Soloist Hardtail Burl Maple Top - Black dye glow/burst satin, dog hair back

[docteurseb]

The inspiration for this build is this PRS Private Stock with poplar burl and Frost Bite glow finish:

https://briansguitars.com/products/paul-reed-smith-private-stock-custom-24-frostbite-glow-2

Looks pretty sinister with that black/natural burst/glow, satin finish, and unfilled holes.
I had never ever wanted a burl top at all, until I saw this one.

Ordered a custom burl maple top Soloist body couple weeks ago:

It arrived with the holes filled, that made me real sad lol:

Nothing that an X-acto knife and patience couldn't fix:

It's a very light body at only 3lbs 9oz, even more so for being a hardtail. I'll have to be careful with the choice of tuners and neck woods.

For the back I plan on having a dog hair finish with solid black paint and white/grey grain filler.
It's not yet sure the finish shop I use will be able to do this.
If not I would grain fill the swamp ash myself with black, and then dye the swamp ash dark grey.

Either way I'm going to make an ash backplate for it. There were only two boards to pick from at the local Woodcraft, that one seems close enough:

 

[T89Rex]

Damn! 

I'm more than a little envious.

 

[docteurseb]

Back plate is done. I accidentally found a better match grain-wise after re-sawing the board:

 

[PhilHill]

Back plate is done. I accidentally found a better match grain-wise after re-sawing the board:

That looks like a pretty good match up. I've found that your only going to get so close no matter what. Sometimes even pieces taken from the same area of wood will differ slightly. Good job... :icon_thumright:

 

[dmraco]

Looks great.  How thick is the top?  Did you plane the top of the body?

 

[docteurseb]

Back plate is done. I accidentally found a better match grain-wise after re-sawing the board:

That looks like a pretty good match up. I've found that your only going to get so close no matter what. Sometimes even pieces taken from the same area of wood will differ slightly. Good job... :icon_thumright:

On custom shop PRS they take a thicker piece of wood to make backplates from the same piece of wood. It looks good but even that is often far from perfect with ash's grain changing rapidly:

 

[docteurseb]

Looks great.  How thick is the top?  Did you plane the top of the body?

That's a 1/8" thick lam top. The top is just the way I received it from Warmoth (minus the holes filled). I'll be filling some partially with black dyed filler as I can see the underlying white glue/swamp ash. After that I'll sand again to 220 or 180 before staining.

 

[rgand]

That's an outstanding top. Glad you were able to remove the filler. It would have been an eyesore with the odd color it was. Nice back plate, too. This one is going to be spectacular when the finish is applied.

 

[docteurseb]

Warmoth told me the filler they use would take the dye and that they pick a slightly darker filler than the top so it looks good.
Since I'm going with a very light grey (almost natural) to black glow/burst stain though I was concerned the lightest colored parts of the finish would make that filler look a little weird.

 

[rgand]

I suppose if you wanted those filled, you could mix sawdust from the piece with clear finish to use as a filler. I'm a fan of grain showing anyway. I think those spots opened up will be most interesting.

 

[docteurseb]

Alright I finally took a stab at it.
It was a lot more difficult to do a burst/glow effect with smooth transitions than I expected.
I spent roughly two hours on that thing, way more than I did for the dragon breath pattern on the prior Soloist builds.

Overall I think it'll be great once clear coated:

While the top was wet I really liked the figuring, it's making me reconsider doing a satin finish on it.
A gloss finish would definitely require buffing which would fill those holes with buffing compound... while satin probably wouldn't.

 

[rgand]

That is beautiful! What a great color blend. That will look good with either gloss or satin finishes. My preference would be to go with the gloss and maybe use that to fill the voids so they are smooth with the finish but still visible.

 

[PhilHill]

You nailed it pretty good. Looks great. For finish I'm wondering, laquer will tend to shy away from the holes rather than fill them. Not sure on poly, haven't used it on something like that. You might well be right on the gloss, it could be a pain in the posterior try to get buffing compound out of those crevices. Hope it works out well either way.......... :icon_thumright:

 

[docteurseb]

I'll ask Pat Wilkins for advice once he gets the body.
I'm definitely doing poly on this.
For a brief time I was considering putting glow in the dark powder in the holes mixed with superglue or epoxy, but leaning against it because unless it's dark it'll always look white which will be worse looking that leaving them as is.

 

[bagman67]

Well, that's just smashing.  Good call on not doing the glow-in-the-dark fill.  It would indeed have been distracting.  As it is, it's really just perfect. 

 

[Rick]

Came out .  Another vote here for clear gloss.

 

[ragamuffin]

Lookin' good!

 

[docteurseb]

Verdict: satin.
It was the only option to avoid polishing compound filling the cavities and being nearly impossible to remove.

 

[mayfly]

I can hardly wait to see it!

 

[NedRyerson]

That is turning out gorgeous. Makes me reevaluate my feelings on burl tops.