# #6: TAM100 + M80M = ?



## jwade (Apr 17, 2016)

I've been slowly building myself an 8 string. I didn't see any point in throwing huge amounts of money at Ibanez for something I can build myself, so I'm working on a guitar that bridges the TAM100 and the M80M. I started this awhile ago, but due to limited access to tools combined with added responsibility/hours at work has led to this being a slow process. There have been a couple hiccups along the way, but it's been a good learning experience.

*Specs*:

29.4" 8 string, 22 frets
5 piece neck (three pieces of wenge with two 0.125 inch quilted maple laminates) with bookmatched flamed maple headplate cut from the top used on the body
ebony fingerboard w/maple purfling and ebony binding
basswood body
bookmatched flamed maple top w/bent forearm bevel
single volume knob (gold w/fancy top)
Hipshot fixed bridge, black base, gold saddles
Gotoh tuners, exact model as on the TAM100. Gold w/pearl buttons.
*
Undecided aspects*:

*Inlays*. I had planned to do flamed maple block inlays, but from what I've read, it sounds as though it may be exceptionally difficult to have the maple not end up affected badly by the ebony dust during the fb radius process. I've found a semi-local source for MOP, but having never worked with the material before, it's a bit of a question mark. 
*
Pickup(s)*. I love the way the Meshuggah guitars look with only a bridge pickup, but since I decided on doing only 22 frets (not overly interested in much lead work, I'm primarily a rhythm type), I feel like the guitar could benefit visually from having a neck pickup. I've only ever had one guitar with a middle pickup, and I didn't use it at all, and found it to be frequently in the way. So, I don't think I'll be bothering with a middle single coil like the TAM. I think the best options here would be to have either a single coil or normal humbucker for the neck, but as I understand it, the single coil Ionizer isn't well-suited to being used on it's own. more research needed, clearly.
*
Controls*. This depends on the pickup decision. If I do go with a neck pickup, that will necessitate a bit more complexity, but if I do stick with doing the bridge pickup alone, that'll be dead easy to decide on. I'll be using a single volume regardless of the amount of pickups, but if I do go with only the bridge, I'll have a mini-switch to do a coil-tap of some sort.

Anyway, it's late and I'm rambling. Here are some photos of the process/where I'm at currently:


Some of you commented on the top in the 'What's on your workbench' thread, some suggested placing the body outline higher, but I chose to go the route I did specifically to have the headplate match the body. If I do the wood block inlays, they'll be cut from this same top.






No shots from the body blank glueup, nor getting the shape cut out. Typical bandsaw/spindle sander action before pre-routing wiring channels. One idea I had near the beginning was to get a single coil middle Ionizer and have it placed quite near to the bridge pickup, sort of like Stephen Carpenters sigs. Hence the additional wiring rout near the bridge hb channel.





First real setback. I made a thread about it. Long story short, glued everything, cut scarf, glued that, the wood shifted and was no longer square. I came across one of Knightro's posts on projectguitar showing a method of undoing a scarf, and it worked perfectly. Just needed a little bit of sanding after the fact and a quick meeting with a jointer/planer, and it was good to go.





For the top, I left it a bit thicker than I should've to try bending over the bevel. I also made a thread about this topic. 









The moisture method proved to be fairly easy, albeit a bit more drawn-out than I had thought it would be. Bottom picture is after something like 12 hours later I think. I re-soaked the towel with scalding hot water every few hours.





After a couple days of using light clamping combined with the frequent re-soaking of the towel, I got to this point. The top is a hair over 0.25", so it took awhile to get it bent this much.





Finally glued and clamped it. Do you see my mistake? That's right, somehow completely forgot to use cauls and directly clamped the top. It stained the wood. Also, I should've done a bit more of the moisture work, as clamping it caused some minor grain separation  Ah well, hopefully, I can get some of the marks out, or hide them while finishing. I've made a dust/wood glue paste to attempt to fill the separated areas, I've not got a picture handy but I think it worked out mostly. I'd say the moisture bending method was fairly successful.









Here's a shot of the fingerboard after gluing the binding. I'd made a thread about gluing many pieces of binding/purfling, but ended up only going with one piece of purfling w/the binding after all.





