(almost) finished five parers for myself. It's always easy to not finish stuff you're keeping for yourself (the three on the right need to be finish glazed and then bevel ground and sharpened, which is usually before handles).
The handles are gombeira - a monstrously hard and dense (denser than water) wood. The gloss finish on them is probably 3 drops of 2lb cut shellac (for the three on the right). Those three will turn uniformly dark brown like the others within a month and the color variation is just how deep the oxidation was before turning the handles (the blanks were previously roughed). Weird stuff - a crack with no light exposure will turn brown. light exposure will turn brown- everything seems to make it brown, but never to the center.
The two left handles are shellac only, but embracing modernity, I started sanding thin CA into the handles with very fine sandpaper, sanding it back and then applying finish. The objective is to get things done fast and not on and off of the lathe, but filling pores with shellac leads to pore shrink later and a cake of shellac and sawdust won't stay put unless the handles are pore filled and then finished the next day.
Three on the right are just in process and need bolsters ground down and then all of the grinding done after hardening and tempering (everything that looks like a bevel or final thickness is left until after hardening or they'll just turn into bananas when they're hardened).
Switching back to guitars soon - kind of itching to work more wood, and maybe some planes.
The handles are gombeira - a monstrously hard and dense (denser than water) wood. The gloss finish on them is probably 3 drops of 2lb cut shellac (for the three on the right). Those three will turn uniformly dark brown like the others within a month and the color variation is just how deep the oxidation was before turning the handles (the blanks were previously roughed). Weird stuff - a crack with no light exposure will turn brown. light exposure will turn brown- everything seems to make it brown, but never to the center.
The two left handles are shellac only, but embracing modernity, I started sanding thin CA into the handles with very fine sandpaper, sanding it back and then applying finish. The objective is to get things done fast and not on and off of the lathe, but filling pores with shellac leads to pore shrink later and a cake of shellac and sawdust won't stay put unless the handles are pore filled and then finished the next day.
Three on the right are just in process and need bolsters ground down and then all of the grinding done after hardening and tempering (everything that looks like a bevel or final thickness is left until after hardening or they'll just turn into bananas when they're hardened).
Switching back to guitars soon - kind of itching to work more wood, and maybe some planes.
). The tree took much longer than expected and I ran out if time, I want to re-turn the top 2 sections as they don't look quite right plus it's finished in sanding sealer! I'll sneak it back into the workshop in the new year.
