Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi I'm new here.

I hope you guys aren't opposed to helping out a solid body electric
builder

I am building a guitar with a cocobolo cap on magogony body. I've heard
of the problems associated with Cocobolo only after buying the wood. I
read several posts here about the methods of gluing this oily wood, but
have yet to hear how people are finishing their Coco projects. Is nitro
laquer the only choice for finishing?

I was originally planning on using Tru-Oil since I heard this was the
easiest to get good results from. I have read that this will never dry on
the coco. I love oil's matte finish, so I would like to have a similar look
and feel if possible. Is it possible to use a sealer like epoxy and still use
oil?

I guess I'm interested in hearing what you guys have tried and either had
success with or failed with.

I'm finishing a cocobolo solid body electric guitar right now. I sealed the wood with shellac, then sprayed lacquer without a grain filler. On the next one I will use a filler, because it took too many coats of lacquer to level it.
Once your filler coat is down, use anything compatible with shellac.
You may want to try Tru-oil over shellac on a piece of scrap, but I think it will work just fine.
BTW I accidentally got some Tru-oil on a cocobolo fretboard, and it hardened just fine, in fact I'm having trouble getting it off.
AlA Peebels38897.6570601852

Thanks Hesh.

I'm really impressed by the quality of work I've seen here. I can tell you
guys may come in handy as I work my way up to building accoustics. I
wanted to get atleast one solidbody under my belt since I'm pretty
inexperienced with woodworking.

What grain filler would work well with Coco? I've thought about G2 from
Lee Valley. I found out about it from your achieves. It's supposed to
work well with oily woods. I'm ofcourse assuming that an epoxy like that
would work as a filler. Any comments?

Someone suggested rubio mineral ground for pore filling also. It seems
like since it is mixed with water it wouldn't stick to the coco real well.

I really wonder how Important pore filler is on Coco, the piece I have is
pretty dense and smooth, you don't see open pores like on walnut and
mahog.DPool38897.9775231481

Daniel welcome.. Electrics are OK on this site. Just don't mention banjo's here. Oh the bad joke's you'll hear.

Welcome
Electric certainly welcome. There are a bunch of electric builders here. One
day I would like to build one!!!

I have build 4 cocobolo guitars with a 5th in construction. I have used cat.
urethane on all of them and they look awesome!!!!! Tony F did the finish for
me.   He did use an expoy pore filler.

Andyazimmer138898.001724537

_________________
Andy Z.
http://www.lazydogguitars.com

Welcome to the OLF Daniel!!! Good luck with your finishing schedule!

Serge

The pores are small, that is why I finished mine without a filler. The problem is that some parts of the wood seem to be more porus than others, and it's not apparent until the finish is going on. I had to level sand multiple times, and shot way more lacquer than I should have. Most of that got sanded right back off in the leveling process. I'll use epoxy filler on my next one.

Al

Great thanks for everyones help. BTW I love the jig section and inlay classes.
Good stuff!