So here's a shot of the result of my method for doing truss rods. I set up a fence on a router table and do 3-4 passes to get to depth. Then I switch to a round nose router bit (something like this) to end up at this point.





One negative aspect is the gap it leaves if you glue the fb at this point, so I made a couple little fill-in pieces. 









Moving on to the body, I've gotten the belly carve and the lower horn scoop done. I always see people badmouthing basswood, but in my opinion, basswood is ****ing gorgeous. The grain on mine looks like butterscotch or something.










Here's a couple shots better showing my extremely high-tech work bench, or I guess I should say 'work deck'.





















Anyway, here's the result of a couple hours of carving/scraping/sanding/frequent breaks to stop the landlord's dogs from freaking out at my cats wandering around outside:









Bonus shot, everybody getting along for once:





Anyway, once I get the little truss pieces finished/cut flush, I'll get the fb glued and get the headstock plate glued down, and hopefully by then I'll have sorted out what I'm doing about inlays.


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## J_Mac (Apr 17, 2016)

Superb. Looking forward to more updates dude! \m/


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## Hywel (Apr 17, 2016)

Man that bound fretboard looks great.


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## Slunk Dragon (Apr 17, 2016)

Nice! Loving the progress so far.


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## Steinmetzify (Apr 17, 2016)

Looking forward to updates man. Cool project and I'm stoked to see it done!


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## dankarghh (Apr 19, 2016)

Excellent work and very much looking forward to watch progress. I'm about to start a fanned 8 build myself and i'm prettyyy excited.


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## nutsock (Apr 19, 2016)

Looking good. Is there a thread on the Iceman?


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## jwade (Apr 19, 2016)

Yep! http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/lu...ram-already-progress-seven-string-iceman.html


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## metale (Apr 20, 2016)

Subscribed!


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## MoonJelly (Apr 22, 2016)

Seconded, basswood is sexy awesome. I think some people knock it because it dents easily.


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## jwade (Apr 22, 2016)

I really can't wait to get some oil/finish on it. Should be able to make a lot of progress on the neck this week, hopefully I can decide what to do about the inlays, should be getting the headplate glued up, headstock shaped, fb glued down, and some preliminary neck shaping happening. A simultaneous bit of Iceman progress will be happening, I've just got to get the neck knocked down to a more manageable thickness and I should have the shaping finished midweek.


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## TamanShud (Apr 23, 2016)

This combo is gonna turn out so good, a single pickup TAM with a real scale length  What are you planning on for finish on that maple?


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## metale (Apr 24, 2016)

You could have a neck single coil wound by someone (SD custom shop, Oil City UK, etc) to your specs.


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## jwade (Apr 24, 2016)

The finish will be nitro, I'm waiting for white lacquer to show up from a semi-local supplier. As I've only ever done a clear nitro finish previously, I'm unsure as to what results I'll be able to achieve, but my hope is to use a small bit of tint to get a more greyish blue finish than the TAM had.


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## jwade (Jul 21, 2016)

I haven't had access to a ship in a few months now, so there's not much in the way of updates. I've got the neck profile probably 90% done, just rasping/scraping away in the yard. Had a short burst of shop time offered to me yesterday, so I got my neck pocket routed:


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## lewis (Jul 22, 2016)

that neck is pure sex /\


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## Dust_to_Dust (Jul 22, 2016)

Dat neck!


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## jwade (Jul 22, 2016)

Spent a few minutes getting the end of the neck heel rounded over. Just about there!


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## MoonJelly (Jul 23, 2016)

Really missing that like button


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## Tonejunkie (Jul 23, 2016)

I wish I had your skills


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## pondman (Jul 23, 2016)

Lots of likey for this one 

Where did the likes go ?


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## jwade (Jul 24, 2016)

Thanks all! I'm getting pretty excited, incremental progress happening is nice. One 'mistake' I'll have to live with is f***ing up my math on the scarf joint. I ended up with the laminates showing up past the volute, and I sort of hate the way it looks at the moment. So, I'm going to do a thin flame maple veneer for the back of the headstock to cover the volute. Won't be perfect, but it should make it palatable again


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## Slunk Dragon (Jul 27, 2016)

That's part of the game with woodworking, the strange little (or occasionally major) goofs you run into along the way.

Keep it up, dude! Still eager to see this one come to completion!


