Finish

Most of my woodwork is finished using Danish oil. This finish is easy to apply, waterproof, durable and (as has been proven) easy to repair. If care is taken to avoid and remove and dust when preparing the surface, it provides a lovely, soft, semi-gloss sheen, enhancing the grain figure.

Before the application of the finish the body and neck were rubbed down with progressively finer grades of glasspaper. A final ‘burnish’ was carried out with 00000 grade steel wool. This cleaned the wood up so effectively that reflections could clearly be seen in it.

To apply the finish the parts were taken home, away from the dust of the workshop (into the dust of home!). The neck and body were suspended from a clothes rail using bent, plastic coated wire.

The neck was finished first, being simply oiled. The fingerboard was accurately masked off, pushing the tape down along the edges of the frets using a thumbnail. The nut area was also masked to allow for gluing. Any dust was removed with a soft cloth, then oil applied using squares cut from an old cotton t-shirt, using long, even strokes in the direction of the grain. Any excess was wiped off immediately. Each coat was left to dry overnight then the 00000 wire wool was used to gently flat the surface and remove any settled dust. This was repeated until five coats had been applied. The neck was then wrapped in bubble wrap again and placed on one side.

The body was stained using Liberon Palette wood dye. This proved to provide the biggest headache of the whole project. I had decided that thin, even coats would be best. The first coat went on beautifully, and was left overnight to dry. Applying a second caused me to sweat a little as it started to remove areas of the first. Unfortunately there was no going back and I had to even the finish up as best as possible. Application of a third coat helped, and I managed to get the black quite even. It does not hide the grain of the mahogany, and any unevenness remaining actually helps the ‘retro’ look, suggesting that this brand new instrument is, in fact, well played (Relic-ed!). Phew!

The body was then Danish oiled in the same way as the neck, and the two were then waxed using Renaissance micro-crystalline wax (as used by the conservation department at the British Museum!). This is very easy to apply and almost eliminates the finger mark problems associated with black guitars. It is not cheap but is worth the expense.

All that remained now was the immensely satisfying job of final assembly, allowing the finished product to be seen in its full glory for the first time. A Hiscox Lightflite Strat case was bought, and turned out to be a perfect fit, despite my worries about body thickness.

The completed guitar was again taken into the Sevenoaks Guitar Centre for Julian to do a final set-up. Initially Ernie Ball strings were used, but these have now been replaced with my usual choice of Maxima Golds.