Very nice of you - honestly I'm just an amateur who had a go like yourself, and found a way that seemed to work - in the process of doing the finish, I guess one builds up a bit of knowledge at least. But that acoustic Jehu shows looks amazing, I'm not in the same league at all. Originally Posted by Frank67
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Originally Posted by Jehu
Hey Sam, I've had success ending a Tru-oil finish with two glaze coats -- tru-oil cut by 50% with mineral spirits, and thinly padded on. Then wait a couple of weeks (or as long as you can stand it) and rub it down with 0000.
Hey Jehu, thanks for your help. I wanted to ask you if this mix between tru oil and mineral spirits has cleared your guitar are not. Thanks
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Not sure what you mean by 'cleared my guitar'. The mineral spirits just act as a thinner, so that the coat goes on nice and smooth and self-levels. It evaporates very quickly, leaving a thin layer of oil that does not need sanding out. Originally Posted by Sam.Agst
Hey Jehu, thanks for your help. I wanted to ask you if this mix between tru oil and mineral spirits has cleared your guitar are not. Thanks
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Bringing this back up for a question about shielding. Do folks here feel it necessary to solder electrical connections of some sort between the pieces of copper tape, which some sources say is nonconductive, and to ground the tape to control?
thx
jon
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I just shielded the cavities as best I could, and think about making those kind of connections. Interesting question... I be waiting to hear the experts weigh in on this.
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To be honest, I have one guitar that I shielded that is noisier than another that I didn't. The shielding is grounded, BTW. I am not totally convinced that shielding is an absolute necessity. I am wondering if active versus passive setups warrant the shielding, or if that even makes a difference.
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The point of shielding is just to act as a Faraday cage, and block the EMF radiation that causes noise. It's not necessary to ground it, nor to solder the tape pieces together.
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Yeah, but if you don't ground the areas I think that you may be risking a shock. Maybe the best solution is the shield the areas, but keep them out of the ground path? In other words cutting the foil on a pick guard away from contacting a pot or switch housing, etc. Originally Posted by sgosnell
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When I did mine, I shielded everything, connected all the shielding (except the pickup cavities), and connected all the grounding to the bridge. The guitar is extremely quiet. I can get a little hum off my computer, or a fluorescent light, but with just a normal setup, I don't hear much noise at all. (I was nervous about that because I'd read P-90s can be really noisy.)
I just made sure the copper foil overlapped a little, and I put a small dot of solder where they did. I put a small piece of copper tape around one of the screw holes so that it would make contact when I put the cavity cover on it (I covered the entire back of the cover).
Some of this may be overkill, but it didn't really take that long, so I figured why not?
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If you're just shielding the cavities in a solidbody, I don't think grounding is necessary, and in fact can create unwanted ground loops which increase noise. I just put tape in the cavities and only ground from the pickup to the pots to the jack and strings. I don't believe the cavity shielding should be grounded, but it's not necessarily a problem if it is. Shielding a hollow-body archtop pickup is problematic, and I don't do it, but then I generally use humbuckers which don't need it.
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