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## jwade (Jul 27, 2016)

So many little hiccups with this guitar. I've worked on it in a few different workshops, here at home on the deck/out in the yard, occasionally rushed trying to get further than I should've tried for due to a desire to make use of the limited time I've been able to weasel into shops for. 

I've not mentioned this yet, but the top shifted while I was getting it glued down. Shouldn't have been noticeable, but upon measuring and re-measuring and then measuring again, it appears that my neck pocket jig slipped about 2-3/32nds. So now, with the neck pocket being skewed slightly, the neck centreline won't line up with the top anymore. 

Super bummed. Not going to waste money on fancy tuners or block inlays anymore, and I'll probably skip the veneer on the back of the headstock now too. 

It's a big disappointment that this will be more of a mistake showcase than anything else, but I'm sure it'll be playable, and really the overall goal was A) more experience B) to keep going forward with building regardless of my lack of a workspace and C) to build an 8 string to get to spend as much as I want fiddling with to see if I even dig 8s. 

Ah well, fugly piece of .... instead of aesthetically pleasing, I guess it doesn't matter as long as it ends up playing decently.


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## Vrollin (Jul 28, 2016)

No issues of you are learning from your mistakes though! Why it just go for a solid colour on this one and then with all your lessons learnt do another build when you can?


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## neun Arme (Jul 28, 2016)

Why not fill the neck pocket with some wood and drill it again?


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## MoonJelly (Jul 28, 2016)

^ +1 to that. If the difference is <1/16th of an inch, you could probably even shim one side, and cut a 1/16th of the other side of the neck pocket. If you use the same maple from the top it could be slip-matched, virtually indiscernible.


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## neotronic (Jul 28, 2016)

jwade said:


> So many little hiccups with this guitar. I've worked on it in a few different workshops, here at home on the deck/out in the yard, occasionally rushed trying to get further than I should've tried for due to a desire to make use of the limited time I've been able to weasel into shops for.
> 
> I've not mentioned this yet, but the top shifted while I was getting it glued down. Shouldn't have been noticeable, but upon measuring and re-measuring and then measuring again, it appears that my neck pocket jig slipped about 2-3/32nds. So now, with the neck pocket being skewed slightly, the neck centreline won't line up with the top anymore.
> 
> ...




Hi,

I still think the guitar has potential to look good.

One craftsman I respected once told me, that the difference between good craftsman and a bad one is how well he can cover up his mistakes. Because everyone does them from time to time. Even the best...

Now you have unique opportunity to learn to cover up some minor .... ups without screwing up a guitar on purpose  And that is actually a good thing. I think.


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## benny (Jul 28, 2016)

You can widen the neck pocket and shim the sides with some scraps to get it all straight again. You've done too much good to turn a cold shoulder on the project.


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## jwade (Jul 29, 2016)

1/32nd out. 









Not sure how well it may go, but I should be able to get some basswood/maple shaped and glued in over the weekend. Hopefully I'll get a chance to use somebody's router soon to try to correct the pocket. 

I have a tendency to overreact to the various hiccups that occur, I was ready to just burn the body out in the yard


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## neun Arme (Jul 30, 2016)

Glad to see you changed your mind.


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## jwade (Dec 5, 2016)

So it turns out, my landlord's ex-husband left all sorts of tools when they split up, and she hadn't gone through the pile of his stuff in the corner. I offered to help clear out the garage so we'd have more space, and found an almost new plunge router.

Which let me get back to my various builds. This afternoon ended up being pretty productive.




















Neck pocket re-routed successfully. MOP block inlays are currently in Chicago at a USPS processing facility. Fingers crossed I don't get raped with annoying customs charges!


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## jwade (May 5, 2017)

I should probably try to remember to update these various threads. I've made a substantial bunch of progress on the Iceman and this one. I glued on a faceplate, finished shaping the neck profile, drilled holes for the the neck bolts, drilled the various necessary holes for the Hipshot bridge and on Wednesday, I drilled the holes for the tuners. 

I strung it up (even though I've not done inlays/radiusing/frets) with a dummy nut to check things out, and it seems pretty solid. Playing without frets is weird, strongly dislike it but it's definitely nice to have hardware on and try it out. 











click for a quick & crappy video^


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## J_Mac (May 8, 2017)

LIKE LIKE LIKE!

