Voodoo finish

[jackthehack]

That would work, but there are a lot of nice unique choice lamtops with grain more like this bass of mine.

The below was done with blue dye => lacquer wash coats => Jasco grain filler with black dye added => gloss lacquer top coats; you could do that, but it might take a lot of experimentation and be tricky to get that dark red color right. I'd shoot it with sanding sealer, apply the black filler, sand back smooth, another couple of coats of sanding sealer, them shoot it with Mohawk Dark Red Mahogany and then apply gloss lacquer top coats.

The Jasco filler is hard to source, if you wind up buying the body/doing it yourself, PM me.

 

[bagman67]

That's a handsome j-body, Jackthehack.  Any photos of the final assembled axe anywhere?

I had actually thought about going with a deep blue or a purple stripe instead of the red  as shown in my sample photo.  To replicate the effect as closely as possible, I think I'll probably follow Tonar's suggested schedule of black dye/sand back/color dye/sealer/grain fill (if memory serves  - and believe me, I wont' be relying solely on memory for the real deal). 

To that end, I'll need to source my colored dye - what kind of dye did you use to get that rich blue color?  I'll track down the thread in which you described this finishing project, since I recall reading that earlier this week, and get all the particulars - no need to reply here. 

Also, I bought a bare body on the 'bay, a nice looking piece of non-Warmoth ash but at a price I can live with if I totally screw the pooch on my first finish.  If it comes out great, well, it's a savings, and if I blow it, it's a $98 body, not a $250-plus body.  SHipped yesterday, will be in my clutches next week.  Photos to follow.

In any case, I don't trust too many after-market neck builders, so it'll be Warmoth for that part of the build - and right now my mind's eye sees a nice, roundback in goncalo alves going with the build I'm imagining - no pickguard, and gold hardware (if purple or red stripes) or nickel (if blue).

 

[jackthehack]

Unfortunately, I had a major disaster doing final wet sanding on that and lifted a couple of quarter/half-dollar sized pieces of the gloss top coat off, still have yet to get around to completely stripping it and finishing that bass build (live in Kansas with no indoor place to shoot lacquer, so have limited time during the year to do finishing).

I used Sherwin-Williams Universal Dye Concentrate (this is what they add to base white paint to make the custom colors in stores), but that's a real pain to source as they're only supposed to sell it in gallon containers, you need to develop a source in a store. What works just as well is the Mixol dye concentrates, they're available in small containers for cheap from Woodcraft stores, if there isn't one near you you can order online: http://www.woodcraft.com/Search/Search.aspx?query=mixol  The $5 20 ml bottles are enough to do a guitar body.

Although you can mix these dye concentrates with various media, I prefer using lacquer thinner, it doesn't seem to raise the wood's grain as much as water/alcohol, dries quicker and if you keep an extra rag with lacquer thinner on it next to you while applying it's pretty easy to wipe back some color depth if the application goes darker than you want. You need some scrap boards of the wood the body's made of (you can get these from Woodcraft.com as well) and do a lot of experimentation getting the right mix of dye to lacquer thinner - unless doing black where it doesn't matter, you tend to need less dye to lacquer thinner % than you'd think.

 

[chris_kedro]

I used regular india ink that is generally used for drawing/inking as it's cheap and won't fade. I used a brush to put on 2 or 3 coats to be safe.

Yeah, I have mixed feelings on how the end grain turned out, I maybe should have only applied the white filler to the area I wanted any grain to show through, but I guess there's always next time to try something out.