Ginger dyed and oiled a quilted maple kit for her grandson's birthday.Ā
Ginger did the staining and finishing, and her husband did the assembly. The guitar was a present for their grandson's birthday in September, so the clock was running from the day the box arrived.
The kit was our Mahogany body, Bolt-On Neck NI-style Guitar Kit with Quilted Maple Veneer: a solid mahogany double-cutaway body under a thin quilted maple top, a bolt-on maple neck with a maple fretboard and 24 frets, a 25.5-inch scale, two humbuckers with two volume, two tone controls, a 3-way toggle, and a black double-locking tremolo. We rate it Beginner, 4 out of 10.
The finished guitar: turquoise and blue dye under Tru-Oil, a maple neck left natural, and a teal headstock with Ginger's own decals. Courtesy of Ginger.
The finish went to plan. The bridge did not. And when it was done, she sent us her full build notes, in order, with everything she would have liked to know before she started. This article follows those notes.
Who did what, and in what order
Her biggest request was simple. She wanted an order of operations: do this first, then this. So here is the one she and her husband actually followed.
Practice the dye on scrap wood.
Sand the top, sides and back to 600 grit.
Dye the top, then the back and sides, then the face of the headstock.
Let the dye dry 24 hours, then blend the colors with 0000 steel wool.
Build up Tru-Oil on the body and neck, scuffing between batches of coats.
Add the waterslide decals and bury them in more oil.
Line the pickup and control cavities with copper foil.
Let the body cure two weeks, then polish and wax.
Fit the tuners and drill the holes for the back covers.
Mount the pickups and solder the connections.
Bolt on the neck.
Install the bridge, string it, balance the springs and set intonation.
Two choices in that list are worth copying. All the finishing happened before any hardware went on, so nothing had to come off later. And the neck stayed off until the bridge was ready. Ginger wondered in her notes how many first-time builders bolt the neck on as step one.
How do you dye a quilted maple top blue?
She practiced first. She bought pieces of poplar and tried her dyes on those before touching the kit. She used Angelus dyes, gloves, an old cut-up T-shirt as an applicator, and a sheet of cardboard as a work surface.
She sanded the maple top and the mahogany sides and back to 600 grit. The sides needed more sanding than the top. The top was already smooth and still took the dye well.
I used turquoise first on the whole top, then did the outline with a diluted regular blue (diluted the dye with 99% isopropyl alcohol) to do the burst.
She masked around the top while she worked on it, because she had not yet decided what color the back would be. In the end the back and sides got turquoise only. She masked the headstock too and dyed only its face. The headstock wood was the hardest part to get even. She found it took the dye unevenly because of the grain.
After 24 hours she blended the two blues with 0000 steel wool, then vacuumed up the fine steel fibers before sealing anything.
Dye is the right call on a figured top for a physical reason. A dye is dissolved color, so it soaks into the wood fibers and leaves them visible. Quilted maple looks three-dimensional because its fibers ripple and catch light at different angles. A pigment stain or paint sits on top as tiny solid particles and hides that ripple. Dye colors it and keeps it. Doug DeLuca and his son used the same logic on a blue burst over quilted maple.
Turquoise across the whole top, with diluted blue worked in at the edges for the burst. Courtesy of Ginger.
Mark's note: the quilted top on this kit is a veneer about half a millimeter thick, so sanding is where it can go wrong. Our guide to staining a veneer covers how far you can safely go.
How many coats of Tru-Oil does a guitar body need?
Ginger does not give a number for the body. Her notes say only that she used many coats. What she does give is the rhythm: thin coats applied with gloved hands, and a light scuff with 1600-grit paper after every five or six. She worked in a dry, air-conditioned house, so each coat dried quickly. She had already tested Tru-Oil on a small table before trusting it with the guitar.
The neck got the same approach with far fewer coats. Two days in, while the oil was still easy to remove, she cleaned it off the frets with a tool she made herself: 3000-grit paper glued to an emery board, stiff enough to control and flexible enough to follow the fret. After four days of drying she buffed the neck lightly with 0000 steel wool for a satin feel, then polished it with Plastx and finished with carnauba car wax.
On the back she skipped grain filler on purpose. Mahogany has open pores, and filler would have leveled them into a smooth, glassy surface.
I wanted the wood grain to show on the back, so I didn't do a grain fill in the process. I didn't want a poured plastic finish. The maple veneer is very glossy and glassy with just the Tru Oil, and has a nice shimmer like water.
The two-week cure is the step she did not see coming. Tru-Oil feels dry to the touch long before it has cured all the way through, and polishing too early can leave it soft. Ginger let the body sit for two full weeks, then polished with Plastx and waxed. Steve Madden used the same oil, in thin coats, on his quilted top after six practice bodies.
The turquoise carries around the mahogany sides under the oil, and the quilt still moves in the light. Courtesy of Ginger.
Waterslide decals, buried in oil
The headstock carries two decals Ginger designed herself: her company name, Palmango, at the top, and KAI ULI OCEAN down the middle. She printed them on an inkjet, sealed them with four coats of acrylic spray, applied them, and then added micro coats of Tru-Oil until the decals melded into the oil underneath. She was happy with how they turned out.