Epic work man.


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## lewis (Feb 23, 2018)

Ive added this to my watch thread list so i never forget, or miss updates again haha

keen to see this finished.


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## skeels (Feb 23, 2018)

skeels likes this


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## jwade (Feb 23, 2018)

To provide an update, I have a pickup ordered (Ionizer white/white with gold polepieces). I've also done a bit of practice on a scrap piece of ebony, and will be getting the block inlays routed and the fretboard radiused soon. 

I have to order one more gold tuner (I'm using a 4+3 set that I originally ordered for the Iceman 7 build), and find a source for pearloid/mop buttons that will work with the gotoh tuners I ordered from Stewmac.

Otherwise, I have some experimenting with dye to do to try to approximate the TAM100s finish.

Fingers crossed!


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## jwade (Mar 31, 2018)

Snagged some ferrules off of eBay, waiting on a bass string set of ferrules for the lowest 2 strings. 

Also, the pickup arrived Thursday. 





Closer and closer.


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## J_Mac (Mar 31, 2018)

jwade said:


> Otherwise, I have some experimenting with dye to do to try to approximate the TAM100s finish.
> 
> Fingers crossed!



Are you staining white then? Gonna bleach it first? I’m no expert, just curious about white stains.

Ok just read that back


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## jwade (Mar 31, 2018)

I have black aniline dye I'm going to use, diluted a bit and then I have a matte white nitro lacquer I'll be spraying a bit of.


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## Walshy (Apr 1, 2018)

Really nice work. Wenge necks are lovely and have a very distinctive tone.

Great effort on putting the cap over the forearm contour, but in future, you can try doing some relief cuts (2mm routing channels in this case on the underside - ) to make the bend a lot easier. Obviously don't make the cuts all the way to the outside edge of the top and leave about 10mm or so.

Tell me about the clamping issue as well - done that a couple of times! I highly recommend making some spool clamps for doing tops to ensure no glue line around the edge. It's a half-day project and well worth your while. Loads of guides on doing them on YT. Use cork to soften the faces and you're good to go. You'll need around 40 to cover the outside edge of a superstrat like that. I bought two pine curtain poles to make mine and it worked really well.


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## jwade (Apr 2, 2018)

I had debated using the relief cut method, but decided to try just using moisture and pressure on this one. In the future, I will definitely be making relief cuts! As for the clamps, I've been planning to make an bunch of those & cam clamps as well eventually.


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## BigViolin (Apr 18, 2018)

Really digging this one and am looking forward to how the finish comes out. Cool build!


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## jwade (Oct 13, 2018)

So, I haven’t had the time/money to work on any of my projects in a long while. Very little progress has been made, but I did buy a wider radius sanding block online and got the fb radius done.

I sanded the fb up to 600 and it looks dope. I sanded the back of the neck up to 320 and something annoying is happening. There are distinct, overly noticeable grain pattern ‘valleys’ happening. I’m not sure how to solve this. I had planned to just use Danish Oil on the neck, but I don’t think I’ll enjoy feeling all these valleys/uneven bits.

Any advice on how to remedy this? I tried a few google searches but there’s about 500 conflicting methods to finishing a wenge neck, but I can’t find anyone addressing the same issue I’m having.


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## J_Mac (Oct 14, 2018)

jwade said:


> So, I haven’t had the time/money to work on any of my projects in a long while. Very little progress has been made, but I did buy a wider radius sanding block online and got the fb radius done.
> 
> I sanded the fb up to 600 and it looks dope. I sanded the back of the neck up to 320 and something annoying is happening. There are distinct, overly noticeable grain pattern ‘valleys’ happening. I’m not sure how to solve this. I had planned to just use Danish Oil on the neck, but I don’t think I’ll enjoy feeling all these valleys/uneven bits.
> 
> Any advice on how to remedy this? I tried a few google searches but there’s about 500 conflicting methods to finishing a wenge neck, but I can’t find anyone addressing the same issue I’m having.


Grain filler?


