Project: Player Jaguar in mahogany

Painting? Routing? Set-up tips? Or just straight-up making a guitar from scratch? Post here, and post pics!

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Re: Project: Player Jaguar in mahogany

Post by Pens »

Thanks!

I am leaning towards just trying out the tung+linseed finish on the neck first, see how much it darkens, then do the backside of the body first, with some tint around the edges, and see how that goes. I figure it will be somewhat like one of my oil paintings, we'll just see how it goes, and if it sucks, strip off the oil and try again.
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Re: Project: Player Jaguar in mahogany

Post by Bacchus »

Good luck with it. As you say, nothing will be all that permanent when doing an oil finish. And, even if it doesn't go brilliantly, it's still going to look pretty good. I don't know how easy it is to strip a stain out of wood, though. I imagine that it penetrates the grain rather than just sitting on top like paint does. That's probably just my imagination, though.

One thing to maybe think about is whether the oil you're using will dry. I don't really know very much about this, but as I understand it Tru-Oil isn't actually an oil (it's an oil based varnish that is designed to air dry therefore being pretty workable) and certain other oils are non-drying oils. Dunno how long tung or linseed oil take to dry or cure, or how that would impact on your work process. (a quick google suggests that both take about 30 days).

Another spooky thing to think about that is probably an old wives tale is to not screw up oily rags and chuck them in a bin. As some oil cure in oxygen, it's an exothermic reaction which will generate heat. If they're screwed up, it can apparently generate enough to begin to smoulder and catch fire.

This probably doesn't happen in the real world, but it's nice to be able to sleep at night.

Have you seen this video? I found it looking for videos from a UK luthier who did a couple of videos on staining burst type finishes.

Could be fun!

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Re: Project: Player Jaguar in mahogany

Post by plopswagon »

I remember after we installed hardwood floors in the house I grew up in my dad burning the rags he used to stain them because he realized they were generating so much heat.
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Re: Project: Player Jaguar in mahogany

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Bacchus wrote: Tue Apr 11, 2023 1:18 pm Another spooky thing to think about that is probably an old wives tale is to not screw up oily rags and chuck them in a bin. As some oil cure in oxygen, it's an exothermic reaction which will generate heat. If they're screwed up, it can apparently generate enough to begin to smoulder and catch fire.
That was a plot point in the "Death In Paradise" spin-off "Beyond Paradise" a couple of weeks back. Don't ask how I know that, I wasn't watching it, it was just on in the corner of the room, etc.
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Re: Project: Player Jaguar in mahogany

Post by dots »

the "oily rags in the basement" analogy is one we use at work pretty frequently when talking about the technical debt most folks don't realize they're accumulating.

very interested to see where this project goes!
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Re: Project: Player Jaguar in mahogany

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NickS wrote: Tue Apr 11, 2023 3:19 pm
Bacchus wrote: Tue Apr 11, 2023 1:18 pm Another spooky thing to think about that is probably an old wives tale is to not screw up oily rags and chuck them in a bin. As some oil cure in oxygen, it's an exothermic reaction which will generate heat. If they're screwed up, it can apparently generate enough to begin to smoulder and catch fire.
That was a plot point in the "Death In Paradise" spin-off "Beyond Paradise" a couple of weeks back. Don't ask how I know that, I wasn't watching it, it was just on in the corner of the room, etc.
I thought the same thing - although I, of course, wasn’t watching it either.
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Re: Project: Player Jaguar in mahogany

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Yeah, I have worked with raw linseed oil quite a bit with my paintings. I wouldn't call myself an expert, but I have some knowledge about oils.

Linseed and tung oils are both drying oils, which is why I was selecting them. I typically use a layer or two of just plain linseed as a clear varnish coat on my paintings, and it does take some time for them to cure. There's technique in applying, letting them "sweat out" as in letting it penetrate into the wood for like a day, then wiping/brushing it again to clear the top. You can gently "boil" linseed to speed up it's dry time, as it pre-polymerizes that way. You can buy pre-boiled linseed, but there's downsides as the oil is a bit degraded at the higher temps those are boiled at. You can also just "double boiler" it like with water so it gets to a max of 100C, which is lower than it's usual boiled temp, which makes it an "in between" state. The oil varnish coat drys faster in this condition. I typically don't fuck with that and just mix a bit of "Japan dryer" to the oil, which contains like manganese and some other shit that makes it slightly toxic to handle. I don't want to do that with this guitar, since I'll be explicitly handling it with my hands, so I will be going the "light boil" route. The upshot to linseed is that it cures to a nice faint amber color, so there's a bit of an art consideration to how much I'm going to use.

I haven't personally worked with tung, but I did read and compare what I know about linseed to it. Tung oil seems to dry faster, 24 hours between coats is the recommendation, after which a light sanding to push the particles into the grain and plug it up once the oil completely cures. It can also be boiled, though the info I found was that it shouldn't exceed 100C, so I'm going to experiment with some scraps first. It apparently dries with a "dark" tint to it, so again I need to moderate it against the linseed to get the right blend of dark amber color.

I also have a brick of beeswax, with the intention (never got around to it) of mixing up a blend of linseed+beeswax, which apparently blend well together when combined in a "double boiler" setup, and dry fairly quickly. I'm going to test on scraps first, but I was intending on using this as a final top coat, to seal in the oil and provide better water resistance, to help keep sweat out of the oil and wood.

Basically, I have an oil to provide the "amber" color in the core of the gradient, and a darker oil to apply on the outer edges, I'm just unsure if the tung oil will be dark enough on the very outside edges. I've been looking at possible tints I could add in to help.

Oh, and the oily rags thing, I always clean my "applicators" (brushes and shit) with Turpenoid and then soap/water after use. Nothing has ever caught fire on me yet.

I have experimented a long time back with using my artist paints on a body, and got some really cool effects with it. Doing that with this project is something I did think about, As I recently began testing out painting on plywood planks instead of canvas to see what I could do with it. It's a slightly different thing than canvas, it has a different feel. All of painting is about creating illusions, and basically getting the same effects are slightly different in wood. I haven't put that off the table, but I am considering that.

The primary downside is I don't know if I want to be applying some of these paint pigments to something I'm going to constantly be handling with my hands. Some of the pigments are a bit toxic, like Cadmium. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to do that or not.

Also, the dude in the vid is doing some things...differently than I would have. I would not be wasting oil paints like that, the shit is expensive. Applying thick paint coats then using thinner to wipe it away is...uh. A waste of paint. Pre-thin a smaller amount of paint then apply if you want to go that route. Also, the solvent-based thinner approach will stain deeper into the wood, so don't fuck up. What I typically do is thin paints with pure oil instead, it applies better and smoother, and is easier to remove if you don't like what you did. I've been oil painting for like...30 years now? I wouldn't be applying it like in that video. I mean, it works, but it's not really a great way to do it. Also, using solvent-thinner as pigment dries to a more...dry? appearance. I use that technique at times when I want crisper edges to a removal, but honestly I think oil-thinning just looks better and is easier to control. Plus it doesn't wreck the rest of your painting if you drip. A drip of solvent basically starts dissolving the oil bonds where it touches, so like, that drop is gonna show. A drop of oil in the wrong place doesn't do anything.

The body blank and all hardware aside from tuners and string tee have been bought now, just working out the details for the body now. One change I recently decided was to route the neck pickup so that I could possibly switch the neck pup to a P90 in the future, in case I get the fancy to.
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Re: Project: Player Jaguar in mahogany

Post by Pens »

Hm. After a some googlin and some AI chatting, I think I could use my Burnt Umber and Indian Red paints as they are non-toxic pigments, so those should be safe to use. I think I will definitely try this out on some scraps.
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Re: Project: Player Jaguar in mahogany

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Yeah, I thought that method of getting the pigment onto the piece was (don't want to say technique because it wasn't really a technique...) was a bit strange. I was more thinking that if you have experience with oil paints, and (I assume) a decent amount of paints to work with, and a painter's eye and ability to mix pigment, then you can probably get a lot more control over what shades you end up with compared to putting different oils on and hoping that they yellow differently.

Looking forward to seeing this.
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Re: Project: Player Jaguar in mahogany

Post by Pens »

Yeah, it's a good idea. I'm glad you brought it up. I hadn't realized that I already have oil-mixable tints on hand to work with, so we'll see how that goes. One danger is that as I start doing it, my instinct to treat it like an oil painting and start doing weird shit with the pigment might kick in, and I'll end up with a bunch of abstract shit laid down. The backside is going to be the first part I finish, so maybe by the time I get to the front I'll be sick of doing it and just do something normal.

I went ahead and ordered a tube of Burnt Sienna as well, I thought I had that shade but it looks like I don't. I'll get the edges dark enough with all of these shades.

Cooter sent the first draft drawings of the templates and they look so damn cool. I wasn't sure how the lines were going to come together, but they look so good. I also picked out the body blank and had it shipped direct to him to work with, so we should have some body pics soonish. I sent back some adjustments for the pickguard, so I don't wanna post those pics yet as it's still a draft. Y'all will see it soon enough.

This is the body blank I bought, out of all of them it looked the best with the lightest weight. It's a 3-piece, but they all join together so well it's hard to even tell. The one pieces just looked boring, I wanted interesting grain patterns to show off. I am really happy with this blank.
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Re: Project: Player Jaguar in mahogany

Post by dots »

Gorgeous wood
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Re: Project: Player Jaguar in mahogany

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Pens wrote: Wed Apr 12, 2023 6:42 pm One danger is that as I start doing it, my instinct to treat it like an oil painting and start doing weird shit with the pigment might kick in, and I'll end up with a bunch of abstract shit laid down.
Haha, yep, definitely. I think you'd have to mentally separate in your head. You're not painting a guitar using oil paints, you're using what you have to prepare stains to best get an outcome that you want.

