Starting to Finish Less

I made a  lot of progress on my new guitar (guitarette?) this weekend.I sanded the face of the guitar up to 320 grit, which is not real fine, but it made the face very smooth:I needed to do this because I was ready to start staining the top, and I started:Yuck! What an ugly brown! What the hell was I thinking?

Well, I'll tell you.

I stained it that dark color so that I could sand it all back off.

It was still intentional, though. Because not all of the stain came off.By doing this, when I added the yellow dye, the brown helps highlight the grain of the guitar:However, I felt like it also made the guitar look dirty.

So I sanded it down some more and then re-applied the yellow.

I liked it much more, and I bet you do too:Ahhhh, that's more like it. You can still see the flames in the wood, but no dirty brown streaks. 

The above picture also shows the guitar with a coat of clear lacquer on it. I am now starting to build up the lacquer on the face.

Once I get the face lacquered, then smooth it over, I will glue the neck to the body and put lacquer on the rest of the guitar.

The neck and body already have a wipe-on base coat of lacquer, but I will spray on the remaining coats for a nicer finish.

I need to keep the neck pocket unfinished so the glue can stick to the wood. That's why there's masking tape in the pocket. It keeps the lacquer out.

Here's another photo of the top. I think it looks really nice. It looks even better shiny.When you move the guitar in the light, the flame in the maple moves too. In this (rather quickly produced) video, first I move the camera around the guitar, then I move the light source. Watch the wood:That's just the wood. I didn't create that effect at all. I just amplified it by using the brown dye.As I showed you last time, I lacquered the sides and back of the guitar:I can now show you why it was important to lacquer the sides of the guitar.

Binding on guitars is usually made of plastic. You rout a little shelf around the outline of the body and/or neck and glue the plastic in. It looks like this:And this:But I didn't really have that option. I wanted to have 'natural' or 'masked' binding. So instead of using plastic, I lacquered the maple on the sides to keep it from being stained yellow. The lacquer seals the maple, preserving its original, natural color.

The first guitar company to do this, I think, was Paul Reed Smith. Those guitars aregorgeous. They're also expensive. But unlike, oh, Gibson, they're worth it.

Here's a view of the side of the guitar. From bottom to top, it's mahogany, masked maple, and dyed maple:Here it is with a fresh coat of lacquer:Pretty, huh?