Another New Guitar

[Gordon Bellerose]

This is my latest build.
It is a shape similar to more than a few out there, but I call it my own.
This one has Lollar P-90's, with a Tele control plate flipped end for end, making the volume control accessible to the strumming hand.

The color doesn't show very well in the pictures. It has more gold in it. Think of the color of fire.



It has a laminated neck, with an Ebony fingerboard, inlaid with MOP diamonds.



The body and neck are bound with plastic binding.



The back is actually a very dark brown, not black.

[Jamie Unden]

Very nice!

[Barry Daniels]

Nice guitar. I would call that a five piece neck. Laminations are multiple thin layers like you see in plywood.

[Dan Smith]

Dang, that one is nice!
I really dig the body shape, very original!

[Eric Baack]

that's quite purdy!

[Bryan Bear]

I like this a lot. It all goes together well!

[Peter Wilcox]

Very nice guitar, Gordon. The shape is similar to some I am working on.

How did you do the top? I took the liberty of editing your picture to take the blue cast out of it - is this color closer to the original, or did I overdo it?

[Jason Rodgers]

Nice! That top really pops!

[Gordon Bellerose]

Very nice guitar, Gordon. The shape is similar to some I am working on.

How did you do the top? I took the liberty of editing your picture to take the blue cast out of it - is this color closer to the original, or did I overdo it?

The actual color is a bit more gold, but not a huge difference. The orange and gold have a bit more separation.
The top is a bookmatched piece of Quilted maple, 1/4 thick.
The back is Alder.

I still have a bit of touch up to do just under the binding on the lower horn. I noticed a bit of polish collected in one tiny area.

[Gordon Bellerose]

Nice guitar. I would call that a five piece neck. Laminations are multiple thin layers like you see in plywood.

Duly noted Barry. Thanks.

[Peter Wilcox]

How did you dye the top?

[Gordon Bellerose]

Peter.

I simply mixed my color, tested on scrap, and wiped it on. The quilted maple was gorgeous before stain.
It is water-based color, with several coats of clear waterbased lacquer on top.
The brown was sprayed as a base coat, and then the same amount of clear coats.

The hardest part for me in this whole build, because it was my first binding job, was trying to keep the binding clear of color.
I masked while spraying, but still had to scrape.
In hindsight, for the future, I will remove the masking tape and wipe the color off the binding while it is still wet.
Should be able to get a bit smoother edge like that.

Any suggestions that may help would be welcome.

[Peter Wilcox]

So you didn't sand back or apply different colors? It really came out nice.

When I do plastic binding, I don't mask - just spray the binding too. Then I scrape the binding within a few days while the lacquer is still soft. (I don't know how hard how soon the waterbase stuff gets.) Then apply the clear coats.

Here's a SM video that was very helpful for me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNbsZsSabPs

[Jason Rodgers]

I simply mixed my color, tested on scrap, and wiped it on. The quilted maple was gorgeous before stain.
It is water-based color, with several coats of clear waterbased lacquer on top.
The brown was sprayed as a base coat, and then the same amount of clear coats.

Which waterbased lacquer did you use, and what can you report on its schedule?

[Gordon Bellerose]

The stain on the top is Stewmac's ColorTone, mixed in water. Orange, Amber, and a bit of Brown, to taste.
The back is sprayed with Colortone Liquid Pigment, mixed in EM-6000.
At the time I sprayed this body, I was still using Target EM-6000 for clear coats.

The spraying schedule for the back was 2 coats within an hour. I let it dry for about 4 hours before removing the masking tape.
I found that it was brittle to scrape after that amount of time, causing a kind of ragged line, which I am still repairing in one very small area.
After that it was just clear coats.

[Jason Rodgers]

Thanks!

[Dave Locher]

Beautiful! I really like the color combo. The dark sides & back really set off the top. I'm hoping to achieve something similar on my next build. Looks great.

[Gordon Bellerose]

I thought I would post one more picture to try and show the color a bit better.
This picture really shows the gold color, but not the orange very well.
The actual color is somewhere in the middle of this, and the previous picture.
This picture does show the beautiful quilt a bit better.

[Robert Smallwood]

Nice work.

[James Tonguet]

very nice work indeed!