Refinish on one of my Warmoth builds

If you can be patient, just let it sit for a week or weeks.
Dry time and cure time are two different things.
I did a few dozen coats of Tru-oil on my walnut explorer with an airbrush.

Smooth as glass after a few days so I put it all together.
Weeks later, all the open grain sank in.
I like the way it looks, but it definitely changed after curing for a while.

BTW, that flame looks spectacular. (y)
 
fitz said:
If you can be patient, just let it sit for a week or weeks.
Dry time and cure time are two different things.
I did a few dozen coats of Tru-oil on my walnut explorer with an airbrush.

Smooth as glass after a few days so I put it all together.
Weeks later, all the open grain sank in.
I like the way it looks, but it definitely changed after curing for a while.

BTW, that flame looks spectacular. (y)
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It has actually smoothed out some since my rant earlier. All this time I had been doing very thin coats and wiping off as much as I could after each coat. I had done about 30 coats that way. This morning out of frustration I did a thicker coat and I didn’t wipe it after. I was just trying to get rid of a few dull spots that had started to show after the last 4or 5 coats I did. Well it seems to have worked and I jumped the gun earlier thinking I was stuck with the streaking. The thicker coat is now smoothing out the longer it sits so I feel much better about it now.

Even so, I don’t think I’ll ever try to do tru oil on maple again.
 
DirtySteve said:
It has actually smoothed out some since my rant earlier. All this time I had been doing very thin coats and wiping off as much as I could after each coat. I had done about 30 coats that way. This morning out of frustration I did a thicker coat and I didn’t wipe it after. I was just trying to get rid of a few dull spots that had started to show after the last 4or 5 coats I did. Well it seems to have worked and I jumped the gun earlier thinking I was stuck with the streaking. The thicker coat is now smoothing out the longer it sits so I feel much better about it now.

Even so, I don’t think I’ll ever try to do tru oil on maple again.
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Let it sit for like two weeks hated area, then wet sand with like 1500 and then buff it out.
 
I appreciate all the advice, I really do, but I’m done with it. I just have too much on my mind right now and I just don’t want to mess with it any more. It really does look pretty good as long as you aren’t actually looking for flaws.

The 5 foot rule applies here, if you can’t see anything wrong from 5 feet away it’s good! :celebrate:
 
DirtySteve said:
I appreciate all the advice, I really do, but I’m done with it. I just have too much on my mind right now and I just don’t want to mess with it any more. It really does look pretty good as long as you aren’t actually looking for flaws.

The 5 foot rule applies here, if you can’t see anything wrong from 5 feet away it’s good! :celebrate:
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I can see why you have a lot on your mind if you are moving.

I would like to do something with maple, I kind of like the idea of black dye sanded back and clear nitro but you have experience I have not even begun to have refinishing.
 
Just got caught up with this thread. The new finish looks very nice… (y) . Protect the Tru-Oil finish with Flintz gun stock wax, it’s the best!

I’ve finished a couple guitars in Tru Oil, but they were both mahogany. However, I’ve applied a Tru Oil finish to a hard rock maple neck and it came out way better than expected: glossy and smooth. I’ll have to go back to some of its photos and saved documents to figure out what exactly I did to prep it and finish it.
 
syscokid said:
I’ll have to go back to some of its photos and saved documents to figure out what exactly I did to prep it and finish it.
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I think this was the finishing schedule:
Sand the maple neck up to 800 grit.
Apply 5 or 6 super thin coats of Tru Oil, and let dry about 4 hours in between coats.
Apply 2 or 3 more coats of Tru Oil diluted with mineral spirits (50-50?).
Cure for 2 weeks.

This is the old video that got me started on this technique:
 
syscokid said:
I think this was the finishing schedule:
Sand the maple neck up to 800 grit.
Apply 5 or 6 super thin coats of Tru Oil, and let dry about 4 hours in between coats.
Apply 2 or 3 more coats of Tru Oil diluted with mineral spirits (50-50?).
Cure for 2 weeks.

This is the old video that got me started on this technique:
Click to expand...

Thanks for posting that, I've seen that video before, that's where I learned the blue shop towel trick. They really do work better than anything else I've tried. I forgot about the mineral spirit trick though, since it's so easy I think I'll go ahead and do a couple of coats like that tomorrow just to see what happens.

I don't know about that last step. I've never let any of my builds sit for more than a couple of days before I start putting them together. I'm too impatient. I will admit that I have had hardware push into the finish a little bit, but I didn't notice until I removed something, like tuners or a neck plate or something that has to be really tight.
 
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Well that didn't work. It looked horrible after doing a thinned coat. So I took some steel wool to it and knocked the shine off and then did a couple of full strength coats without wiping them off and it's looking a lot better. I'll do a couple of more coats tomorrow and then call it done.
 
Oh yeah, this is going to be much better to look at now. I'm going to let it dry for a couple of more days before I put it all back together but I went ahead and bolted the neck on to see how it looks and it's perfect, just what I was going for. :yesway:

rbBt3wg.jpg
 
Mr. Potato Head said:
That looks great! What pickups you using?
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I'm not exactly sure. I had a Wolftone Fenris in it before and it sounded great, but I have a Planet Tone Defiance pickup that I really like (it's in my LP Tribute right now) and I'm thinking I might try it in there first. For the neck pickup it'll depend on what pairs best with the bridge pickup I choose. I have a Firebird mini hb clone that I like, but I also have a mini hb size P-90 that sounds really good, too. I'm just not sure yet, I'll probably experiment a little before I decide which ones I like best.

I don't get along with neck pickups very well, for me it comes down to what ever sounds best in the middle position with both pickups on. If I could do it over again, I wouldn't have had a neck pickup in this one. In the end it might end up being just a dummy.
 
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She's done! Man it's good to have her up and running again, I took it apart probably a year ago, maybe more, I forgot how much I like playing this guitar.

Anyway, here's the before shot again for comparison.

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Sorry for the lowzy pics, don't know why I can't get decent pics, but here she is now.

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