Finished! A Very Special Save

[Fishman]

2 hours ago, Andyjr1515 said:

I'll be encouraging @Fishman to drink a few more pints of beer

I can't see this being a problem 🍺🍺

[Andyjr1515]

I've been spending a bit of time getting @Jus Lukin 's headless to the finishing stage - probably another couple of days to do - but while I was doing the Luminlay on that one, I used the same equipment (such that it is) to also add the luminlay to @Fishman 's Wal neck

I won't repeat the full how to (that is covered fully in the other thread), but it basically involves: drilling an accurate hole; popping a drop of superglue on the end of the Luminlay 'stick'; inserting said stick; cutting flush to the fretboard; trimming with a sharp chisel.

Couple of the above steps:

 

 

And done:

When I've rounded the fret-ends and filled the tang slots, I will give the edge a final sand and then add a very thin wipe-on finish to the edge, including the wood exposed when blending the new fretboard to the original Wal neck.  If I get it right, it should be a durable and invisible blend

With the headless soon moving into the 'add a coat of finish and then leave for 24hours' stage, the build progress on this one will accelerate over the coming week

  

[NickA]

Impressed with the thickness of ebony on that. 

After getting the board shot at Electric Wood, my fretless Mk1 has only 2.5mm left 😞 .... even new they only come with around 4mm.

[Andyjr1515]

51 minutes ago, NickA said:

Impressed with the thickness of ebony on that. 

After getting the board shot at Electric Wood, my fretless Mk1 has only 2.5mm left 😞 .... even new they only come with around 4mm.

The original board is 5.7mm but, with the radius, reduces to around 4.5mm at the edges.  This board is also 5.7mm but is flat, so it gains that extra thickness at the edges.

[Andyjr1515]

While I was doing the same on @Jus Lukin headless, I mixed epoxy with ebony dust and (over)filled the fretslots:

In terms of buying tools and equipment, I am sure I am in good company to say that I agonise - sometimes over years - over the more pricey stuff when, admittedly with a lot more effort, you can actually get the job done with simpler stuff.  Not least with sanding - because there's not a lot you can't do with a £2 cork block and a piece of sandpaper. 

But I suppose this reticence pays off - because when I do invest in something better, I usually know exactly why and what improvement it is there to make and - so far - have rarely been disappointed.

So enter this orbital sander:

Draw-droppingly expensive against the kind of things you can get in Homebase, etc.  - but do I have to say worth every penny so far

I still have some corners and so on to sort, and also the final work on the cutouts and neck pocket, but it will be soon ready to start staining and finishing:

So next task is find the right combination of dyes/stains for 'the look'.  And I have an offcut of this ash to try them on

 

  

[ezbass]

1 hour ago, Andyjr1515 said:

So next task is find the right combination of dyes/stains for 'the look'.  And I have an offcut of this ash to try them on

 

  

Ooh, now it's getting really exciting and it wasn't doing badly already!

[HazBeen]

On 26/01/2021 at 16:07, Andyjr1515 said:

While I was doing the same on @Jus Lukin headless, I mixed epoxy with ebony dust and (over)filled the fretslots:

In terms of buying tools and equipment, I am sure I am in good company to say that I agonise - sometimes over years - over the more pricey stuff when, admittedly with a lot more effort, you can actually get the job done with simpler stuff.  Not least with sanding - because there's not a lot you can't do with a £2 cork block and a piece of sandpaper. 

But I suppose this reticence pays off - because when I do invest in something better, I usually know exactly why and what improvement it is there to make and - so far - have rarely been disappointed.

So enter this orbital sander:

Draw-droppingly expensive against the kind of things you can get in Homebase, etc.  - but do I have to say worth every penny so far

I still have some corners and so on to sort, and also the final work on the cutouts and neck pocket, but it will be soon ready to start staining and finishing:

So next task is find the right combination of dyes/stains for 'the look'.  And I have an offcut of this ash to try them on

 

  

The moment you realise you are getting excited because a fellow builder has a Mirka. So does that mean I am allowed to buy one?

[Andyjr1515]

1 hour ago, HazBeen said:

So does that mean I am allowed to buy one?

No...it means you must 

[AndyTravis]

Good Lord, looking good @Andyjr1515

[Andyjr1515]

Although not much to show for it, in the background things are still progressing with this.  

At the moment, @Fishman and I are looking at colour options.  I'm still experimenting, but this is a possible contender.  Ignore the orbital sander 'snail trails' - on this test block, I'm just whacking it with a 60 grit disc to get to bare wood each time before trying the next colour.

 

In the meantime, the fret slots at the edges of the board have been filled and sanded and the next couple of days will see the frets levelled and re-crowned

 

[Andyjr1515]

A bit like with finishing, ask 100 guitar or bass builders how they level frets and you'll get 100 different answers.  For what it's worth, this is broadly how I do it.

After checking that the neck itself is a flat as it can be, I level the frets with an aluminium beam with some fine emery cloth stuck to the back.  And yes - I'm outside.  And yes - it's SUNNY!!!!  Yes - in the UK!!!!!!!  :

Basically, I'm taking the tops off any high frets so that the beam sits on the tops of all of the frets.  I have to say, with this being a flat fretboard, it is easier to keep it all even across the width of the board than with a radiused board!

