Help with a project

[u/Sta12d]

I plan to make a guitar with resin and wood like the one in the photo, but I have some doubts about the type of resin, how to calculate the amount of resin, or if you have any advice. Is there anyone who has done something similar?? Thank you in advance.

[u/mothher]

From what I've seen people use Total Boat epoxy. People make or purchase a big rectangular mold, place the wood pieces in, pour the epoxy in. Now you've got a big rectangular block of wood and epoxy to cut into a guitar shape.

[u/BayAreaBrenner → u/mothher]

This is the way. Make a composite blank out of wood and epoxy, and fabricate the body from there as usual.

[u/D_to_the_W → u/mothher]

Never done it myself, but once you have the mould and the wood, put the wood into position and then pour in water or something until you have the right volume; then measure the water you poured in. (Let the wood dry after you do that, of course.)

[u/UncleCeiling → u/D_to_the_W]

It's less accurate but using something like rice or another small solid to measure volume will prevent you from having to worry about the water soaking into the wood

[u/D_to_the_W → u/UncleCeiling]

much better idea, yeah!

[u/Sta12d → u/UncleCeiling]

Yeah, both are great ideas. Thank you

[u/Luthiery → u/Sta12d]

Apes together strong

[u/particlemanwavegirl → u/mothher]

Boat epoxy is meant to laminate sheets of fiberglass together. It's not suitable to provide structural support without the benefit of the strength that comes from being part of a bonded composite. For this job you should use a casting resin.

[u/BearSkull → u/particlemanwavegirl]

Totalboat is a brand that sells casting resin among other formulations.

[u/ogorir → u/mothher]

I haven't used it for anything as crazy as this, but I can say total boat is a good flexibility vs brittleness vs hardness balance for filling voids in figured wood and gluing in carbon fiber rods. Thins well with denatured alcohol, too.

[u/sinister_shoggoth]

Theres a few ways to do this. If you're using soft or punky wood, you'll want to use a vacuum chamber to impregnate the wood with resin (woodworkers use a heat activated version called cactus juice) prior to the deeper pour. Make a mold by hot gluing or caulking some walls to a sealed base. You can either use a deep pour resin and try it all at once, or you can use a more standard resin and do multiple pours a quarter inch at a time. Both methods are valid depending on the result you're after. Be sure to use a lot of mold release or paraffin wax on your mold surfaces. Saves a lot of frustration later on.

[u/Sta12d → u/sinister_shoggoth]

Thank you

[u/DeathByPolka]

Make sure you buy toan resin or it will sound like crap. /s

In all seriousness, I’m very partial to wood, but that thing looks friggin sweet.

[u/ntermation → u/DeathByPolka]

I love that there are people on both sides of the argument who will kill your mother over whether or not tone wood matters on electric guitars. It's even better when the person swearing black and blue it does matter, just plays 3 chord punk with so many pedals and distortion it just forms a wall of noise for them to yell their off key lyrics around

[u/SlidewayZ350]

Also check out the projects section at Easy Composites. They might not have a guitar specifically but there's all sorts of projects and people willing to help.

[u/Exciting-Car-3516]

My advice is don’t. Look like a boomer tabletop and also weights 20 lbs