The Hub

Hello All! My first post and I'm very happy to be here and share the highs and lows of this pony ride. After years of bending sides on a hot pipe or bending machines belonging to 'other people', I finally built myself a bending machine. Functionally it is great, but the result on some test material was far from great. See pictures attached. What you see here is a doug fir 'test side' that certainly came out guitar shaped, but oh my, what…

I dyed an East Indian Rosewood bridge black to match the Blackwood fretboard before gluing it on*. The bridge is now glued to the top. What are some ways to "fix" that dye into the wood. I'm not crazy about TruOil - up to 40% mystery oil..... *I did a sample on rosewood with 4 different "dyes" and they were all stable, would not rub off with paper towel, naptha or mineral spirt. I went with the TransTInt. I did not however test with…

Hello everyone! I'm having quite a lot of issues with a Jackson Warrior I'm refinishing in 2K Spraymax. After a week, it is still not completely cured and it dents whenever I do the "fingernail-test". This is already the second time this happened. My process is: Sanded the body completely to bare wood, up to 320 grit. Filled with Z-Poxy, let cure for 24h. Sanded back to 400 grit Sprayed 1K primer, let dry for ~2 hours Sprayed 2x 1k color coats…

hello looths - i'm building my first guitar. generally following (and enjoying) the gore/gilet books. after 3 tries, i've yet to get a crack free bend around the nose of a venetian cutaway with a mahogany side. i made a version of the fox bender - using clamps on hand for the waist and cutaway, and a pid temp controller (verified accuracy), and am using a stew mac blanket and three straps. the recipe for my last attempt was: sapelle (fo…

I've been testing all my top and bracewood to find the best combination of stiffness and density, optimize plate thickness, etc. I started with Nicoletti's spreadsheet which calculates both stiffness and density, but since I was also testing deflection, I decided to compare the flexural modulus using that method (with the formula from T. Gore's book) on the same plates and bracewood. Unfortunately, I'm having trouble getting a satisfa…

I am switching from NC lacquer to EM6000. I also want to switch from black WB filler to blackened epoxy grain fill. My question relates to keeping the color in the pores and off the surface wood, and whether to vinyl seal before and/or after epoxy fill, I already know how to tint epoxy black. Could black grain fill style be accomplished with black epoxy as the grain filler and would a vinyl sealer be used at all, or just use EM6000 for…