The Padauk Fender: Happy New Year

After my last post, there was about a seven week chunk where I was away for the holidays, on a business trip, visiting friends, on another business trip, and then away for the holidays again.  I had some amazing adventures and enjoyed a bit of downtime, but now that January has come back around it's time to stop spending the entire day on the couch drinking eggnog, and start sitting at my desk and working.  While drinking eggnog.

I wasn't entirely unproductive though.

So anyway.

Since I didn't have to fly to get home for the holidays, I was able to bring the Fender and some of its associated supplies with me, which ended up working out quite well, because the finishing process I settled on takes some time. 

First I had to sand the body after it came off of the CNC machine.  And I had to sand it a lot.  To keep machining time down, the finish was a bit rough, and I knew that the orbital sander and I would be spending even more quality time together.  I wanted to get this taken care of before leaving for the holidays, so I literally got home from my business trip, was home for a day sanding, and then packed up to leave again.  

I started at 120 and worked up to 400 on the orbital sander and a sanding block to hit the hard to reach areas.  When I was done, I looked like this.  

It's a good thing I like orange.  

Before everyone freaks out and lectures me about the Dangers of Padauk Dust - I was wearing a respirator.  And goggles.  And gloves!  And I cleaned up appropriately, did a test to make sure I wasn't allergic to/have adverse reactions to padauk, and took this photo because I thought it was funny.  I do a lot of dumb things, but putting my lungs at risk is not one of them. 

I then decided to fill the grain with some zpoxy.  

This stuff definitely smells like death. 

This ended up not working terribly well.  I tried filling the grain, and the zpoxy was having trouble curing because of the cold.  Per some suggestions, I tried warming things up and using the lowest setting on a heat gun to get it to cure, but it just ended up settling in the grain a tiny bit, while mostly building up on the surface, where I didn't want it.  Instead of trying to test my luck with more layers of zpoxy, I decided I was okay with a bit of grain.  Then I had to sand all of the surface zpoxy off, which took just as long as the first round of sanding. 

Now, onto the Tru Oil.

I was really happy with what I was starting to see! 

There are a lot of resources online for applying Tru Oil, and I read a ton of them before proceeding.  First, you have to create a soak coat for your wood - liberally apply oil and let it sit for 15 minutes, then wipe off the excess.  The wood will soak up a ton of oil, which is good!  My guitar definitely did, and after applying the first coat, I let it sit for 24 hours.  

There are a few ways you can proceed from here.  One is to gradually move up with different grits of sandpaper, creating an oil and dust slurry to fill the grain, and then letting that cure in between each coat.  The other is to just do thin coats, and buff with 0000 steel wool in between each one, which I decided to try.  

It takes a LOT of very thin coats to build up, and you want them to have time to cure.  This is why I mentioned that it was awesome I could use my time off to work on this!

SHINY

Sixteen coats of oil (at least) later, and I'm starting to get really impressed with what I am seeing.  Not so much with the photos I am taking of it though, as the orange is so vibrant that I keep getting really weird colors when shooting on my phone.  The oil is definitely accentuating the wood though, and it's also filled in the grain a bit more.  At this point I let the guitar cure for about a week in a warm room. 

After the oil has had some time to cure (some people say a week, some say wait up to a month - you mileage may vary), it was time to polish it.  I used a mixture of water with dishwashing soap to wet sand, and got some Micromesh pads that went from 1800 - 12000 grit.  Yep, twelve thousand.  I started on the coarsest grit and gently sanded with the grain.  It took a long, long time.  

What you see at the top of this post is the front of the body sanded to 12000 grit micromesh.  The neck is just on there for a test fitting - it fits, but I got some oil in the pocket and had to sand that a tiny bit, which was mildly terrifying.  After the oil cures a bit more, it'll get a nice coat of wax and a good buffing. 

Lessons Learned:

• Tru Oil is pretty amazing, but definitely works better in thin coats done over time.  The first couple of coats that I did ended up being pretty thick, and they were gloppy and got dust in them.  I paid for that later.
• I tried staining pads, paper towels, and microfiber cloths with the tru oil.  I liked the microfiber, though as it turns out using your fingers is probably the best way to apply a finish smoothly.  
• Micromesh is freaking awesome.  
• Patience is key.  Do a coat of this stuff, then go out for the day!  Do things!  Make yourself tired so you don't get tempted to futz with it that night before you go to bed and mess something up.  
• It takes a while.  When your arm starts hurting, you're almost halfway there.  Don't half-ass it.  
• I should have figured out hardware before I did this.  This is the most important one, so I am going to repeat it: I SHOULD HAVE FIGURED OUT HARDWARE BEFORE I DID THIS.  The only thing that I was sure about was that I wanted hexaphonic pickups in the center position.  But I didn't consider humbuckers, or a hardtail body, I didn't double check my neck pocket measurements, tremolo position, etc.  I realized too late that for the style I was going for this would have been better off as a hardtail with humbuckers, which would have ultimately saved me machining time, but I gunned ahead.  At least I planned enough for that center hexaphonic and have the pocket for the breakout board!  

Next weekend it'll get a nice wax coat, and by then I should also have the components to put it together, which I am assuming will not at all be straightforward.  If it's anything like building bikes, there are a million tiny measurements that I have missed and a bunch of part returns, minor tweaks, and little things that will have to be done or redone.  I'm looking forward to it.  

At this particular point, I'm really happy that I took on this project, but dang, this is a ton of work.  I had a lot of respect for luthiers and anyone who makes or builds anything already, but just the hours spent sanding took that to a new level.  If you ever look at an instrument and think "gee, that's a lot of money," just trust me that it most certainly isn't.  

Anyway, time to let this body cure while I wait for hardware.