Wooden Control and Trem Cavity Covers for SE's?

[bodia]

Looks awesome! Wanna see the front of that guitar!

 

[docteurseb]

It's one from the two NGD threads I posted couple months ago (CU 24-08 Wood Library store anniversary run from Chuck Levin's in PS finishes).

For those interested in the grain filler used to match the PRS one (pretty sure they'd use the same color for all natural swamp ash back wood library models):
- 1 US Tbsp of Timber Mate Water-based wood filler (Natural Tint base)
- 1/2 US tsp of water
- Keda Alcohol Liquid dyes: 3 drops Red, 8 drops Yellow, 5 drops Brown. (4 drops of brown might be an even better fit, 1 or more drops and it quickly turns too dark).

 

[docteurseb]

Got back to it the past two week-ends and got some good progress:
- finished routing the 4 sets of curly maple backplates.
- today I finally finished the swamp ash backplates using the grain filler formula described before. I want to stain two sets of curly maple plates (Frostbite and Northern Lights) and then will send them all for clear coating. Here are the swamp ash ones:

 

[Alnus Rubra]

Great work

 

[NBW]

I am working on a set for the 35th anniversary. The black fade didn’t come out so well. Still working on it. But I might have to sand back and start over.

 

[docteurseb]

I am working on a set for the 35th anniversary. The black fade didn’t come out so well. Still working on it. But I might have to sand back and start over.

Black fade ? I've been doing a few variations of black fade and frostbite, happy to discuss technique/concentrations (PM me) if one of the schemes below is what you are looking for.

The left one is a frostbite fade I did but wasn't sure how to replicate (in particular I didn't quite remember how I laid the 2nd layer of stains).

I tried to replicate it this weekend on the other samples to its right.

For all of them I started with a black fade, you get the 2nd one to the left if you leave it as is.
I then sanded back #3 to #5, you get the 3rd one if you stop there. It's not a very good look in person compared to #1 or #5, there is just not much depth to the finish without the 2nd layer.
Then I did another layer of black fade starting from the lightest shade to darkest shade but offsetting the stains compared to the 1st layer (i.e. using a lighter shade of black/grey than I used), if you stop there you get the 4th one.
The 5th one is the final result, which matches the 1st one, and is just doing a light sand back for the frostbite effect.

For a black fade I would use #4 instead of #2, it just has a lot more depth to the wood but it really depends what you are looking for.
With water based you could probably achieve #3 and #4 pretty well without sand back.

 

[docteurseb]

One set was stained with northern lights yesterday but I may redo it as the tremolo cover may look more teal than the control plate. I may redo them but it's always a bit of a crapshoot (vastly different results depending on how you sand and how you apply the 2nd layer...).

This morning I did the frostbite ones, just need to do the final sand back.
Before/After the 1st layer:

 

[docteurseb]

...and the trio of back plates to be sent for finishing (frostbite after 2nd fade layer + sand back):

Now before anyone asks... don't ask me to make you back plates. It's way too time consuming without a CNC.

 

[jak3af3r]

...and the trio of back plates to be sent for finishing (frostbite after 2nd fade layer + sand back):

Now before anyone asks... don't ask me to make you back plates. It's way too time consuming without a CNC.

Those look really good! I've done backplates and pickguards for Teles and LP's out of mahogany.

I prefer to do it "by hand" if I'm only doing one set for me because CAD and machine setup would take longer than making templates and routing.

What are you using for stain/dye if you don't mind me asking?

 

[docteurseb]

I made several Warmoth rear-routed control plates (recessed) and Strat tremolo covers before, never had much a problem aside from the usual pain of routing figured maple (mitigated somewhat now that I have a dual bearing flush trim bit).
PRS backplates though have many of the holes so close to the edge that it's not much of a stretch to call it a design flaw for making wood backplates

Programming aside I imagine CNC to ease the pain of routing curly maple, but maybe it's just as difficult to avoid tear out. A friend got one so we may try at some point, I still have two spare sets of curly maple left so I don't expect to have 'fun' doing more backplates anytime soon.

