Mosstone "Sun King" Strat

[Mossman]

Dude, you finished the guitar like a lot try to accomplish without even trying. A pat on the back is necessary.

Great looking finish. I like it very much. Great work, Moss!

Thanks guys... I was feeling a little bummed out when I realized how much the finish had "drifted" from what it originally looked like, and it negatively affected my perception of it. But all the enthusiastic reactions I've gotten from you guys have made me see it with fresh eyes.

[Stoli]

With you making instruments as beautiful as that telecaster style I am not sure why you even want to buy a guitar from anyone. That guitar looks stunning and I am sure the strat will as well.

[redman]

WOW @Mossman beautiful work the strat is looking great but my jaw hit the floor with that tele, The reason I quit trying to build kits was the fact that my finish work sucked

[Mossman]

[/quote]

With you making instruments as beautiful as that telecaster style I am not sure why you even want to buy a guitar from anyone. That guitar looks stunning and I am sure the strat will as well.

WOW @Mossman beautiful work the strat is looking great but my jaw hit the floor with that tele, The reason I quit trying to build kits was the fact that my finish work sucked

Thanks a lot guys! Your appreciation means a lot to me! That Telecaster has become my #1... I call it "The Boss". (has nothing to do with Bruce Springsteen). I was really lucky to get that piece of Mahogany when I ordered the body. I was given a choice between two, and while the other one was better matched, I was a sucker for that flame. I wish I could capture how iridescent it is in photos. It really catches the light. That was the first finish I had ever done, so I tried to keep it simple. It's just boring old Minwax "Mahogany" stain and Tru-Oil. I had finished a few necks in Tru-Oil before that, so I knew what to expect there, but I had no idea how the stain was going to look... I was a little nervous about it going in (I put it off for a long time), but I was about as happy as a person could be about a brown guitar finish when it was done and it was pretty easy too. You just have to prep Mahogany with conditioner first, to avoid any blotchiness and dark spots (my biggest fear).

Which reminds me, @redman, what kind of finishes did you try to do on the kit guitars? It may not have been you that sucked. It might have been the wood. Was it Basswood?

I should also mention that Tele's got a set of A4 humbuckers, custom designed by Tim @Buddha Pickups, and I still can't believe how good they sound! I told Tim I wanted to make a freakish hybrid between a Telecaster and a Les Paul, and that sure is what he delivered. They have the full, meaty sound of a PAF, but with less "blurr"... more articulation and bite. Really the best of both worlds, and they sound good split too, thanks to Tim's Patented "Mix-o-Bucker" design.

[Buddha Pickups]

With you making instruments as beautiful as that telecaster style I am not sure why you even want to buy a guitar from anyone. That guitar looks stunning and I am sure the strat will as well.

WOW @Mossman beautiful work the strat is looking great but my jaw hit the floor with that tele, The reason I quit trying to build kits was the fact that my finish work sucked

Thanks a lot guys! Your appreciation means a lot to me! That Telecaster has become my #1... I call it "The Boss". (has nothing to do with Bruce Springsteen). I was really lucky to get that piece of Mahogany when I ordered the body. I was given a choice between two, and while the other one was better matched, I was a sucker for that flame. I wish I could capture how iridescent it is in photos. It really catches the light. That was the first finish I had ever done, so I tried to keep it simple. It's just boring old Minwax "Mahogany" stain and Tru-Oil. I had finished a few necks in Tru-Oil before that, so I knew what to expect there, but I had no idea how the stain was going to look... I was a little nervous about it going in (I put it off for a long time), but I was about as happy as a person could be about a brown guitar finish when it was done and it was pretty easy too. You just have to prep Mahogany with conditioner first, to avoid any blotchiness and dark spots (my biggest fear).

Which reminds me, @redman, what kind of finishes did you try to do on the kit guitars? It may not have been you that sucked. It might have been the wood. Was it Basswood?

I should also mention that Tele's got a set of A4 humbuckers, custom designed by Tim @Buddha Pickups, and I still can't believe how good they sound! I told Tim I wanted to make a freakish hybrid between a Telecaster and a Les Paul, and that sure is what he delivered. They have the full, meaty sound of a PAF, but with less "blurr"... more articulation and bite. Really the best of both worlds, and they sound good split too, thanks to Tim's Patented "Mix-o-Bucker" design.
[/quote]

That was about 5 years ago I made those?
Crazy

[andrewsrea]

Just got around to this post. Spectacular job on the finish!

