sprayin' it everywhere, practically soaked myself in alcohol... yet it's gettin' hard again

[acalculatedname]

I'm here to tell you about nature's miracle wood-finishing product. It's called shellac. (No, I'm not talking about the band of the same name, which also just happens to be one of my favorite bands ever.) And like so many of the best things in life, shellac comes out of a bug's ass.

Comments

[acalculatedname]

Google for "iron wool vinegar stain" and you'll find a ton of stuff. I actually got the idea out of a super-old wood finishing book. The frustrating thing is you really don't know how the wood is going to react or what color you're really going to get.

In my own "research" I saw some AMAZING weathered greys, including people who have finished oak hardwood floors with it to positively stunning end, and that's what I wanted-- but even at the early pre-shellac'd stages of my guitar you can see it's coming out more brownish. There were definite grey / even metallic silver highlights all over which barely come out in the pictures. They were amazing in person, but once the shellac went on - gone.

The black tea is "optional," but it brings out / adds to the wood's tannins (which is what the oxide solution reacts with). I did a lot of testing on pine boards trying to get that grey I was after, and it seemed that pine absolutely required the tea pretreat to get that cool dirty grey, the stronger the better / thicker / greyer.

...And then, again, moving on from test pine to the guitar, the "test results" were absolutely not replicated and things went straight to brown, but... oh well. I like the color now.

[millysdaughter]

I like the brown much better than gray.

[acalculatedname]

It's not a color I would have chosen but I actually do like it quite a lot now. I was going for a very deteriorated, mottled-looking, natural sort of grey, possibly with milk-paint accents. (My attempts at making milk paint somehow failed horribly, but it would have made OK paneer.)

I was also pretty mad at the time because the bizarre orange pickguard I'd chosen would have looked great against any given grey but was absolutely awful on the brown. So that was another $15 and another four days waiting for a black pickguard to arrive, but oh well, guess it worked out. :)

[acalculatedname]

This is kind of what I was HOPING to get, but with grey instead of blue. By the way, pretty much all of that guy's guitars are absolutely amazing-looking.

[millysdaughter]

I like yours better. I think it looks amazing!

[acalculatedname]

Well, jeez, thanks? Maybe I should charge $2500 a pop like that guy then :)

[millysdaughter]

If you charged by-the-hour, that might get you minimum wage?

[acalculatedname]

That's what the luthiers tell me. Or less.