Guitar Build #1 - 1/21/2015

It's a short day here today. I decided it would be best to take steps towards color coating the top of the guitar, so, today involved removing the old tape around the body and headstock and applying new tape to protect the sides from the dye I will be applying to the top.

This is how I taped it up:

You can sort of see the flame maple grain in this shot. In person it is much more subtle. So, the next step was to apply dark black dye to the top. This will "pop the grain", which makes the flame maple grain stand out much, much more.

Here's what it looks like with the dye applied:

Oooooohhhhhhhhhh.....GRAAAAIIINNNSSSS...OK, sorry, bad zombie reference. You can, however, see the flame maple grain much better now. That's that for today...seriously, SHORT day! The guitar top will dry until tomorrow. At that point I will sand back the black dye thereby knocking down the grain that was raised (due to the dye being water-based) and leaving the dye only in the flame maple grains. After that, color coats will be applied and *hopefully* the flame maple grain will still stand out through the color.

Time for a beverage!

Cheers,
Dean