But once this is done, the tops of a number of frets are now flat - and so have to be re-crowned so that you end up with the point contact with the string that you need for accurate fretting.  You can see how wide this flat portion can be with my sharpie-mark:

 

I tend to use a variety of crowning files - though generally I find the little Chris Alsop diamond ones with the wooden handles the best but the three-sided diamond one (I think Tonetech?) is also pretty good.  The worst - ironically - are the most expensive...the Hoscoe non-diamond ones.  Their nut files are expensive but great, but their crowning files IMHO are, well, just expensive   .  In this picture the frets been rough shaped and the above sharpie lines are now teeny thin lines along the top as the fret crowns have been re-established:

 

So the frets are now back to the right shape - but they need the scratch marks taking out.  Again, there are many ways of doing this but I generally take one of the Chris Alsop files and use them as a former for a series of progressively finer grit papers or cloths wrapped round, specifically 400 emery; 800 emery; 3600/6000/8000/12000 micro-mesh cloths :

 

Which has done my poor old arthritic hands a power of no good...but it has done wonders for the frets.  And I suppose they do say, 'Get rid of the old...make way for the young'  

 

The stain should be with me in the next couple of days so, soon, the final finishing process can start

 

 

 

[Andyjr1515]

With @Jus Lukin 's headless sitting for a week while the finish hardens, then @Fishman has unfettered Andyjr1515 time (other than the fettering that MrsAndyjr1515 imposes, of course  ).

During the afternoon, I've been finishing off any remaining rough sanding stuff and got to the first sanding stage down the grits.  This is fist stage finer down to around 180 grit:

At this stage, before I go any finer, I have to know that any 'greater than 180 grit scratches' are identified so that I can dispense with those with some fresh 180 paper -  and then I can go finer to get rid of any 180 grit scratches, and so on.

It is, however, almost impossible to see these kinds of scratches on bare sanded wood so I use a 'reveal' coat of whatever is my first finish - which in this case is the stain.

So, knowing that all of this will be sanded off whatever, a coat of stain goes on:

And, hey presto, I found one small area with some oscillating sander 'snail trails' I'd missed and then these cross-sanding marks near the bridge:

 

So tomorrow, I will sand those two areas clear of the aberrations, then sand all of the stain off, and then do 'reveal coat 2' to make absolutely sure it's clear of unwanted sanding marks.  If it is, I will then drop to 240 grit before starting the 'proper' staining coats.

 

 

 

 

[Andyjr1515]

A couple of hours sanding this morning and ready for the second reveal stain.  The small dark patch is a stained fill of a small insect exit hole - the stain is sanded off before the full re-stain trial.  Figuring-wise, there are allsorts going on with this timber.  There have been a couple of times I have been convinced there's a dirt mark or old stain only to find, after rigorous further sanding, that it's in the timber!  Here's pre-stain :

 

And here it is with a first reveal coat of both the stain and tru-oil.  Ignore the surface texture - that will be quite different once I've 'done the stuff' - but the colour is probably representative:

 

 

 

[Andyjr1515]

@Fishman asked me if I could do a quick mock-up to see how the rest of it looks with this stain.  Seems mean to keep you all from a gratuitous mock-up 

 

Going to look alright, I reckon 

 

 

[HazBeen]

Fantastic!

[BigRedX]

Looking very nice. Is the body from a single pice of wood? If not I can't see any obvious joins.

[Andyjr1515]

10 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

Looking very nice. Is the body from a single pice of wood? If not I can't see any obvious joins.

It is actually a 2 piece - although from the front view I defy anyone to say where the join is...

Swamp Ash one-piece blanks are like hens teeth at the moment - I understand from David Dyke that logging has stopped due to the impact of Ash die-back.

[4000]

Well I’ve only just stumbled across this thread. Fantastic! To be honest, having owned 2 Wals (one of which had a non-level fingerboard fitted from birth), I’d say you seem to be taking even more care than the ‘original’ Wal (i.e. Wal & Fish) did. 

One thing I’ve noticed with some busy luthiers - even the best ones - doing loads of repairs is sometimes they don’t (or can’t, due to timescales and workload) go that extra mile, which you appear to be doing. 

[LukeFRC]

3 hours ago, Andyjr1515 said:

t is actually a 2 piece - although from the front view I defy anyone to say where the join is...

Roughly level with the mini switches under the pickups? 

[Andyjr1515]

18 minutes ago, LukeFRC said:

Roughly level with the mini switches under the pickups? 

Nope.   

[Jus Lukin]

Diagonally from the jack socket to the top horn?

[Richard R]

10 hours ago, LukeFRC said:

Roughly level with the mini switches under the pickups? 

That was my thought too, it's the only straight line I can see. I have  cheated and looked back through the thread for a pic from the back, and on one image there appears to be a vertical line running just in front of the pickups on one. But it could equally be an image artefact. 

I give up. 🤷‍♂️

 

[LukeFRC]

12 hours ago, LukeFRC said:

Roughly level with the mini switches under the pickups? 

I give up and bow to your genius 

[durhamboy]

If I can't spot a joint line I always go for the end grain. Might be wrong, but it looks like a joint line about half way from the center line to the lower edge. In other words 3/4 of the way down.

If i'm right sorry for being a spoil sport.😉

[Andyjr1515]

49 minutes ago, durhamboy said:

If I can't spot a joint line I always go for the end grain. Might be wrong, but it looks like a joint line about half way from the center line to the lower edge. In other words 3/4 of the way down.

If i'm right sorry for being a spoil sport.😉

Pretty close.  It's easy to see at the back:

But quite skillfully matched by David Dyke's team at the front: