Leaderboard

7/8th P90 Plank of Possibility

Went across the river into Minnesota and visited Menards today. ... They had Minwax transparent blue oil finish on sale, and I considered thst for a few minutes til i noticed it was pretty much 'Wedgewood' blue (I already have a wedgewood blue strat, which I have to keep as it has an original psychedelic painting on it)..
They also had the poplar bleaching powder, which I bought since it was as only six bux!
PXL_20250802_152140988.jpg

Reading the instructions, its a pretty fiddly process (simple, but a lot of steps of messing around with hot water). But it would be nice to bleach some of the green/gray tone out, so that the entire body could be more uniformly amber.

After spending an hour in the store today reading the fine print on dozens of labels of various stains and polys, oil and water based... Im thinking the simplest rout will just be to try to bring the overall tone of the body into something more beige/amber like the neck...
 
My plan is to take the top half of the trem cavity and just apply some amber stain, and see how that works over the darker greenish-grey parts...
PXL_20250803_012100208.jpg

If it comes out 'more muddy green than amber', my plan B involves taking the bottom half of that cavity and testing the acid bleaching technique .. and IF bleaching works; the finish strategy then becoming "bleach, then dye, then wipe-on top oil"...
 
PS, i guess i can do stain / bleach testing in the pickup routes too... Nobody will see them after the pickguard is mounted...
 
Did a little stain test in pickup cavity ( no bleach, just stain) and it seems pleasant enough. But then I realized that this oil based Varathane product is not a "micro porous" stain and would probably inhibit the Polyx-oil from getting a good bond. Switching to a SamaN Water-based Wood Stain (on its way here from Quebec, since nobody sells it locally)
PXL_20250804_162259508.jpg
 
Last edited:
Aaaannnnddd... KAHLER hard tail arrived today!
With the neck and pickguard in place you can see the intonation point is just about the edge of the pickguard
PXL_20250811_195303891.jpg

With the special 'long fork' saddles they sent me, the bridge can sit back a couple mm further than I originally estimated
PXL_20250811_195042996.jpg

Meaning I wont have very much pickguard to trim!
PXL_20250811_195252241.jpg

But that's getting ahead of things, have that Esquire on the bench now to assemble first!
 
Well, the SamaN waterbased stain has done a good job of evening out the mineral streaks

PXL_20250817_172706521.jpgPXL_20250817_172854779.jpg

The final coats of oil finish should bring out a bit more of the woodgrain (this poplar is quite fine-grained)

I wanted to do the first coat of Osmo today, but discovered that my 2/3rds empty can of Osmo Polyx-Oil has "gelled" (oops). Toyed with the idea of ordering some Rubio Monocoat, but I couldn't find any definitive info that it would work over top of this stain (they made a big point of insisting on bare wood). Anyway, I found an alternative wipe on top coat product, should be here next week...
 
Well, the SamaN waterbased stain has done a good job of evening out the mineral streaks

View attachment 66161View attachment 66162

The final coats of oil finish should bring out a bit more of the woodgrain (this poplar is quite fine-grained)

I wanted to do the first coat of Osmo today, but discovered that my 2/3rds empty can of Osmo Polyx-Oil has "gelled" (oops). Toyed with the idea of ordering some Rubio Monocoat, but I couldn't find any definitive info that it would work over top of this stain (they made a big point of insisting on bare wood). Anyway, I found an alternative wipe on top coat product, should be here next week...
Looks great!
 
Well, the SamaN water based stain performed pretty much as advertised: they claimed it would not raise the grain and 95% of this body stayed smooth. There was a very slight grain raising in the end grain, nothing that didn't "dust off" when I feathered it back with the 3M 0000 steel wool pads. This after a couple of days of drying indoors.

Today I wiped it with a tack cloth and then applied the first coat of "Tried and True" Original Wood Finish (polymerized Linseed and beeswax) and was happy to observe that there wasn't the slightest hint of the underlying stain running. I wiped on the thinnest possible coating, waited an hour, then wiped it dry to remove any excess (it was pretty much completely dry).

Now a 24 hour wait, then another dust off with the 0000 wool pad, then the same 'thinnest possible coat', wait an hour, then wipe dry again and wait another 24 hours.

After that, maybe a third coat, maybe not...

Very bad lighting, but here it is after wiping dry the first coat, actual color is a bit redder than shown, and the TaT adds some nice ambering

PXL_20250824_174721606.jpgPXL_20250824_174753225.jpg
 
I honestly can hardly believe that was green poplar before you started and I have seen the pics. Thats quite amazing. I will need to try some of that stuff out.
 
Here it is 24 hours after the second coat. It feels really silky smooth, reminds me of bubinga sanded down to 2000 grit. I have to go out of town for a couple days, so will let it dry out a while more as I ponder a possible third coat. Tho it seems like for these polymerized oil wipe-on finishes: "Two shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be two. Three shalt thou not count, neither count thou one, excepting that thou then proceed to two. Four is right out!!"
PXL_20250827_025854959.jpgPXL_20250827_025930786.jpg
 
Kinmans arrived today! Looks like this guitar will kick the Esquire off my 'bench' (kitchen table), if I can just find that Strat jack plate...
PXL_20250830_231154923.jpgPXL_20250830_230641796.jpg

I got the "Big-9-0" for the neck, and the "Kick In The Arse" for the bridge. KITA has the special custom hotwire option allowing me to switch it between Standard and Heavy voicings... (shown above)
 
Well, sad to say but it looks like this one will be done BEFORE the Esquire!

Just waiting on five-way superswitch and some more shielding paint, and that's due to arrive Tuesday .

Got a wiring diagram drawn up for it today...
The "heavy" mode for the bridge pickup is supposed to be smoother and darker, so I have slotted it in the switch position appropriately (i think!)

PXL_20250906_190830498.jpg
 
Back
Top