DIY Celluloid Tortoise Knowledge Dump / Discussion

Talk about modding or building your own guitar from scratch.
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DeathJag
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Re: DIY Celluloid Spitfire Tortoise Knowledge Dump / Discussion

Post by DeathJag » Wed Aug 24, 2022 11:00 am

Oh man thanks so much for the offer but I don't have pick guard cutting skills! They're the coolest looking pick guards I've ever seen. If another user wants to cut one I'll pay, and I'd definitely pay you for the sheet!

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Re: DIY Celluloid Spitfire Tortoise Knowledge Dump / Discussion

Post by LVC » Wed Aug 24, 2022 11:44 am

Totally agree with DeathJag, these look very cool in their own way.

I'm curious about what it would look like with other colors... Brown/beige/orange might look like the surface of Jupiter!

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Re: DIY Celluloid Spitfire Tortoise Knowledge Dump / Discussion

Post by glennleaguesny » Wed Aug 24, 2022 11:48 am

DeathJag wrote:
Wed Aug 24, 2022 11:00 am
Oh man thanks so much for the offer but I don't have pick guard cutting skills! They're the coolest looking pick guards I've ever seen. If another user wants to cut one I'll pay, and I'd definitely pay you for the sheet!
Hahaha, cutting pickguards will be my next endeavor once I get the pouring down! I HOPE it isn't too complicated

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Re: DIY Celluloid Spitfire Tortoise Knowledge Dump / Discussion

Post by glennleaguesny » Wed Aug 24, 2022 11:52 am

LVC wrote:
Wed Aug 24, 2022 11:44 am
Totally agree with DeathJag, these look very cool in their own way.

I'm curious about what it would look like with other colors... Brown/beige/orange might look like the surface of Jupiter!

Image

Image
Thank you for giving me the push to try something different! I was happy just trying to achieve the Spitfire look for much less money, but maybe I'll take this in a different direction!

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Re: DIY Celluloid Spitfire Tortoise Knowledge Dump / Discussion

Post by glennleaguesny » Thu Aug 25, 2022 4:46 am

Had some small successes last night, that I’m getting semi happy with. I’m using this to take note of any differences I did during a practice session.

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This one above I decided to just mix 3 different shades of red. I have a cup of regular red, another cup of darker red (red mixed with a couple drops of brown), and another cup of dark dark red (red mixed with some drops of brown and black). I was more careful with shades on this one then I have been in the past.

I decided for this approach to take my silicone brush and just dab dark brown splotches all over the practice sheet. This is different in the fact that previously, all my test sheets were done by pouring a full cup of a “base” coat and then dropping in darker colors on top of that. This was the first time that I actually splotched colors first. So, I did splotches of dark red all over the sheet. Then I took another brush and spread in lighter red between the splotches. I then went in and just sparsely dropped in the darkest red/brown. Last step was mixing in some clear resin on top, which you can see brought out some super light spots. Keep in mind you can definitely see bubbles on the resin surface, this is because I really took no care in preventing that. I do have a heat gun here that would reduce those, but since it was practice I didn’t try to prevent them at all. This one actually stayed mostly level, with limited pooling which was cool to see.

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For this above approach I changed it up again. This was essentially just to use up whatever resin I had left. I poured a full cup of dark brown on the sheet. I then just made lines of both shades of red that I had left and swirled them a bit with my brush. I hated the way it looked and was bummed so I just dumped whatever clear I had left right on top, with no care of really where it went . This actually had a cool effect. It started just kind of combining and doing it’s thing. The resin did start pooling on one end, the foam squares I cut are pretty much impossible to get level. I’m hoping an actual pickguard sheet will be easier to level out.

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Re: DIY Celluloid Spitfire Tortoise Knowledge Dump / Discussion

Post by nnieman » Fri Aug 26, 2022 3:26 am

Those look really great!!

What about using a thin sheet of clear acrylic to pour on?
It’s probably cheaper than buying sheets of pickguard material and it’s flat.

I have been experimenting with back painting clear acrylic for pickguards and it works really well.

Nathan

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Re: DIY Celluloid Spitfire Tortoise Knowledge Dump / Discussion

Post by glennleaguesny » Tue Aug 30, 2022 6:50 am

nnieman wrote:
Fri Aug 26, 2022 3:26 am
Those look really great!!

What about using a thin sheet of clear acrylic to pour on?
It’s probably cheaper than buying sheets of pickguard material and it’s flat.

I have been experimenting with back painting clear acrylic for pickguards and it works really well.

Nathan
I'll have to give that a shot! I've been using the foam board because it's super cheap and I can do a bunch of practice pours without breaking the wallet. But the clear acrylic sounds like a great idea. It definitely would be easier to keep flat. I probably will end up starting a separate thread with my resin tort progress, I hate that I hi-jacked this one.

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Re: DIY Celluloid Spitfire Tortoise Knowledge Dump / Discussion

Post by powerdroid » Thu Sep 01, 2022 6:02 am

Great work there Glenn, thanks for sharing all the info !

