Shoestring Tele

[swarfrat]

Went to get black gel stain. Got talked into stain + poly by someone I suspected was steering me wrong. They did. Stain+poly is not self levelling in the least. Looks atrocious. I did the front in gel and it looks like just the ticket. Once it dries enough to sand off I'll take the back back to bare wood and repeat.

 

[mayfly]

Crap - sorry to hear this.  Yea, gel stain is the way to go generally...

 

[swarfrat]

Gel stain is magic. I don't think I'll ever do anything else if gel is appropriate to the project. That is all.

 

[swarfrat]

There's no faster way to screw up a wood working project than with a router. Let's take the strength of one or two horses and put the in a little hand held doohickey. Yeah, what could go wrong. Pattern bits with too long a minimum cut is what could go wrong. And in a hurry.

Project just became a thinline. I could patch it, but I meant to order a thinline anyway and this is a cheap eBay body. I think I'll leave the forearm solid for neck dive control, and make a spruce top. Or more accurately, Spruce/Pine/Fir because I'm planning to resaw a 2x8.

 

[Cagey]

Still makes an impressive mess, though <grin>

 

[Rick]

Still ... ouch.

 

[PhilHill]

This has ticked me off in the past. Templates are all 1/4 - 1/2 ".  Bits have 1/2 or more of cutter length, then they tell you not to cut more than a 1/4 in at a time. I've had to resort to putting two bearings on some bits if the shank is long enough...........

 

[ragamuffin]

Ouch!

 

[swarfrat]

Reviving - the body was a screaming deal so I'm sticking to the old thread. My first experience with shellac flakes - I bought some garnet - I would've bought some blonde for seal coat but man the stuff has gone up and I knew if I bought both, one would likely be unused.  I mixed up a tiny amount of a 1lb cut to try it out. Also - I can buy 2lb cut of blonde in a can, but I figured garnet would be used less  so stick with flakes there:

 

[swarfrat]

Oooh I gonnandunnit now... even though this has been the plan for 2 years, I still winced a bit when I started in, but apparently Aaron's provenance is worth $-30 or so from the discount in the showcase.
Seriously - I don't think I could've done this one unless it was 100% covered.

 

[SPLGEO]

I like the look of the garnet without the gloss finish.

 

[swarfrat]

Garnet seems to mute the stripe, but this is just for pore tint, and is getting sanded back

 

[swarfrat]

Started sanding back, realized I didn't need to before grain filling. Boy that sure darkened up fast. But if the pores end up this color and the surface like it did when just wet, I'll be thrilled.

 

[swarfrat]

Still filling and patching, but I finally found Mohawk Brown Mahogany hard fill stick matches pretty well. It's certainly not invisible but it avoids drawing attention to itself. I think I'll call this booboo fixed

Once my sanding discs get here I hope to finish up on the grain fill and hit a few more coats of shellac then a top clear coat

 

[swarfrat]

Felt like the shellac wasn't building sanding between coats. Plus dry to sand is longer than dry for next coat. Trying to build 3 coats and a  alcohol rub down before sanding now.