Swamp Ash JBass Blue Dye Project

[jackthehack]

Jack, when you spray your clear do you hang the guitar the same way?

I was not wanting to drill holes in the neck pocket, how do you do it.

It's just a bent up coat hanger hanging from rigging for a #2 30 ft. jib sail I have rigged to trees and side of house to shade deck.

Just the normal holes predrilled for neck screws, if you prefer painting stick you just drill holes in stick to line up with those and use nuts/bolts that fit existing holes.

"If it were mine I'd be talking to Warmoth about returning it for a replacement.  It would not be a happy day to get it all together and have the separation issue return..."

I pretty sure they would not take any return of a body upon which finishing work commenced. Did not call them and have not seen reply from Warmoth employees to this thread. Oddly enough, as seen from pic shown, the crack/separation mysteriously just corrected itself and appears completely normal. In over 30 years of  modding/refinishing guitars I've never seen anything like that.

 

[ognolman]

I pretty sure they would not take any return of a body upon which finishing work commenced. Did not call them and have not seen reply from Warmoth employees to this thread. Oddly enough, as seen from pic shown, the crack/separation mysteriously just corrected itself and appears completely normal. In over 30 years of  modding/refinishing guitars I've never seen anything like that.

I have heard of it happening with some cheap guitars and it seems to be common in upright basses, too.  I think the most common cause is hide glue heating up and separating.  But I was thinking about how they would handle it since you've already started finishing.  For all they know, you could have been using a heater or kiln of some sort to make it dry faster, or whatever, and it has melted the hide glue.  I assume Warmoth uses hide glue...?

Still, I hope it doesn't come back...

JBD

 

[jackthehack]

I have used tanning beds to speed up drying process for grain filler and left guitar bodies hanging outdoors at much higher ambient temperatures in various states of finish with no ill effect previously. Day in question was unseasonably cool and max temp variation all day on body was not more than 15 degrees.

 

[stubhead]

Well, I don't think there's any question but that one piece of wood is separating from another; the question is what to do about it. If Warmoth doesn't see it as a guarantee issue OR if you think the work you've put in is worth trying to salvage, you can glue it and clamp it. If it were mine, I would use slow epoxy and try not to clamp it too tight, because the "crack" doesn't appear to be cause by a warp, at least not in the picture on page 3. You don't want to squeeze all the glue out of the join... If one board is warping away from the other, you'd want it glued in it's most stable position (and it's really not a good situation) - but in the picture it looks like the crack widens from one end to the other, so the boards just didn't get glued correctly at the factory.

 

[jackthehack]

Problem with that is that the crack is closed back up completely, unless it widens again, and it hasn't at all from that day it appeared, there isn't anyway to inject any glue into it.

 

[ognolman]

Problem with that is that the crack is closed back up completely, unless it widens again, and it hasn't at all from that day it appeared, there isn't anyway to inject any glue into it.

From the symptoms it sounds to me like the glue is either defective or improperly applied.  Since you said that there hasn't been a dramatic temperature change, I'm thinking that the moisture from the dye/humidity expanded the wood and when the moisture evaporated it settled back into place.  Ergo, if that is the case, then just the act of sealing the wood against moisture should prevent it from being a problem in the future.

JBD

 

[jackthehack]

Thanks for that. It's been a week and the oil based filler is finally all dry; may do a light wash back with some lacquer thinner to lighten color up a little bit this evening. Will need to at least do another washcoat; may wind up doing a heavy sealing coat to lock in color and finish grain fill with clear filler prior to gloss lacquer top coats.

 

[simple]

Warmoth does not use hide glue. That would be more for Acoustic guitar building. Warmoth uses yellow wood glue. We roll it on and clamp the pieces together. We do thousands a year.

There are outside (of Warmoth) forces at work here evident from the wood's dynamic reactions. We do not train our Swamp Ash to behave in this manner.

The dye sounds OK. There may have been water involved with the bleaching process that caused wood swelling or the wood glue to liquefy. I know there are other issues with bleaching wood such as using white vineger to neutralize the bleach when you're done  I showed it to some experienced guys here and they hadn't seen a crack play a disappearing act like that before. That does tell me one thing, if we haven't seen it before after as many bodies as we have built, you can make a pretty accurate assumption that the problem didn't originate from the manufacturing process.

Sorry I can't be of more help. The DYI finishing is something I don't study very much.

 

[jackthehack]

The wood bleach I used is basically dilute oxalic acid in alcohol solution; having never used the product before I did a relatively light application and it actually did not lighten the swamp much at all except for the end grain. Anything's possible, but don't think that was necessarily root cause; wood got MUCH damper with application of dye concentrate/lacquer thinner solution, and crack did not appear until application of oil based grain filler.

This may just be some bizarre one-off/Twilight Zone situation, good thing I got a picture before it disappeared or most people would think I was tripping/having flashback. I've showed this to a number of people with decades of experience finishing guitars, furniture and other wood products and no one has ever seen a crack like develop in a glue join and then disappear.

I'm not really concerned about it at this point as the join has closed so completely you could not tell difference from "out-of-box" and after thorough sealing of body I rather doubt it will reappear.

 

[ognolman]

There are outside (of Warmoth) forces at work here evident from the wood's dynamic reactions. We do not train our Swamp Ash to behave in this manner.

:icon_scratch: I didn't suggest that you did.

JBD

 

[jackthehack]

Did a wash with lacquer thinner to lighten the color a bit, pic looks streaky as it's not all the way dry; that's Sammy, my Aussie

 

[Nando Vallart]

Looks very nice Jack!

 

[willyk]

G'day Sammy, How ya goin' mate? Is that Vegemite on your chest?  :laughing7:

 

[jackthehack]

G'day Sammy, How ya goin' mate? Is that Vegemite on your chest?  :laughing7:

She spends the day herding/chasing everything from deer to frogs through the woods that surround the house and that is the day's accumulation of stickers/burrs.

 

[Mor Paul]

My dog's quarantined by animal control right now. When I was on vacation, she was at a friend;'s house. The friend accidentally stepped on his dogs foot, that dog got loud, got my dog and another dog excited, and when the friend kept the dogs from fighting, he got bit pretty bad in the hand. His mom took him to the hospital, and then we found out animal control gets involved in hospital visits caused by dogs!

So, she can't even got to the bathroom outside without a leash.

 

[ognolman]

Did a wash with lacquer thinner to lighten the color a bit, pic looks streaky as it's not all the way dry; that's Sammy, my Aussie

The bass is looking SWEET...  And the dog is cool, too!

JBD

 

[Ted]

G'day Sammy, How ya goin' mate? Is that Vegemite on your chest?  :laughing7:

:laughing7: :laughing7: :laughing7:

Nice work as always Jack. Are you using a different camera your pics are not as good on this post?

 

[jackthehack]

G'day Sammy, How ya goin' mate? Is that Vegemite on your chest?  :laughing7:

:laughing7: :laughing7: :laughing7:

Nice work as always Jack. Are you using a different camera your pics are not as good on this post?

Might need to clean the lens... Won't be any progress for a bit; wettest summer on record here, rained all day and supposed to continue next three days...

 

[jackthehack]

FINAL COLOR!!! After three days of putzing around washing back and lots of dye dilution experimentation, I finally have the dye/color completely done. It actually even looks better than the pics below show up on a computer monitor, real deep cobalt type blue. Next steps once dry is to seal this in with multiple coats of sanding sealer and finishing fill with clear filler.  :headbang1:

 

[Nando Vallart]

Hey Jack!
Awesome! :cool01: