Finishing the body.                                                                       keith gregg's guitar building site.
The final colour is to be a red-brown, like jarrah, but I haven't decided yet whether to add a sunburst effect.  The black stain certainly emphasized the grain on both the top, the neck and the head. 

This shows the rays of grain on the head. 

                               Byew-dee-ful!
Next step was a few coats of sanding sealer...
Mistake #.... Geeze I've lost count....  sanding sealer... well, I did the sanding sealer and then sanded it back, and then sanded through the stain... leaving pale patches!

This had two major results:

1.  I needed to re-sand the body, back to bare wood

2.  The part-sanded-through sections showed me that the lighter stain looked better than the full, deep red stain.

After two hours of sanding (has to be fine grade paper, because I don't want to thin the top any further) I got the top   back to bare wood. 

FINALLY... the body has survived two rounds of sanding sealer application and sanding (now on its third) and the lighter colour shows off the grain better than the original version.  At this stage the fretboard is just placed onto the neck, not yet glued. 
For over 3 weeks now, work and other things have slowed progress.  The sealing and sanding process has been through four (or is it five) rounds, and the binding groove has been cleaned and checked, after all the coating and sanding, and scraped a little to make sure it is even all the way round, to ensure that the binding will be neat. 

After masking the groove and the sides, the top will be ready for the "burst" effect to be sprayed on, using a mid-chocolate brown and black combination.
The picture on the left shows the body shape, with the shine from the sanding sealer, although reflections from the window frame are a bit intrusive. 

Before the final sanding sealer coat, I decided to put on the binding, so that the sealer would help to fill any small spaces that might remain around the binding.  The binding was glued on with a general purpose glue.

mistake #11 (I think) this glue sets into a rubbery consistency, so residues are quite hard to remove, especially in tight corners.  Next time I'll use a glue that dries completely and can be sanded.
Once again the trusty spokeshave blade worked as a scraper to tidy up the edges of the binding. 
And this is where the finishing begins...
                  Spraying the burst......    Page 11
INDEX                     page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.
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