I am not a fan of most CSB finishes, especially on Fenders. Your use of the oxblood / tobacco frame made me change my mind. I also like that it reacts to light and will look different environments.

I have a LP that I made and painted using 3-D techniques (layering the transparent colors) and it reacts to light the same way. It also is a hard guitar to get a picture of it, which represents how people see it 'live.'

Can't wait to see the finished product!

[Mossman]

Just got around to this post. Spectacular job on the finish!

I am not a fan of most CSB finishes, especially on Fenders. Your use of the oxblood / tobacco frame made me change my mind. I also like that it reacts to light and will look different environments.

Spectacular? Wow, thanks!

I was going more in the direction of a "Sienna Sunburst" originally (I'm kinda over CSB)... Something like this:



I wanted to go darker around the edges, but not all the way to black. That's where the Oxblood came in. It doesn't look exactly like I pictured it, but I'm still happy with it.

I have a LP that I made and painted using 3-D techniques (layering the transparent colors) and it reacts to light the same way. It also is a hard guitar to get a picture of it, which represents how people see it 'live.'

Color accuracy is my biggest frustration in taking pictures of guitars. Especially red finishes. Yellows tend to over-saturate too. It's looking like I'm going to have to use different light sources for different finish colors. The last ones I bought are supposed to simulate sunlight better than any other I've tried (on paper, anyway), and the pics I took of my new Ibanez (amber to reddish brown burst) looked great, but when I tried taking pictures of this Strat body, it was a frickin' red nightmare! I guess I can only take accurate photos of this in sunlight.

I'd like to see some pics of that LP! Did you spray the burst?

Can't wait to see the finished product!

Yeah, me too... I was hoping to have this thing all finished and built long before now, but I've been having the clear-coat issues. I swear, this is the last time I'm going to finish a body in polyurethane. I never quite seem to remember what a hassle it was the last two times I did it. I'm tired of dealing with damn witness lines! The last pics I posted were before wet-sanding and buffing, and sho-nuff, I got witness lines... always along the edges:

witness lines 1.jpg

witness lines 2.jpg

So I sanded it back some and made sure to get rid of all sanding scratches (again) and sprayed it with three coats of satin poly, because I was curious to see how it would look... I kinda like it. I didn't at first, because the colors don't pop as much as they do with a gloss finish, but I just stopped to take a look at it for the first time since I sprayed it last Saturday, and the satin gives it kind of a mellow, rustic (vintage?) look that I find appealing. I tried to take some pics of it but they look horrible. I'll have to wait until this weekend and take some shots in the morning sunlight.

There's a bit of sagging in the finish on the upper horn (it's always the damn horns!), but there isn't even the slightest sign of orange-peel. That's something I find almost impossible to avoid when spraying gloss poly out of a rattle-can. Maybe satin poly is still on the table as a finish choice.

So, I'm going to have to sand out those sags and few other minor surface imperfections, and probably spray a couple more coats of satin. I'm going to have to resist the urge to work it up to a gloss again. There's just something really gratifying about bringing a finish to a glassy, mirror shine, but that will probably just lead to more witness lines, and I'll have to sand back and spray it again... Lather, rinse, repeat.

So, it'll probably be a couple more weeks before it's done.

If I don't get distracted with something else.

[glasshand]

I'll also say that it looks really damn good. And it's hard to get a mental picture out of your head once it's there, and to stop feeling like something is "worse" just because it doesn't match your original mental picture.

[andrewsrea]

Did you spray the burst?

For the sunburst on my LP: both rub and spray.

I rubbed aniline dye with an alcohol base. Starting with the center: 'burst-yellow,' 'violin-amber,' then I mixed a bit of cherry with the amber to make a 'caramel' color for the frame. I then sprayed 6 coats of 'crystal-clear' non-yellowing nitro cellulous lacquer, dried and then leveled a bit. Then I mixed a very light tint using 'tomato soup red' with 'wild-cherry' (a dark red with a hint of brown), with the color mix about 5:1 respectively and the tint strength about 65% of opaqueness that you would normally use to frame a LP. I used this to do a 1" or so frame, above the caramel.

