Proud of BOB

I redid the finish on BOB 8 times.

The trouble came as a result of cutting the neck 5 hundredths too skinny. That meant having to build up width using finish, which is a laborious and at times frustrating process.

7 times frustrating, to be honest.

I loved the curly maple ripples, the black cherry and ash rings, the blackened beech with traces of yellow/orange lines running through… but my love was only good enough for the first 5 tries.

This epoxy, that epoxy, CA glue, Another epoxy, blach.

Then Dennis asked about BOB and I confessed it needed work, building up the neck. He loved the stick enough for me to keep going on it, and I finally found Solarez, and set up my finishing booth outside, with a heater, so I put the last coats of BOB on the other night while standing in snow while more fell from the sky, reaching into a 90 degree finishing booth, all out in the open air so I didn’t have to breathe the fumes…

I wanted to take video but my hands were numb.

Anyhow, I’m proud of BOB.

Finishing a stick used to flood the shop with fumes, take hours, have a high probability of containing mistakes that would necessitate redo’s, and sometimes, finishing went on day after day after day, same stick.

I’ve used 4 kinds of epoxy as base, plus CA glue as base. Epoxy as finish, CA finish, thin, medium, thick, tried each; and Solarez, which requires a UV booth to cure the finish. At last I’ve found the product and the process that will allow me to apply a finish, build it to any thickness I need, go on bubble-free and stink free, cure quickly, and with appropriate sanding and buffing, look like glass.

Solarez is the product. The process: repeated thin coats in 90 degree heat with a 90 second UV cure for each coat, preferably in the snowfall, at night, smoking and generally convinced life is grand.