I haven't done anything much, but I did revisit the first guard I did, just wasn't happy and thought I could make it look more 'speckled' with amber by just carving some notches with a chisel and then making a very light amber mix to fill those with. It did help to achieve more of the look I'm going for, but I had to make some more resin pours on top to level it. And followed by sanding it with 2000 grit, polish and so on. Here's how it looks now, on a spare parts build:

Image
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Need to do some more experimenting when I have the time & materials. I had a piece of pickguard material, that wasn't enough for a JM ( I'm building a few ), but maybe I can turn this into a Jaguar, or Musicmaster guard. I did some different here clearly, but it's been a few months and can't remember anything about it! All I remember was more variety in colors and more amber, which is evident!

Image

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Re: DIY Celluloid Spitfire Tortoise Knowledge Dump / Discussion

Post by glennleaguesny » Thu Sep 01, 2022 6:14 am

powerdroid wrote:
Thu Sep 01, 2022 6:02 am
Great work there Glenn, thanks for sharing all the info !

I haven't done anything much, but I did revisit the first guard I did, just wasn't happy and thought I could make it look more 'speckled' with amber by just carving some notches with a chisel and then making a very light amber mix to fill those with. It did help to achieve more of the look I'm going for, but I had to make some more resin pours on top to level it. And followed by sanding it with 2000 grit, polish and so on. Here's how it looks now, on a spare parts build:

Image
Image

Need to do some more experimenting when I have the time & materials. I had a piece of pickguard material, that wasn't enough for a JM ( I'm building a few ), but maybe I can turn this into a Jaguar, or Musicmaster guard. I did some different here clearly, but it's been a few months and can't remember anything about it! All I remember was more variety in colors and more amber, which is evident!

Image
Jeeeeeez that speckled look on your pickguard is beautiful. That is something I, for the life of me, haven’t been able to achieve. I look at the Spitfire guards and cannot understand how he gets those speckled blobs that somehow don’t run into each other. I start with speckled blobs, but even on a flat surface, the resin tends to run and combine. I never thought to chisel the resin like you did, that’s a super good idea that I will definitely try.

Your sheet looks great too, damn. If you end up remembering anything about it please let me know. I have been going back and forth with whether or not to do a base coat before laying color on top. My best result so far was laying down some amber base coat and then doing red and browns on top. It looks like you may have laid down a coat of amber first on that sheet, but I can’t be sure. It looks great!

I ended up starting my own thread in the Mod forum if anyone has any interest following along.

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Re: DIY Celluloid Spitfire Tortoise Knowledge Dump / Discussion

Post by postboredom » Mon Sep 12, 2022 10:57 am

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Last edited by postboredom on Tue Oct 10, 2023 5:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: DIY Celluloid Spitfire Tortoise Knowledge Dump / Discussion

Post by glennleaguesny » Mon Sep 12, 2022 11:56 am

postboredom wrote:
Mon Sep 12, 2022 10:57 am
Sorry its been so long. I've had a busy year. and I've had to put my tort project aside for a while.
I spent the winter and early spring making some sheets that i'm super pround of. and i finally got around to cutting some guards for a few guitars I'm making.

Great to see the progress you other guys are making and dont feel like you're hijacking this thread. I intended it for anyone to post.


Like i mentioned before, i usually mix a few different shades of red and yellow. pour, dab, mix swirl. and try to get something cool.
each 11x17 takes me about 2 hours of fiddling with. Unfortuneatley, because it takes so long and i'm mucking with it, i do get dust tiny fibers on the very surface. which comes out with polishing. it just requires a lot of elbow grease.

I've decided the most efficient way is to cut the guard first, then polish last. polishing an entire piece is soul crushing.

cheers!





This a pic of a my own offset shape/ and pickguard shape. This is a build I've sold locally. It will be hard to see this one go.

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This is a Jazzmaster style build i've been putting together, either for myself or if i find a buyer. but i Love how this tort came out.

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Lastly.. this piece of tort is kind my most cherished. I'm waiting for the right build to use it, as it came together magically and i have a feeling i wont be able to repeat this one. lots of texture and depth, very fun to look at. Cant wait to use it.

The sad thing about making a rectangular piece is that there's so many cool looking swirls and artifacts around the edges that wont be used. Oh well.

Image
These look soooo good. So jealous of how you got the yellows to sit in there without mixing too much with the colors around it. It really pops. And the shades of the red and browns you mixed are perfect. Such a great job, looks sick!

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Re: DIY Celluloid Spitfire Tortoise Knowledge Dump / Discussion

Post by LVC » Mon Sep 12, 2022 12:12 pm

postboredom wrote:
Mon Sep 12, 2022 10:57 am
Image
"...and if you gaze into the inferno, the inferno gazes also into you."

Spectacular work!
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Re: DIY Celluloid Spitfire Tortoise Knowledge Dump / Discussion

Post by repoman » Mon Sep 12, 2022 12:23 pm

Those look awesome!

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Re: DIY Celluloid Spitfire Tortoise Knowledge Dump / Discussion

Post by ryandennis » Fri Sep 23, 2022 10:53 pm

This is such a cool thread, super excited to see people in the community doing this. Is there a chance you would be interested in making and selling a white/mint celluloid pickguard sheet? I would love to cut a guard for my MJT project with it if so!
https://linktr.ee/newheroesband

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Re: DIY Celluloid Spitfire Tortoise Knowledge Dump / Discussion

Post by postboredom » Sat Sep 24, 2022 8:26 am

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Last edited by postboredom on Tue Oct 10, 2023 5:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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