The back and neck are a 50's cherry recipe I got from Stew-Mac. The peghead was sprayed traditional black and then I scraped it off of the hand-carved figured pearl 'Andrews' logo.

Then I sprayed all of it (except the rosewood fretboard) with a 50:50 mix of non-yellowing crystal-clear with normal clear nitro, with a faint gold tint (aniline yellow with a micro hint of green and brown). The reason for the 50:50 mix is, I wanted the finish to look 10 years old and have the ability to continue to age without looking fake. I sprayed about 4 coats, did a minor leveling and cut the 'clear-gold tint' to a 80% thinner & 0.5 oz of retarder, as a wash-coat. Let it dry for an agonizing 10 weeks, hand sanded 800 to 4000, then using a foam pad on a hand drill - used Maguire's' #9 Swirl Remover and #7 Mirror Glaze.

It has been my #1 and heavily used since 2004, so it is a naturally relic-ed 17 year-old guitar. The dark frame has faded and the nitro is shrinking. Like your guitar, I have yet to see it pictured as it looks live. I am thinking of refinishing the top for more burst, but it sounds and plays so well that I am cautious.

AMI 2006 LP tall 4.jpg

Here is a bench shot that shows the 3D the best I've seen in pics, but the guitar is sporting my AMI 'LZ-01' Humbuckers instead of it's standard AMI 'Gold-Greenys.'

AMI 2006 LP LZ Pups 2.jpg

[Mossman]

I'll also say that it looks really damn good. And it's hard to get a mental picture out of your head once it's there, and to stop feeling like something is "worse" just because it doesn't match your original mental picture.

Thanks man, and don't worry, I'm not down on it at all... Whenever I go into doing one of these dye finishes, I know it's predominantly an experimental procedure. I don't expect it to come out exactly as I envision it. I just buy the colors that I think will get me where I want to go and have at it. I was actually very pleased with the way it looked before I started spraying polyurithane. My mistake was using oil-based poly. It interacted with the dye to a degree that I wasn't expecting, and made the smooth transitions look rough and inconsistent. I should have used water based poly, but I hate it, and the only kind of water-bourne poly you can get in a rattle-can in the People's Republic of California is pure garbage (Varithane). The cans are crap and the product inside them is crap. I actually should have used Tru-Oil, but that stuff has been verboten here for a few years now. It takes some doing just to find a retailer online who will ship to California... Oh, and it costs a freaking fortune now.

But anyway, after I got over the minor heart-break upon realizing that the burst didn't look like this anymore...

strat burst dye finish.jpg

...I was still able to judge it objectively for what it is, and not for what it was, and I still liked the way it looked. I can honestly say that the rougher look, or less refined character of the burst really is character, without feeling like I'm conning myself. And now that I'm going in a different direction with the satin finish, it's becoming an adventure again. I also learned that I should just use Tru-Oil exclusively for finishes. I know how to make it now.

[Mossman]

For the sunburst on my LP: both rub and spray.

I rubbed aniline dye with an alcohol base. Starting with the center: 'burst-yellow,' 'violin-amber,' then I mixed a bit of cherry with the amber to make a 'caramel' color for the frame. I then sprayed 6 coats of 'crystal-clear' non-yellowing nitro cellulous lacquer, dried and then leveled a bit. Then I mixed a very light tint using 'tomato soup red' with 'wild-cherry' (a dark red with a hint of brown), with the color mix about 5:1 respectively and the tint strength about 65% of opaqueness that you would normally use to frame a LP. I used this to do a 1" or so frame, above the caramel.

The back and neck are a 50's cherry recipe I got from Stew-Mac. The peghead was sprayed traditional black and then I scraped it off of the hand-carved figured pearl 'Andrews' logo.

Then I sprayed all of it (except the rosewood fretboard) with a 50:50 mix of non-yellowing crystal-clear with normal clear nitro, with a faint gold tint (aniline yellow with a micro hint of green and brown). The reason for the 50:50 mix is, I wanted the finish to look 10 years old and have the ability to continue to age without looking fake. I sprayed about 4 coats, did a minor leveling and cut the 'clear-gold tint' to a 80% thinner & 0.5 oz of retarder, as a wash-coat. Let it dry for an agonizing 10 weeks, hand sanded 800 to 4000, then using a foam pad on a hand drill - used Maguire's' #9 Swirl Remover and #7 Mirror Glaze.

It has been my #1 and heavily used since 2004, so it is a naturally relic-ed 17 year-old guitar. The dark frame has faded and the nitro is shrinking. Like your guitar, I have yet to see it pictured as it looks live. I am thinking of refinishing the top for more burst, but it sounds and plays so well that I am cautious.

AMI 2006 LP tall 4.jpg

Here is a bench shot that shows the 3D the best I've seen in pics, but the guitar is sporting my AMI 'LZ-01' Humbuckers instead of it's standard AMI 'Gold-Greenys.'

AMI 2006 LP LZ Pups 2.jpg

Awesome! I'm quite certain photographing that guitar would give me fits! I'll bet the reds and oranges aren't quite as prominent in real life?

I've been meaning to try aniline dyes, but I've been getting such good results with the leather dye, I've just been sticking with that. Do you dilute them with alcohol or water?

I take it you have proper spray equipment and a booth and all that? I wish I had the space for that (hopefully the next place I live). As I mentioned above, I think I'm just going to stick with rub-on finishes until then. This rattle-can stuff is for the birds. It's fine if you want to spray a picture frame, or for crafts, but trying to achieve a flawless, factory finish on a guitar body with it is just insanity-provoking.

I used to start finish sanding at 800, but that's just begging for witness lines with polyurethane, so I usually start with 1000 and work my way up to 2000... I've never gone above 2000. From there I use Meguiar's Scratch-X and then Meguiar's Ultimate compound. I would imagine the #9 Swirl Remover is probably less abrasive than Scratch-X? Is the Mirror Glaze a wax? I used to finish off with Xymol, but I ran out of it one day and just fell out of the habit of using it.

[andrewsrea]

I'll bet the reds and oranges aren't quite as prominent in real life?

Do you dilute them [aniline dyes] with alcohol or water?

I take it you have proper spray equipment and a booth and all that?

I would imagine the #9 Swirl Remover is probably less abrasive than Scratch-X? Is the Mirror Glaze a wax?

Great questions!

Correct on the reds and orange hues. Put this under a 'cold' light and it looks very gold and brown. Under a warm light, the reds and yellow begin to pop. Since it is a 3D finish, it will look a different color as you look at it from different angles as well.

I have a 20 year old kit of aniline powders in about a dozen colors from Stew Mac, that I haven't begun to exhaust. The littlest bit goes very far, which is the hard part of using it. Lots of testing on scraps. I never use water and mainly use alcohol, being careful of not opening the can in humid places. Alcohol can draw-in water and water can ruin a finish, especially with lacquers. I've use it with a Tung Oil base and Acetone (for etching into repairs). I typically mix the alcohol stain into lacquers and urethanes.

The other con to powdered aniline dyes, is you really need to mix it well, let it sit for 20 hours and strain it. Otherwise you end up spraying clumps (learned the hard way). The benefit is it takes evenly in all wood species, you can dial in custom colors and intensities. Plus it does not affect curing of other things you finish with.

I do not have a proper spray booth or equipment, which makes me work harder and takes more time. I use Preval jars and cartridges, a dual-breather painters mask, rubber gloves, 1x reading glasses and an old 24" fan to exhaust fumes. I now spray in an open bay in my garage with a hanger from the ceiling and a small TV tray as a flat-work station. Since I like Nitro, it's over-spray basically dries before it hits the ground and can be cleaned an hour later with a broom. Nitro also dries outside-in so airborne contaminants are less of a problem, however you still have to mind pollen days. And insects are attracted to the sweet smell. Most of the time any bugs which actually stick, are easily knocked off with 330 grit wet paper. I have Stew Mac foam buffing pads for the two grades of Maguires I use.

I once used a backyard picnic screen tent before I had a garage, which worked nice. But you have to be careful of the sun - it can boil your new finish (another hard lesson).

I've never used Maguire's Scratch X, but I think you are correct. It is a heavier abrasive. I am not positive that the Machine Glaze contains wax, but I am not sure what it is made of. Only that is a very light abrasive.

What I learned from a Gibson factory tour and talking with a Paul Reed Smith after a PRS factory tour, is where sandpapering stops and buffing takes over. For finishing and unless there is a significant defect, they start at 800 and end at 1200 (their equipment and techniques allow a very thin and flat finish, which limits the need for leveling). They move on to two to three grades of buffing compound, which when done properly the friction head melts the top coat and bonds it to a nice finish. Since I use foam pads, it takes longer and your mind needs to be on the job, in the moment, at all times.

[andrewsrea]

^ BTW, I've sold about a dozen sets of AMI LZ-01's, but believe that particular set pictured above is in the possession of our very own @tobijohn!

[tobijohn]

^ BTW, I've sold about a dozen sets of AMI LZ-01's, but believe that particular set pictured above is in the possession of our very own @tobijohn!

I've got a bunch of Rob's pickups:

AMI Johnny Staggers (left-handed)
AMI LZ-01
AMI HiFis
AMI Mr. Butterfinger
AMI Firebird mini-humbuckers

There's a good reason I went back for more after I picked up the first set. To cover all the bases, I'll need to eventually get a set of P90s and something for a Tele....

[Mossman]

Great questions!

Correct on the reds and orange hues. Put this under a 'cold' light and it looks very gold and brown. Under a warm light, the reds and yellow begin to pop. Since it is a 3D finish, it will look a different color as you look at it from different angles as well.

I have a 20 year old kit of aniline powders in about a dozen colors from Stew Mac, that I haven't begun to exhaust. The littlest bit goes very far, which is the hard part of using it. Lots of testing on scraps. I never use water and mainly use alcohol, being careful of not opening the can in humid places. Alcohol can draw-in water and water can ruin a finish, especially with lacquers. I've use it with a Tung Oil base and Acetone (for etching into repairs). I typically mix the alcohol stain into lacquers and urethanes.

The other con to powdered aniline dyes, is you really need to mix it well, let it sit for 20 hours and strain it. Otherwise you end up spraying clumps (learned the hard way). The benefit is it takes evenly in all wood species, you can dial in custom colors and intensities. Plus it does not affect curing of other things you finish with.

I do not have a proper spray booth or equipment, which makes me work harder and takes more time. I use Preval jars and cartridges, a dual-breather painters mask, rubber gloves, 1x reading glasses and an old 24" fan to exhaust fumes. I now spray in an open bay in my garage with a hanger from the ceiling and a small TV tray as a flat-work station. Since I like Nitro, it's over-spray basically dries before it hits the ground and can be cleaned an hour later with a broom. Nitro also dries outside-in so airborne contaminants are less of a problem, however you still have to mind pollen days. And insects are attracted to the sweet smell. Most of the time any bugs which actually stick, are easily knocked off with 330 grit wet paper. I have Stew Mac foam buffing pads for the two grades of Maguires I use.

I once used a backyard picnic screen tent before I had a garage, which worked nice. But you have to be careful of the sun - it can boil your new finish (another hard lesson).

I've never used Maguire's Scratch X, but I think you are correct. It is a heavier abrasive. I am not positive that the Machine Glaze contains wax, but I am not sure what it is made of. Only that is a very light abrasive.

What I learned from a Gibson factory tour and talking with a Paul Reed Smith after a PRS factory tour, is where sandpapering stops and buffing takes over. For finishing and unless there is a significant defect, they start at 800 and end at 1200 (their equipment and techniques allow a very thin and flat finish, which limits the need for leveling). They move on to two to three grades of buffing compound, which when done properly the friction head melts the top coat and bonds it to a nice finish. Since I use foam pads, it takes longer and your mind needs to be on the job, in the moment, at all times.

Sorry, I must have missed it when you said "I rubbed aniline dye with an alcohol base".

