Bleaching Alder with 2 part wood bleach

[Tonar8352]

I've found some references on the web to using dilute bleach for part A/hydrogen peroxide for part B, that essentially the same thing?

I have no experience using regular bleach.  Two part wood bleach is really strong and I do not know how regular bleach would work compared to it.

looks like the pickup and control routs are masked off, what's up with that?

No masking was use to do the burst. I stain the entire body including inside all the routes and drilled holes so that it looks like it was dipped the way Fender did it in the early sixties.  All the shading was done with a Devilbiss EGA 502 gun.  If you look at vintage Fender finsihes you will see that the shading looks much like this one.  The red stops at the control cavity and you will see some over spray in the pickup routes.  Some times you can even see where that painter tested his spray pattern on the surface that the pickguard will cover.

How about using oxalic acid? I hear that's what wood bleach is made of...

Oxalic Acid is used as wood bleach.  It is used mostly in products that are sold as wood cleaners to get rid of oxidization on wood fences before they get a new coat of wood preservative stain to make them look new. It also works ok to get water stains out of wood.   I have used pure Oxalic Acid and it does not come close to working as well as the two part wood bleaches.  

 

[GearBoxTy]

Wow, that is amazing, dude.  I kinda agree that a distinct grain ash would be uber-cool, but damns you did a helluva job!  Has Warmoth contacted you yet about a job in their paint department?!?!?!