Although, it could be a lot of fun to paint a body and explore the different possibilities opened up by a medium not typically associated with guitars.
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Re: Project: Player Jaguar in mahogany

Post by Pens »

We did some layouts for the final template. I had to learn how to do stuff in GIMP that I didn't know how to use before, the Path Tool, to get the proper curves done. This is the final draft now. Faint lines are OG Jaguar lines, so you can see how this body will be slightly smaller in comparison. In this, the toggle switch plate is a slight bit off level, which will be corrected.
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I used the image of the body blank I ordered to get a rough idea if what it will look like.
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Again, very rough overlay of the pickguard from image of material I sent. Ignore the weird rounding on the pickups, I just wanted a rough idea and didn't bother making them perfect.
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I have been using this to apply color to play around with ideas. I don't want to post those yet, they aren't very good and I'm not happy with them. I'm better with real brushes and oils than I am with the digital pen and haven't quite mastered getting blending right digitally.

Overall, once I finished the final lines and seeing the drawing got me extremely excited for this project. I really love these lines. I am unsure about the choice of pickguard, after seeing it on there, but I'm figuring that out. Worst case is that I just paint over the guard to some other color. It might turn out fine once the bevel is on there and there's that white outline on it, as in the original pic on the first post.
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Re: Project: Player Jaguar in mahogany

Post by dots »

that is looking damn fine laid out. exciting!
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Re: Project: Player Jaguar in mahogany

Post by Pens »

Fuck. I was going to wait and do a photoshoot of my own, but this was just sent to me, the body and guard are done now, and it just looks so fucking good all laid out like this. I had to share. When it's back in my hands I'm going to do another photoshoot, but for now...
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Re: Project: Player Jaguar in mahogany

Post by dots »

Super envious, that looks rad!
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Re: Project: Player Jaguar in mahogany

Post by Bacchus »

It might be the angle of the photo shortening the vertical, but it nearly looks Jag-stangy there, in that it has that really pronounced hip that I always thought looked sort of feline and cool in the Jag-stang.

Looks excellent.
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Re: Project: Player Jaguar in mahogany

Post by Pens »

Okay, so I have the body back into my hands now!

I also asked to have some body scraps sent along so I can make finish test squares.

At this point, there's a few observations to make.

1. To my eyes, there's no appreciable difference to at least the initial layer of tung oil vs linseed oil. This is good, that means the early layers can be tung oil which dries much faster than linseed. I was concerned that if I had to do linseed on the "inner" area vs tung on the outer, it was going to have a different cure time. That would have been annoying. I'm blending up some tung+linseed right now on a hotplate to pre-polymerize it, but I'm keeping it just under 100C so it won't alter the color of it.

Seriously, if anyone can actually see the difference in these samples, please speak up!
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2. The pickguard material is "yellower" than I wanted. I wasn't sure if it was just the camera and lighting before, but I want it to be more red. I think I'm going to rough it up a bit, mask off the bevel, then try applying some thinned out Indian Red paint that I have and see how that looks. I have to test if the turpenoid thinner that I use will eat plastic or not. I think it will be fine. See, this is a case where using solvent thinner is better than using oil, I don't want to have to spend all that time waiting for oil to cure since there's no benefit. I just want thinned red on there. If it looks better that way, then seal it up with some poly and it ought to be good to go.

3. I should not have gotten the Musikraft neck pre-drilled. I normally never do that, and it never makes sense to do that, as fitting it perfectly is near impossible. In this case, cooter did a fantastic job as always, but when I put the screws in and it takes up the pre-drilled holes, it shifts backwards a few mils. I want this tight to the pocket. To that end, while I was cutting the mahogany squares for finish testing, I saved all of the sawdust. I should have enough now to mix with a bit of glue, maybe shave some toothpicks off these scraps as well, and fill up the neck holes. I was considering resanding that heel anyway, I am not really a fan of the burnt-in brand mark they put there. Once that's filled, I can do like I've done the last two times, fit the neck in, start the screws to mark the exact spot, then drill out exactly where the holes should be for a tight fit.

Otherwise, I have work to do with the finish sanding to prep this body. I'll post some more updates as I have em!
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Re: Project: Player Jaguar in mahogany

Post by dots »

bummer, but sounds like you have a plan for that neck.
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Re: Project: Player Jaguar in mahogany

Post by Pens »

Yeah, I haven't updated in a few on this. After several aborted attempts, I decided I really needed to get the drill press I got from my Dad's stuff set up for this. It took a bit, it needed some cleaning up, and then I found out it uses an old drill chuck for which I did not have a proper sized key for. I ordered several in different sizes and they are arriving Saturday.

I did decide to not fuck with the pick guard for now. I showed it to a buddy who came by to drop off a guitar, I'm making a new pickguard for him so I showed him mine to get his opinion, and he was positive about it.

I'm just trying to get the finish sanding done just right, the downside to this finish is that I can't just slap filler in there to level things out, I have to make sure that every pock is level. Not much to see at this point.
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