Wood, Wood, if I Just Had Some Wood!

[Mark-00255]

I scored a nice hunk of Ash the other day ... one solid board about 1 7/8 by about 10 1/2 by a little over 8 feet. There's six sections at 16 1/4 each, so if I cherry pick the grain matches, I'll get three Tele blanks at 16 by 13. But, I'll probably just select one set for optimum grain match, and then join the other ones as close as I can. That way, I'll get four blanks. I think I'm just a little short of making five ...

Here's the board before I cut it in half - one bad spot on the end on the left side that won't work, but otherwise, it's real solid:


And, here's a good look at some cool grain, after I cut it in half to make it more manageable in my store room:


My SkyCaster-building partner Paul and I are working on scheduling some time to make some bodies. He's almost there - just has to finish a restore of a rolltop desk he's doing! Maybe in a couple weeks I'll get him going. Our plan is to build a batch of simple, vintage-style bodies based on the T.Downs plan templates we made and see what we've got! Since my weakness is the finish work - clear-coating and finish sanding especially - four should be some good practice!

This is gonna be fun!

[martyb1]

Good luck.As far as finishing goes,practice practice practice.It's amazing the difference between the first one I did and the recent ones.Cool grain on that stuff.Ash is great to work with but sucks when it comes time to grain fill

[jwells393]

If you're making templates from the Terry Downs drawing, make sure you're using Revision D ........... not Revision B. Revision B prints out a little undersized.

After struggling with the grain filling on my last project I think I finally figured it out. Fill ...... scrape ...... sand to bare wood ... repeat two or three times until you have a smooth flat surface.

[BAW4742]

Originally Posted by jwells393

After struggling with the grain filling on my last project I think I finally figured it out. Fill ...... scrape ...... sand to bare wood ... repeat two or three times until you have a smooth flat surface.

I'm having a struggle with grain filler too. Do you seal the wood before filling or fill over bare wood?

I've done both ways with mixed results.

[Mark-00255]

Looks like I'll have to mail order some grain filler as there is exactly no goop to be found in any hardware stores around here. Even the little store where I bought the wood, which routinely stocks a nice supply of hardwoods and unusual woods, the clerk looked at me like I was goofy - what isn't far off, BTW. The guy said something like, "Haven't seen any of that in about 20 years."

Any Seattle TDPRI'rs out there know of a local supply? Thanks,

[Califiddler]

From the title of the thread, I thought that this was going to be a discussion of E.D.

[e-merlin]

I thought it was going to be a non-wood build. This is much better.

[tonewoods]

Any idea of what species of ash that is, Mark-00255?

Any chance of it being Oregon Ash?

How's the weight?

Thanks...

[reddogbass]

Any Seattle TDPRI'rs out there know of a local supply? Thanks,

http://www.rockler.com/blog/index.cfm?commentID=164

Not Seattle, but local none the less. Take a quick drive north to Seattle, Tukwilla, or Sumner. This Crystallac is good stuff. However I've had good luck with MinWax "Wood Hardener" as a grain filler, and it's available at Home Depot, etc.

On the other hand, if you are going with a natural rather than an opaque finish, I think the grain showing in the final product looks quite nice. It depends on how much grain you want to hide in the final clear coats. So, if you want grian showing- skip the grain filler. If you decide to use a filler, make sure it's clear if going with a natural finish.

[Mark-00255]

E.D. - LOL! The only comment I'll make is that I hate the way the Cialis commercial co-opted a perfectly good, old blues lick in the music on their commercial. Aargh!

reddogbass - thanks for the tip! Sumner is relatively close to Oly - about 40 minutes. I'll check it out! And may check out the Minwax as well ... I didn't use grain filler on the cedar for my SkyCaster, just used straight Wipe-on Poly (although I used some Binzzer Shellac that I sanded back down to wood before using the Poly and I'm sure that functioned as a sealer somewhat). I totally love the natural finish I got on the cedar, but on at least a couple of these bodies I want to go for a smoother, more professional surface. That's the next step in my skill-building, for sure.

tonewoods - I don't know the species, but the 8 ft. board uncut was a beast. I'm a little worried about how heavy the bodies will be, but it's way too early to tell.

[Trimmed&Burnin]

Hey Mark, you can always chamber it and bookmatch some of that nice grain. It looks like you have plenty.