For these I used Keda dyes and isopropyl alcohol. It wasn't ideal for making a fade as it dries way too quickly, in the past I used denatured alcohol which was great (now banned for sale in CA). I also use TransTint before with similarly good results, I heard Keda is better (more vibrant) but I couldn't really complain with TransTint

 

[Guitpicky]

Having tried to build backplates, unsuccessfully so far, for my Custom 24 the position of the mounting holes has to be spot on.
There is very little material left between the edge of the cover and most of the mounting holes (especially with them being countersunk); have one a little too off and the wood will break immediately.
On Private Stock models the cavities are routed deeper when ordering matching wood plates, and the resulting backplates seem to be about 2-3x thicker that on Core models; the holes still have to be accurate but you get a little more leeway.
I'm actually going to give it another shot this afternoon... crossing fingers haha.

Good luck, I’m pulling for ya

 

[docteurseb]

Good luck, I’m pulling for ya

Thanks ;-)
These latest plates should be fine, the holes are precisely drilled so I don't expect any problem this time, we'll see. Just mailed them for finishing this morning, I'll report back in couple weeks.

 

[docteurseb]

... and while waiting for them to be finished I made some ziricote ones.
Love the look of this wood but it's extremely crack prone, luckily it's easy to glue back invisibly.

These are for a PS that's due very late 2021 which will have a ziricote neck. The surface needs to be sanded smooth, and I have to drill the holes (about the only thing that can go wrong at this point):

 

[bodia]

... and while waiting for them to be finished I made some ziricote ones.
Love the look of this wood but it's extremely crack prone, luckily it's easy to glue back invisibly.

These are for a PS that's due very late 2021 which will have a ziricote neck. The surface needs to be sanded smooth, and I have to drill the holes (about the only thing that can go wrong at this point):

Looks great!

 

[Alnus Rubra]

... and while waiting for them to be finished I made some ziricote ones.
Love the look of this wood but it's extremely crack prone, luckily it's easy to glue back invisibly.

These are for a PS that's due very late 2021 which will have a ziricote neck. The surface needs to be sanded smooth, and I have to drill the holes (about the only thing that can go wrong at this point):

Mmmm ziricote (in a Homer Simpson voice!)

 

[docteurseb]

Been a while but I did get the backplates back last week. Overall a bit of a mixed bag:

Ash natural
The grain filler looked way more red than the test sample I had done, didn't look good against the body's grain filler. I trashed the control one (wanted to see if the difference in color was due to using super glue on the test piece versus gloss poly, didn't look like it was), I might convert the tremolo cover into truss rod covers although I don't think ash would be a very popular wood for TRCs.

Northern lights
Given the trouble I had staining them (had to sand and stain, over and over again) they turned out decent.
The purple, pink, and teal colors are there (much easier to see in person than on the picture) but way too pale compared to the neck/top.

Luckily the older set I salvaged (holes filled with tinted epoxy and re-drilled) turned out much better.
Even though the pictures don't do them justice the color is much more vidid than the above ones, they're a keeper on this guitar:

Frostbite
These turned out perfect both 'color'-wise and w.r.t. the mounting holes. Very happy with how it ended up looking:

Overall it was painful to do these but at least two of the guitars got dressed up nicely enough.

 

[bodia]

Been a while but I did get the backplates back last week. Overall a bit of a mixed bag:

Ash natural
The grain filler looked way more red than the test sample I had done, didn't look good against the body's grain filler. I trashed the control one (wanted to see if the difference in color was due to using super glue on the test piece versus gloss poly, didn't look like it was), I might convert the tremolo cover into truss rod covers although I don't think ash would be a very popular wood for TRCs.

Northern lights
Given the trouble I had staining them (had to sand and stain, over and over again) they turned out decent.
The purple, pink, and teal colors are there (much easier to see in person than on the picture) but way too pale compared to the neck/top.

Luckily the older set I salvaged (holes filled with tinted epoxy and re-drilled) turned out much better.
Even though the pictures don't do them justice the color is much more vidid than the above ones, they're a keeper on this guitar:

Frostbite
These turned out perfect both 'color'-wise and w.r.t. the mounting holes. Very happy with how it ended up looking:

Overall it was painful to do these but at least two of the guitars got dressed up nicely enough.

Nice work! Those look great.