Aniline dye sounds like a lot of work, and sensitive to environmental conditions. It's pretty dry in California, so I never have to worry about humidity, but I think I'll stick with the leather dye. I'll never use it without diluting it again, though... The first time I used it, I diluted the dye with alcohol, and I found that if you use alcohol, you have to use water-based poly so it won't disturb the dye. If you dilute with water, you have to use oil-based poly. This time, I didn't dilute it all, after watching a couple of "Big D Guitars" videos where he did the same. That was a mistake. Not only did the oil-based poly affect the dye, but the dye affected the drying of the poly. It was mostly around the edges of the body, where the end-grain really soaked up the dye and I had to slather it on pretty heavy to get decent coverage. After spraying the first three coats, it was still tacky around the edges for about a month! Even when it felt dry, I still picked up red dye when I ran a rag over it. I think when you use the dye undiluted, a lot of the pigment ends up laying on the surface instead of seeping into the wood.

Can you get a broad spray pattern with the Preval cartridge sprayers? What's the volume like? Can you adjust the flow/pattern? I bought a couple of jar/propellant sprayers on impulse once when I saw them at Home Depot a few years ago (I don't think they were made by Preval). I never got around to using them and I've moved a couple of times since then, so I have no idea what happened to them, but if I recall correctly they had a valve that was like a larger version of a rattle-can nozzle, except it was integrated into the can. It didn't look like it would output any kind of fan pattern, either.

Finish sanding with polyurethane is a little trickier than with nitro. I used to start with 800 grit and go up to 1500, simply because that's what felt right to me. But it turned out that procedure pretty much guaranteed witness lines. At the time, I assumed that poly "melted" into the previous coat like lacquer does, so I didn't even know what was causing it, and I kept banging my head against the wall until I found out that polyurethane cures in layers. Being aware of that makes you want to try to lay down a heavier coat, which leads to sags and orange peel, which requires more sanding and makes you more vulnerable to witness lines! Not to mention that it's nearly impossible to get a consistently even spray out of a rattle can. No matter how diligent I am about clearing the nozzle when I'm done, I invariably experience mild sputtering, or a thinning of the spray from time to time, and no matter how focused I am on keeping my technique even and consistent, I'm sure there are areas where the coverage is thinner than others. And when you're wet-sanding, the water obscures everything, so you don't see that spot where you sanded through top layer of poly until you wipe it down, so you have to check frequently, which gets a little maddening.

When I spray polyurethane, I just take out into the courtyard and hang it in the bathroom to dry, so I don't get any bugs, or many contaminants besides the odd specs of dust, but if I'm spraying paint, I take it to work and spray it in my wash-out sink where I process my screens (for screen printing), and use a respirator and all that.

FS12.jpg

FS34.jpg

I think it was the word "glaze" that made me think it was a wax rather than an abrasive. I feel like I need to reconsider the buffing products I use. I might try using the #9 Swirl Remover between the Scratch-X and the Ultimate Compound. The UC has spherical "abrasives" in it and is meant as a final step, but I think there's too big of a gap in abrasiveness between it and Scratch-X. Or, I might be over-thinking it. It can get really confusing if you look at all the buffing products out there. That's why I settled on those two products and stopped thinking about it... but I can't help thinking there might be something better.

Did you say you use a drill for buffing? Do you have a link to the attachments you use? I do all my buffing by hand. I've seen drill attachments, but I always feel like they would be too awkward to use. I tried using a buffing pad on my orbital sander, but that didn't work out so well. It was a big, heavy pad (the thick, woolly type, not a sponge), and the sander just didn't have enough power to spin it fast enough. I should try a sponge pad, but I kind of like dong things by hand. I always feel a little sketchy using power tools around guitars. I don't even use a powered screwdriver.

[Mossman]

Criminy! I just sprayed a couple of coats of satin poly and realized I had about a third of a can left, so I figured I should probably order another can to be on the safe side. When I went to Amazon to re-order, I found that the price had almost doubled! The last time I bought poly (about 3 weeks ago) it cost $7.98 per can with free shipping, and now you can't get it shipped for free for less than FIFTEEN DOLLARS a can! The lowest per-can price was $9.99, but it cost $9.89 for shipping!

[Partscaster]

Your' Sunking has emboldened me to try to turn 2 of my alder natural bodies, now with a few coats of Tru Oil, into one 2-tone, and one 3-tone sunbursts to better match with the 56' and 58' style pickups in them.

[Mossman]

Your' Sunking has emboldened me to try to turn 2 of my alder natural bodies, now with a few coats of Tru Oil, into one 2-tone, and one 3-tone sunbursts to better match with the 56' and 58' style pickups in them.

