Official Luthiers Forum!

Figured mahogany with a red spruce top and bracing. 25.4" scale. Ebony FB and brazilian bridge and headcap. Tortoise bindings. Waverly tuners, my first use of these and I love them.

Learned a bunch. Hate the filler, it went grey on me, and hate the inlay. Otherwise I am pretty happy. Sounds nice and the action is sweet! I am getting different inlays for my guitars going forward and better pore filler.

Nice. Tortoise binding with mahogany is a great looking combination. Is the mahogany on the back as curly as the sides?

_________________
Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Thanks! I really like the tortoise binding too. This is my first time using plastic bindings and it was so much easier than wood!

The back is pretty figured.

What did you use for filler? I know it's not what you want to hear but you could redo the inlay if you hate it, you could even refinish it. Otherwise if sounds good and it plays well then so be it, move on to the next one. That is killer looking Mahogany for sure. Would love to see a pick of the back.

Agreed, the tortoise shell binding does look good on mahogany.

Unfortunate choice on the filler. It really degrades from the primo wood you used. You always should use filler that is much darker than the wood. You can mix colors into the filler to make it dark brown or black which usually works well for hardwoods.

That's a real shame. I know what I would do.

_________________
Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

I had exactly the same gray color come up on a fill using a Mohawk(I think) oil based filler - I colored it but it dried a lot lighter then it looked like it would and I ended up with the gray color. Lesson learned, again, test on scrap! I took it off (well almost all of it) with lacquer thinner (a real PITA) and refinished it.

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Thanks for the nice comments everyone!

I agree about the filler. I am lazy and don't want to refinish the guitar so it will stay grey from here on out. I don't build for anyone but me so I am moving on.

How does one color filler? I am using the oil based behlens por-o-pac filler. I tried to color it black and it looked black for a while but went grey under finish. I will not make that mistake again.

That's probably the same filler I used. I also didn't put enough color in it although it sure looked dark to me. I just changed fillers and went with Timbermate that already was dark colored and I also went to a shellac finish instead of the original lacquer so no help on getting the Behlen's oil-based colored properly. I would contact Behlen and ask them - they have always been helpful to me.

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

I will get in touch with Behlens. Thanks!

Man that sucks, I would be pretty upset if that happened to me. I can't imagine why that would happen but maybe some sort of chemical reaction from the color dye and the top coats? Did the topcoat you use recommend a filler that works with their product? What finish did you use?

For mahogany I always used good old tried and true oil based fillers but I have never tried to color them. Lately I have been using CA as a filler and it's so far been the best filler I've ever used.

Saw this one on reddit. Still looks great even on this forum

I hope you can get the grain filler things worked out, always sucks when that kind of thing happens.

Very nice build!

Others may not agree, but I have had good results with Z-Poxy...

_________________
Steve Sollod (pronounced sorta like "Solid")
www.swiftcreekguitars.com

+1. And it does an incredible job of popping the figure. I haven't had a reason to try anything else.

Beautiful guitar. I really think you'll want to refinish it someday to take full advantage of that beautiful mahogany.

Blake, Can we see the back?

_________________
Steve Sollod (pronounced sorta like "Solid")
www.swiftcreekguitars.com

I color oil or water based fillers with UTCs (universal tint colorants). These are the pigment based colors that are added to paint at the paint store. Some paint stores will sell you UTC.

The error a lot of people make is adding dye (like Stew-Mac's ColorTone Liquid Stains) to filler. This type of color does not really mix in and the color will revert back to the original color of the filler.

I usually use a dark chocolate brown filler on mahogany and a very black/brown filler on rosewood.