The sealing step is the one to remember. Inkjet ink is water-soluble, so the acrylic coats keep it from running when the decal goes into water and when oil goes on top.
Shielding, tuners and pickups
With the finish cured, the build moved to her husband's side of the table. They lined the pickup and control cavities with copper foil and put vinyl sticker paper down where the potentiometers sit, to keep them from interfering with the copper.
One lesson came from the tuners: they come as left and right sets. Each also carries a number, which turned out to be a factory mold number, not an assembly hint. Once the tuners sat straight, they marked the screw holes with a marker, drilled with a 1/16-inch bit and a piece of tape on the bit as a depth stop, and waxed the screws before driving them. They marked the back-cover holes by tracing through the covers with a white pencil.
The humbuckers are angled, and that angle points toward the neck, which keeps the wires on the correct side. To mark the deep holes in the pickup frames, Ginger put masking tape on the body, sharpened a white pencil to a long taper to reach down and mark the tape, then drilled straight through the tape. They set pickup height last, using a video as their guide.
The wiring: two connections per pickup, and a stubborn ground
Most of the harness on this kit comes already soldered. Ginger's point is that a first-timer cannot tell that from a full diagram. Per pickup, there are only two joints to make: the hot wire to a lug on the potentiometer, and the ground to the metal body of the potentiometer. Then one black wire runs to the tremolo spring claw as the bridge ground.
Solder doesn't take well to a smooth pot casing. Her fix was a hot iron and a small spot roughed up with an emery board or a rotary tool first, so the solder had something to grip. The spring claw needed the same treatment.
Two humbuckers, two volume, two tone and a 3-way toggle, all in black against the blue finish. Courtesy of Ginger.
How do you level a floating tremolo that will not sit flat?
The bridge was the last job, and the one that takes the most patience on any build. A double-locking tremolo has a lot of moving parts: string blocks, fine tuners, and a set of springs in the back that hold the bridge in place. They learned it from videos, step by step. That included the battery trick, where a battery is wedged under the back of the bridge to hold it level while you string it. They also learned to set intonation and action. The string blocks went in with the dimple on the wrong side at first, which was an easy fix.
Leveling the bridge is where every floating tremolo asks for some tuning. It is a tug of war. Six strings pull the bridge forward, and the springs in the back cavity pull it back. When the two balance, the bridge sits level with the body. How much spring pull you need depends on your string gauge, your tuning and how you like the bridge to feel. So the springs get matched to the setup, not the other way around.
There are two ways to add pull: turn the claw screws in further, or change the springs. Ginger and her husband had already used up the room on the claw screws, so they moved to a stiffer spring set. They made one change at a time and checked the bridge after each, and the stiffer springs brought it level. That one-change-at-a-time habit is worth copying on any setup job.
With the bridge level, intonation was not far off.Ā
One last mod: matching back plates
After the guitar was finished, Ginger made one more change. She and her husband cut new covers for both back cavities from a single sheet of pickguard material, lined them with thin rigid cardboard, and fitted them so the back matches.
The back: turquoise dye over open-grain mahogany, no grain filler, and two homemade covers cut from one sheet of pickguard material. Courtesy of Ginger.
From the bench to a beach photoshoot
The guitar debuted at a beach photoshoot, which suits a top that looks like water. The kit is the same one anyone can order. The color, the decals, the matching back covers and the springs are theirs, and there will never be another one like it.
At the beach photoshoot, a top that looks like water. Courtesy of Ginger.The quilt catches the sun at the shoot. Courtesy of Ginger.
A good finish came from practicing first and waiting the full two weeks. A level bridge came from changing one part at a time. Both are habits, and both carry over to the next build.
Build the same kit Ginger and her husband started with
Our thanks to Ginger for sharing this build: the photos, the step-by-step notes, the bridge fix she found and reported back, and the honest list of what she would change.
Her kit is a mahogany body with a quilted maple top, a maple neck and a double-locking tremolo, ready for whatever color you choose.
Three quilted maple kits with the same bridge Ginger tamed
Each of these pairs a mahogany body and a quilted maple top with a double-locking tremolo, so the dye method and the spring fix in this article both apply.
Ginger's notes are exactly the kind of thing the next builder searches for late at night with a bridge that will not sit flat.
Whether you're planning your first build, experimenting with a custom finish, or creating a guitar that reflects your own artistic vision, we'd love to see what you're working on.
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Disclaimer: Guitar Kit World, operated by Maker Kit World LLC, is not connected with, affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Angelus, Tru-Oil or Plastx, or their makers. These names are used only to describe the products Ginger chose for her own build. The featured guitar is Ginger's one-off personal project, and the finish and the Palmango and KAI ULI OCEAN decals are her own work. Guitar Kit World does not make, sell or license them. We sell unassembled, unfinished guitar kits only, supplied unbranded. All trademarks belong to their respective owners.
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