Yeah! That's what I like to hear! Go for it!

[Mossman]

Ok, here's some pics of the body finished in satin... I like it! The colors don't pop as much as with a gloss finish, but I like the mellow, subdued effect, and the transitions in the burst look smoother (though the camera tends emphasize darker colors, it really looks very gradient in real life).

ns chair 1.jpg

ns chair 2.jpg

Once again, I spent most of the morning taking pictures in different rooms and under different light sources until I captured some pics that were as close to real life as possible. It still looks better in real life, but these are pretty close. I found it's actually a little more challenging taking photos with the satin finish. With a gloss finish, reflections and glare are more localized and defined (and easily avoided), but the satin diffuses the light more, and spreads it across a larger area of the surface, resulting in a lot of photos where the detail and color were mostly obscured or washed out.

But satin poly is so much more low-effort than gloss. No orange-peel, no fish eyes or pin-hole flaws, no need to wet-sand and buff... So, satin poly is still on the table as a finish option. I don't mind using gloss on necks, or for the front of the headstock, but finishing a whole body with it is just an exercise in masochism.

As far as the front (top) of the body goes, I think I'm done, but I discovered a drip on the back side near the upper cutaway. The hardest part about spraying a guitar body is getting inside the horns. It's hard to get an even coat in one shot, and sometimes you spray a little too much.

ns drip.jpg

It's so barely noticeable I was almost tempted to ignore it, but the back needs another coat of poly, anyway (I didn't notice the drip until I was just about to spray the last coat), so I'll level that, give it one more coat, and then in a week I'll be able to start assembly!

[ID10t]

I really like it man, and you might be putting too much work into getting your pictures, but you are probably doing just what you want.
Let me add a little inspiration, I'm really surprised this didn't have a little more traction.

viewtopic.php?t=533

[Partscaster]

Sunking gave traction to me. My paints will arrive wed/Fri. I'll have to add linseed based artist oil paint to Tru Oil as I already have 3-4 layers of Tru Oil on the 2 bodies I am about to re-dress. I'll tint the natural body centers toward transparent yellow , and bring in some Burnt Umber and Black in from the edges for the 2 tone, and add some Burnt Sienna for the 3tone burst. Knowing my level of patience, I'll end up with 2 clown sphincter bursts.

[Mossman]

I really like it man, and you might be putting too much work into getting your pictures, but you are probably doing just what you want.
Let me add a little inspiration, I'm really surprised this didn't have a little more traction.

viewtopic.php?t=533

It's not so much work as figuring out what works. I know nobody is going to care about it as much as I do, but when I look at a photo and it makes me go: "ugh" (or "WTF??!"), there's no way I can put that out there. I'm driven to keep experimenting until I get results that are at least close to what I'm seeing with my eyeballs.

[edit]

I'm not sure ehat you mean by: "traction", but if you mean more attention or participation in the thread, I think it's been alright. I'm grateful that anyone is interested. Bear in mind, I started this thread last August, and there have been long gaps between updates. I haven't exactly kept the subject at the forefront of everyone's consciousness.

[ID10t]

I really like it man, and you might be putting too much work into getting your pictures, but you are probably doing just what you want.
Let me add a little inspiration, I'm really surprised this didn't have a little more traction.

viewtopic.php?t=533

It's not so much work as figuring out what works. I know nobody is going to care about it as much as I do, but when I look at a photo and it makes me go: "ugh" (or "WTF??!"), there's no way I can put that out there. I'm driven to keep experimenting until I get results that are at least close to what I'm seeing with my eyeballs.

[edit]

I'm not sure ehat you mean by: "traction", but if you mean more attention or participation in the thread, I think it's been alright. I'm grateful that anyone is interested. Bear in mind, I started this thread last August, and there have been long gaps between updates. I haven't exactly kept the subject at the forefront of everyone's consciousness.

Lord no that't not what I meant. I meant I expect to see more common items placed by guitars to show colors.

[Mossman]

Lord no that't not what I meant. I meant I expect to see more common items placed by guitars to show colors.

I'm not sure I follow you.

[Houblues]

I think he means he's surprised more people don't juxtapose their guitars with commonly known colors so you can tell what the light and camera are doing.

By the way, for what it's worth, I'm following this thread intently.