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## jwade (Oct 14, 2018)

I think I used the wrong terminology here. I should’ve described it as ‘pits’. I took some photos to show it. I don’t think grain filler will fill these weird dips:


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## KnightBrolaire (Oct 14, 2018)

the grain structure of wenge is pretty coarse, you can definitely grain fill that. i used grain filler on a swamp ash body so it'll def work for wenge


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## jwade (Oct 14, 2018)

Awesome, thanks guys! I was worried I’d have to shave the whole down a lot more to even everything out. I don’t know much about grain filling, I’ve got to do some research and get the right type for wenge. 

But in other news, in the next couple days I’m going to be routing the pickup cavity and hopefully try staining the body. I think I need to mask the sides of the top to stop it from leeching into the basswood, but I’m finding a lot of conflicting info on how exactly to best prevent the bleed through.


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## KnightBrolaire (Oct 14, 2018)

jwade said:


> Awesome, thanks guys! I was worried I’d have to shave the whole down a lot more to even everything out. I don’t know much about grain filling, I’ve got to do some research and get the right type for wenge.
> 
> But in other news, in the next couple days I’m going to be routing the pickup cavity and hopefully try staining the body. I think I need to mask the sides of the top to stop it from leeching into the basswood, but I’m finding a lot of conflicting info on how exactly to best prevent the bleed through.


get some frog tape and vinyl pinstriping tape. between those 2 nothing should really bleed through, though you could always brush on sanding sealer or something too. experiment.


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## jwade (Jan 13, 2019)

KnightBrolaire said:


> get some frog tape and vinyl pinstriping tape. between those 2 nothing should really bleed through, though you could always brush on sanding sealer or something too. experiment.



Would either of those kinds of tape stop the stain from staining the actual side of the maple top? Like leave a sort of faux-natural binding?


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## KnightBrolaire (Jan 13, 2019)

jwade said:


> Would either of those kinds of tape stop the stain from staining the actual side of the maple top? Like leave a sort of faux-natural binding?


they do a very good of protecting the edge between the two. if you're super paranoid then brush some sealer onto the edges before taping


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## jwade (Feb 24, 2022)

Jeez, time can really get away from you. I actually have an update for once.

I dug out the plunge router and got the pickup cavity routed. Have to plan out the control cavity, and I'm going to do some dye tests on offcuts.






I'm ordering a string ferrule block soon, and have to finish fretting the neck, but I've gotten back to a point where I'm enjoying the process and not stressing about anything.

Also, I did a few coats of minwax wipeon poly on the back of the neck, and refined the volute to fix the earlier visual issue:


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## noise in my mind (Feb 24, 2022)

WOW! Amazing work dude!


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## Jeffrey Bain (Feb 24, 2022)

Gooooood lord that's coming out awesome! Can't wait to see it completed


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## dmlinger (Feb 26, 2022)

Very nice! Really dig this build. Those "pits" in the neck look like when you use a scraper and it isn't sharp. It will dig into the grain and cause deep pockets like that, rather than cutting fine shavings. You should be able to sand it out if you haven't already. 

Killer work, man!


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## jwade (Mar 15, 2022)

I've been doing a bit of dye testing on scraps, and I think I'm getting close to the TAM100s finish:

Under the white, the left half is a 1/3rd strength black aniline dye, the right is a full strength mix. I'm going to sand back very slightly with 400 after work and see how it looks. I might make a 1/2 strength aniline mix for the base layer, and then a slightly less strong mix of the white. 

Unsure what I'll use as a protective coat, maybe a wipe on poly if it doesn't add too much of a tint.


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## CanserDYI (Mar 15, 2022)

Aw fuck this is straight up the coolest thing I've seen on here since @pondman went nuts and did the last round of insanity.


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## BlackMastodon (Mar 15, 2022)

Woah, maybe I missed it but what are you using for the white? That test piece looks amazing!


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## CanserDYI (Mar 15, 2022)

BlackMastodon said:


> Woah, maybe I missed it but what are you using for the white? That test piece looks amazing!


I dont think he's using a white, It looks to me just to be a very light piece of maple with greyscale blacks over top, sanded back. Definitely does seem to be whitish though, you could be right.

EDITED BECAUSE I'M DUMB: Yes, he's using a white


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## jwade (Mar 15, 2022)

It's titanium dioxide powder mixed with water. I did a 1 to 2 ratio but I think I'll go with more water to keep it a bit thinner. More tests to come, but it feels like I'm on the right track here.

Edit: here's how it looked before I did the white coat:


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