Wenge/Wenge & Wenge/MacEbony VIP - PICS ADDED!!

[jkellington]

Here are some pics finally:

There is a slight flame/defect on the bottom side by the pickups which i wasn't particularily pleased with, but it's very minor

This picture give you an idea of just how open pored wenge is...

This was the other portion that I wasn't happy with, there is about a 1/8" standoff from the fret board to the top, wich is just too much in my opinion, especially considering I'm putting a wilkinson trem on here which doesn't give me a ton of height at the bridge.  I'll just end up having to route the neck pocket 1/8" deeper to bring the fretboard flush against the top.

In the end, I'm happy with it.  It's heavy, but I still have a LOT of cavity routing for the variax components.

The wood has a dry look to it raw which I don't find particularily appealing.  What's the best way to give it the "wet" look to dfine the grain more and still retain most of the raw feel?

 

[dbw]

AWESOME grain!

My bubinga neck had that dry feel at first.  Hit it with steel wool or very fine sandpaper, rub in a little lemon oil, then play on it a lot.  It'll get smooth.

Edit: I guess you were asking about the dry look, not the dry feel... lemon oil will make it look really nice but it wears off quickly.  You could use something more permanent like tung oil but the neck would be "less" raw.

Edit2: I'm not down with this plan to route the neck pocket deeper.  At least put the bridge on and try it out before you mangle the body.

 

[m4rk0]

absolutely fantastic!
I would just rub it with 2 or 3 coats of pure tung oil on the body (not the neck) just to enhance the grain a bit!

 

[m4rk0]

forgot to say, I actually like the back more than the top!!

 

[jkellington]

dbw: 
I've already measured against some other wilk bridge guitars I have and it's a solid 1/16th higher than any of them, and there is plenty of room to move up with the bridge if I want to.  I am certainly going to bring the neck pocket down at least 1/16th.  I'll string it up after taht and seee how it feels.  Also, I'm not in the practive of mangling my guitars, so you can rest easy.  :icon_biggrin:

marko:
I really like some of the results that I've seen with tung oil, but I'm hesitant to approach this wenge with it as I've heard it's not particularily fun to work with (the oil that is).  For now I think I'll take the steel wool + lemon oil approach and see how that works out.  I also liked the back better than the front when I first got it, but I'm digging the subtle grain of the front more as I look at ti and work with it.

 

[tfarny]

Awesome! Been waiting for these pics! Looks like you got a pretty 'brown' piece of wenge too. As for the fretboard overhang, that's been hashed out quite a bit around here. Once you put a neck pickup in it, it will be basically invisible unless you're looking for it. Everybody's LP has the same issue and it's just no biggie after a while. I'd definitely, definitely get it together and get used to it before you decide to rout up that beautiful (and must have been expensive) body.

 

[Nando Vallart]

Beautifull!

 

[kboman]

Whoa 

more coherent comments at a later date...

 

[DocNrock]

Nice!  Gotta love da wenge.  :icon_thumright:

 

[AprioriMark]

That's amazing... can't wait to see it completed.

-Mark

 

[jkellington]

OK, I hit it with the lemon oil and I am very pleased with the results.  Its taken on a much darker, chocolate brown.

 

[kboman]

Oh yeah baby... that's it. The top looks great, very pretty uniformity. The back would have been to busy for a top. I'm not sure if you've said, but what pickups are you putting in it?

 

[jkellington]

Pick-up wise, it'll be a hybrid.  I'm tranplanting the guts of a Line 6 Variax (piezo bridge) as well as a pair of Duncan P-Rails that I have on hand.  I'm still working on the control layout and schematics, I'm trying to do this with as little clutter ont he face of the gutiar as possible.  Right now it looks like the 3 Variax knobs, the variax 5 way (which will also act as the p-rails selector switch) and a 500K concentric push-pull for the P-rail vol/tone(using the push pull to select between Variax and P-Rail output on the 1/4" out jack.  The concentric push/pull looks it like be an interesting one to find, so if you have any leads, let me know.  I'm also looking a the Duncon Triple-shot HB rings for switching between the P-Rail wiring schemes, but it looks like I'll be waiting until at least fall for those...

 

[tfarny]

Wow. You sure you don't just want to drop a couple of PAFs in there? Oh, and BTW - there is NO control cavity route of any kind! You're going to do a full custom rout on the back of that bad boy, huh?

 

[jkellington]

Believe me, since I've got it I've thought about going plain jane just so I could get this thing in my hands and play it, but patience has won out thus far.  The cavity rout will be fun, I've already allowed bufget for extra router bits.  The Variax routing is fairly extensive and this will be a lot of routing on some very hard wood.  It will be worth it in the end!

 

[AToE]

How did the oil change the way the wenge feels? Does it feel, not quite sticky... but more like a laquor?

 

[jkellington]

It hasn't dried completely, but it's very close to raw, just a little oily/slippery (imagine that!).  I'm guessing when it dries the feel will be very simliar to the raw feel, which is exactly what I'm looking for.

 

[riverbluff]

This was the other portion that I wasn't happy with, there is about a 1/8" standoff from the fret board to the top, wich is just too much in my opinion, especially considering I'm putting a wilkinson trem on here which doesn't give me a ton of height at the bridge.  I'll just end up having to route the neck pocket 1/8" deeper to bring the fretboard flush against the top.

I would really recommend putting the guitar completely together before you do any routing to the neck pocket.  My VW..
http://www.unofficialwarmoth.com/index.php?topic=7228.0

has the exact same space and once it was all set up the Wilky is perfect, not to high or to low.

V/R
Bill

 

[jkellington]

Great to know, thanks!  I'll leave it as is and string it up when its ready to go.  The less extra routing on this project I have to do, the better.

 

[rapfohl09]

...damn! After that lemon seed oil....just WOW! I know what you meant about that "dry" look before the oil, but now....just man all I can say is im super jealous, and wow. Hows the weight?