Flippin' AMAZING!

[ihavenothingprofoundtosay]

Someone really needs to do THIS to a guitar body.

Either a chunk of cracked, knotted wood w/really open grain, or maybe carve into the top, then fill/level with the resin.  Seriously: someone do this!  (because I'm too poor to do it now, alas)  :sad1:

 

[Phaedrus]

absolutely amazing!

 

[swarfrat]

I'm not sure I would have picked that application for it but umm.... yeah I can see all kinds of mischief for that with a guitar project.

 

[swarfrat]

Most of the weathering articles I found focus on coloration. How do you accelerate surface checking? That would be totally awesome. Especially with a red-orange glow pigment.  Do your own glow in the dark fire-crackle black. Hmmmm. dangit, that's not what the next project was supposed to be!!!

 

[bagman67]

I like how the stuff looks in the natural voids in the wood, but you could also just carve or rout patterns you want to inlay with the resin. That'd be cool, too.

 

[ihavenothingprofoundtosay]

How do you accelerate surface checking?

Chain it to the back of your truck, drive on a gravel road.  :icon_jokercolor:

 

[swarfrat]

OK, FYI if you're considering the GITD pigments... Green has a brighter and longer glow time than the others, Red is the weakest and shortest (and smells like rotten eggs). 

I said checking, not gouging. You need fine cracks.

 

[swarfrat]

According to http://hardwoodfloorsmag.com, checking is pretty much exclusively the result of moisture changes. Therefore, I'd consider a series of witch trials. If you suspect your lumber of being a witch, first drown it. Then burn it. Then drown it again. Then burn it in the oven again. Until it cracks.  I wonder if the oven goes below 212F?

Must try. 

 

[bagman67]

I have a crappy Peavey body I could strip and experiment with, if I but had the time...

 

[swarfrat]

Also per the HWF site,  Oak is high on the checking likelyhood AND it has a high tannic acid content - which means it would ebonize quite nicely.

 

[Cagey]

I'd consider a series of witch trials. If you suspect your lumber of being a witch, first drown it. Then burn it. Then drown it again. Then burn it in the oven again. Until it cracks. 

Perzactly. Works every time.

 

[swarfrat]

And since poplar is "low".  An oak veneer on a poplar body should give you good cracking without causing structural problems.

 

[john_p_wi]

20+ years ago in a previous work life I was an engineer for an international medical company who made "fiberglass casts" or splinting material, you know the bright blue, yellow, pink etc colored casts people wear to immobilize a fracture.  In the lab we used to experiment with glow in the dark colorants mixed into the urethane resins - it does take a fairly high percentage of colorant if I recall, around 13 % to achieve a decent glow.  Today, for various items we have it compression molded into "knobs and keypads" at a smaller concentration.  The one thing to note, is that when it is not fluorescing or is in brighter light, the colors can be a bit off and washed out, add in a little black light with darkness though and let the fun begin.  I expect that the pictures shown above are of a fairly long time exposure taken in a nearly dark environment to bring out the fluorescing resin and surrounding areas giving excitement to the effect.

 

[ihavenothingprofoundtosay]

I said checking, not gouging. You need fine cracks.

I know, I was kidding.  :laughing7:

I expect that the pictures shown above are of a fairly long time exposure taken in a nearly dark environment to bring out the fluorescing resin and surrounding areas giving excitement to the effect.

Hey!  Don't dampen our expectations with doses of reality!  :-\

In the lab we used to experiment with glow in the dark colorants mixed into the urethane resins - it does take a fairly high percentage of colorant if I recall, around 13 % to achieve a decent glow.  Today, for various items we have it compression molded into "knobs and keypads" at a smaller concentration. 

...Then again, that's very helpful info.  :icon_thumright:

 

[swarfrat]

I was initially thinking a GTID version of this:

But I fear it would essentially be like a bunch of commercial camoflage. It's so busy that you lose the effect. A few larger chunks would be a lot more visible on stage. You could cover a body with broken glass and sandblast to erode channels, or even take a clue from Great Ape and just draw the crack patters and get out your gouges to create the channels to fill. That would also let you control how thick and deep they were, ensuring you got enough material in there to be visible.

 

[Cagey]

I understand where you're coming from - I've always been fascinated by glowing materials, but it's difficult to get stuff that will do it reliably due to radiation fears. The stuff that does it is either so short-lived that it's nearly useless, or has been regulated out of availability due to unreasonable fears.

But, in this case, I think what they're doing is backlighting. No danger there. It's all about dispersion. A good example of that is in most flat-screen LCD monitors. They started off with CCF backlights, and now we're doing LEDs. Properly engineered, you can redirect light and even it out so there's no obvious "hot spots".

I think that's what they're doing with these fancy parts. They're too bright in natural light to be radioactive.

But, I could be wrong. Wouldn't be the first time <grin>

It's an attractive effect, though. I can see a place for it.

 

[dmraco]

What is creating the blue effect??

 

[swarfrat]

For that matter, there's luminous wire that actually creates its own glow. But I like being able to light it up from stage lighting.

The blue glow is a luminescent pigment mixed into the lighting. If you go to the link in the first post they talk about it in the comments section.

 

[Cagey]

... I fear it would essentially be like a bunch of commercial camoflage. It's so busy that you lose the effect. A few larger chunks would be a lot more visible on stage. You could cover a body with broken glass and sandblast to erode channels, or even take a clue from Great Ape and just draw the crack patters and get out your gouges to create the channels to fill. That would also let you control how thick and deep they were, ensuring you got enough material in there to be visible.

Commercial camoflage is right. And how close would you have to be to see/appreciate it?

But, that's just me. I'm a real bitch when it comes to guitar appearance. If it doesn't look/play/feel like new, I wanna fix it or get rid of it. I won't own a rag ride. Utility is important as well, but I turn into a real taskmaster at that point. It had damn well better be the best sounding/playing thing on the planet, or I'm going to be violating the thing or flip it.

 

[john_p_wi]

EL or electroluminescent is a lot of fun to play with, it can easily be screen printed onto Mylar and excited with 160 vac, very low current (one can easily use a battery powered ac inverter).  Generally it is used in keypads etc, but one has to be careful do to the ease of noise injected into sensitive circuits, LED's would then be used.  EL panels can also be used to excite the "phosphor" type powders previously mentioned.