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

[ashgaelsonaria]

Lol.
I do a bit of wood working including carving and wood burning (not as in fire as in hot brand)
It is laybor intensive done right and a peace of wood has to be sanded many times with increasingly finer grades of sand paper and eventually iron wool.
I believe you discover with the back just how satisfying it can be to do.it right.
When a peace is properly sanded it takes on a polished look and the life of the grain really pops.

[acalculatedname]

That lettering you see on there was supposed to be carved or possibly burned in, but I quickly discovered on scrap board that I was complete shit at both carving and burning, so it's just Xacto-hatched instead. Hats off to you.

I definitely learned a lot about the importance of sanding with all this. I thought the body arrived to me from the body makers "plenty smooth enough," but later spotwork with abrasives proved I was wrong.

You can probably see the beveled "body factory" edges could have used a great deal more sanding (if not outright filing / rounding-over) to absorb the shellac properly. The back surface was quite well sanded in the end, down to about 600 grit with an orbital, and that's why I also chose it to try the faux French polish.

Seems I always gotta learn things the hard way no matter how many forum-thread warnings I read. :)

Show me some of your stuff!

[ashgaelsonaria]

Wish I could.
It has been a while because of my health. If I had photos of my free standing loft from when I was in the dorms I would have posted it.
A person needs space to work with wood and I simply do not have it. Heck I don't have room to set up my essel.

[acalculatedname]

Yeah, I relate. That's been a factor in why I haven't done much to pursue the instrument-building further despite ongoing serious interest. I have a workspace across town to work on stuff but I've stupidly filled it with music equipment.

[favoritebean]

Ahh, shellac. I had no idea you could buy it dry. We would use the mixed stuff in the little cans when restoring antique furniture. I don't recall it smelling like apples, but I do remember it was sweet smelling, and the little brush that came with the can was always purple from the liquid.

I've never heard of the method with the black tea, vinegar and steel wool. It sounds kind of interesting. My parents still do a lot of wood work, so I'll ask them.

The guitar looks good too.

[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

[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. :)

[lrig_rorrim]

This was really neat - I love seeing the progress you made, and I totally learned something new about shellac (like, I'd heard the word thrown around to basically mean "curing wood" but I had no idea it was a natural product or how it was used or any of that...).

[acalculatedname]

It was also used, among other many things, to make records back in the days of 78s, before PVC came along as a much less prone-to-shattering substitute. But I didn't go there. :)

[jem0000000]

I remember shellacing, though I've never done it myself -- the closest I've come is staining the front porch.

[michikatinski]

You are a rockstar--on so many levels.

Do you build guitars for profit? May I ask how much you would charge if someone wanted to purchase from you?

[acalculatedname]

Well, thanks, but it would be *absolutely ridiculous* for me to attempt to sell my "luthier" work for profit at this stage. What you see above is the first experimental attempt by a real bozo who just slapped prefab stuff together. I'm trying to learn to work more from scratch going forward, but ask me again in maybe 15-20 years, if I live that long.

If you ARE seriously looking for a custom ELECTRIC guitar, and are willing to plug in (edit:) mid-to-high three figures and wait at least 6-12 months, PM me. I know some people who DO know what they're doing / will do a great job and charge much less than the typical $2-2.5k it will take to get an "entry level" full-custom instrument.

(I'm sure there are guys out there doing the same with acoustics, but acoustics are much harder builds and I'd imagine even a guy doing it for the love would have to ask $1-1.5k to break even. My classical guitar teacher in college didn't even blink at waiting four years for the handmade instrument for which he'd paid $13,000-- "a bargain.")

[acalculatedname]

I'll also give another shoutout to Creston Electric (already buried in a response to a comment above). This is NOT one of the folks I know that will work super "cheap" - his instruments are usually in the $2-3k range. But they are absolutely beautiful in a very unique way. (I'm not crazy about Sarah Ryan's painted detail jobs on the guitars that have them, but I can still see her work appealing to a lot of folks.)

http://www.crestonguitars.com/guitars/

[acalculatedname]

One last thing: If you want to try to DIY, a Tele (like mine) is an absolutely great place to start.

I have a long thread up on the TDPRI (world's biggest Telecaster forum, tons of experienced hobbyist builders of Telecasters and other guitars there), detailing every step of what I did... in the hopes of helping someone else like me who is CLUELESS with this kind of stuff and wants to see ONE approach to a first guitar build from premade body / neck. But I don't want to bore you with it if it's not something you (or your unnamed guitarist friend) are willing to try.

(and these guys are just one place of many to get an "everything in one box" first-build kit - it's DEFINITELY a pretty cheap experiment doing it their way. http://www.guitarfetish.com/Guitar-And-Bass-Kits_c_74.html )