Ultrasuede - Les Paul Influenced Strat

[partialdoctor]

That color looks GREAT. i think the only finishes i've seen on zebrawood have been natural and green. so this is a refreshing change of pace. really nice.

is tru-oil that glossy is that just how it looks wet?

You can control the glossiness of the tru-oil. It does get very glossy if applied correctly. I use Micromesh every several coats and I can get an almost lacquer like gloss. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to keep this one glossy or knock it down with some steel wool for a matte. I was leaning towards matte, but it looks SOOO good as glossy as it is beginning to show. The picture above is dry BTW. We'll see.

 

[reluctant-builder]

That's gorgeous.

 

[ptirman]

Very nice. Great job!

 

[Ljbarbeau]

I think I had a little of the filler still on the surface and it was mildly blotchy with the 1st coat, so I sanded back fairly aggressively (which looked awesome BTW and I almost kept it that way), then did a second coat.

Did u take a picture Im kinda intrigued how it looked compared to this.
btw id keep it glossy it really looks good as it is..

 

[partialdoctor]

I think I had a little of the filler still on the surface and it was mildly blotchy with the 1st coat, so I sanded back fairly aggressively (which looked awesome BTW and I almost kept it that way), then did a second coat.

Did u take a picture Im kinda intrigued how it looked compared to this.
btw id keep it glossy it really looks good as it is..

Actually I didn't. It looked pretty splotchy with the areas with filler on top basically not taking the dye fully.

 

[Corey P.]

I botched the control hole a bit (ok a lot) drilling it out to 1/2" for a three way switch, but I'm going to leave it as a battle scar. Most of it will be covered by the switch.

You could potentially just use wider-than-average washers from a hardware store and no one would be the wiser.  Maybe even stack them with the standard washer if the pots are long enough?

It's looking terrific so far!

 

[rapfohl09]

Or to get really les paul inspired you could put one of the rythym/treble plates on there. I'm sure that woudl cover it up.

 

[dNA]

You can control the glossiness of the tru-oil. It does get very glossy if applied correctly. I use Micromesh every several coats and I can get an almost lacquer like gloss. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to keep this one glossy or knock it down with some steel wool for a matte. I was leaning towards matte, but it looks SOOO good as glossy as it is beginning to show. The picture above is dry BTW. We'll see.

thanks for the info! I usually prefer matte or satin over glossy finishes, but that looks really really nice regardless. If you use steel wool to make it more of a matte finish, do you know if it's just a matter of buffing it to get it back to a gloss or do you have to add more layers of finish?

 

[Corey P.]

Or to get really les paul inspired you could put one of the rythym/treble plates on there. I'm sure that woudl cover it up.

That's a hell of an idea.  :icon_thumright:

 

[partialdoctor]

Bump

 

[partialdoctor]

Alright... its been awhile and finally made some progress here on this build. I am very close to finishing it, I just need the stupid three screws to mount the hard tail bridge (somehow I lost them).

The neck is kingwood on rosewood without markers. 6100 SS frets. It turned out great and the lines match the zebrawood imo. I got some flamed maple pickup rings, which I think look pretty nice. Still unsure exactly about the knobs but the chrome ones I have are looking pretty good.

Let me know what you think!

 

[partialdoctor]

A few more

 

[Cagey]

Very nice. Good choices all around. As for knobs, I think some ivoroid parts would look good. Either the bonnets or the dome tops...

 

[nexrex]

Looks great, are they flame maple pickup surrounds?

 

[partialdoctor]

Looks great, are they flame maple pickup surrounds?

Yes they are. I sanded them down and tru-oiled them as well. I inititally had plastic but didn't like them.

 

[nexrex]

Looks great, are they flame maple pickup surrounds?

Yes they are. I sanded them down and tru-oiled them as well. I inititally had plastic but didn't like them.

Cool, where would I acquire something like that?

 

[partialdoctor]

Looks great, are they flame maple pickup surrounds?

Yes they are. I sanded them down and tru-oiled them as well. I inititally had plastic but didn't like them.

Cool, where would I acquire something like that?

I got them from a guy on ebay. I believe they were from this guy:
http://www.pickuprings.com/

I inquired about having him make me a set from Zebrawood with matching knobs... you don't want to know how expensive that would have been.  :evil4:

 

[Cagey]

I inquired about having him make me a set from Zebrawood with matching knobs... you don't want to know how expensive that would have been.  :evil4:

I imagine that he was probably charging for 2 or 3 sets to compensate for failure. Zebra can be brittle, so you find yourself starting over sometimes, particularly with something of fragile dimensions.

 

[partialdoctor]

I inquired about having him make me a set from Zebrawood with matching knobs... you don't want to know how expensive that would have been.  :evil4:

I imagine that he was probably charging for 2 or 3 sets to compensate for failure. Zebra can be brittle, so you find yourself starting over sometimes, particularly with something of fragile dimensions.

Actually he was very honest and was essentially charging me for the cost of shutting down his CNC for an afternoon. It was $300 for two rings and two knobs and a little switch tip. Too rich for my blood! Regardless, I'm very happy with the way these turned out.

 

[partialdoctor]

Very nice. Good choices all around. As for knobs, I think some ivoroid parts would look good. Either the bonnets or the dome tops...

You know, I looked for those back when I was buying parts and had a really hard time finding anything I liked. I ended up buying some tele knurled chrome knobs and they looks pretty good. I'll post some pics soon.