Weathered Ash Root Style Jazzmaster Build

[HNB]

Since I saw his custom red Jazzmaster, I kind of wanted something like that. It looks like it would be super interesting texturally. I have watched a bunch of videos about using a wire brush on a drill or angle grinder and I am going to give it a try. Could be disaster, could be fine? LOL I knew Tone Bomb could make me a similar body because they made me a HH hardtail body that is back routed for my Hello Kitty project. I just asked them to do a tele switch and volume hole like a Root Jazzy and included a picture. They did great. It has tele round overs like his do and a tummy cut. Only real difference spec wise is no carved heel, but that isn't a big deal to me.

Here is the body I got. The grain looks really nice. I am interested to see what happens.

20250422_104155 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

20250422_104158 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

20250422_104221 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

20250422_104224 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

20250422_104241 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

20250422_104247 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

20250422_104244 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

20250422_104253 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

His guitar for reference.

[HNB]

I bought one of those 2" wire brush attachments for a drill. I will try it on scrap wood before I use it on the body. No risk, no reward?

[Steadyriot.]

Cool project!

I'd try wirebrushing the grain by hand first, before you go ham with powertools. The wirebrush will probably scratch up the hard grain too, which'll be hard to (block) sand out as you want raised grain for this to work. Kinda depends on the type of brush you got too; one of those circular ones will probably work better than the cup type if you do go with powertools.
Brushing with the grain will probably get you the best results from what I've seen.

[HNB]

I tried the drill with the cup brush on some pine and it worked fine so I switched over to the body. The ash is pretty hard so I had to do like four passes on each surface switching the direction of the spin after each pass. I went really easy. I just did it outside on a small side table. Here are some pictures. Sorry for the weird angle and feet. I was trying to get the grain to show.

20250424_111923 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

20250424_111931 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

20250424_111934 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

20250424_111946 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

20250424_111952 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

[spacelordmother]

That turned out so good!

[HNB]

Thank you! It took about two hours to do. Not terrible, but my arms and hands were tired when I was done. LOL

[marqueemoon]

Interested to see how this turns out.

I’ve thought about doing this for an Esquire build.

[HNB]

I did red painting today. Two cans of Duplicolor Victory red.

Before:

20250425_144500 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

20250425_144443 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

After:

20250425_154333 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

20250425_154341 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

[marqueemoon]

Nice. What is the process? Sand back the red and stain black?

[alexpigment]

I would guess spray dark red or black over this red coat, then sand back. That way, the recessed areas would stay dark and the higher spots would be brighter red (like the example photo earlier in the thread).

[HNB]

I’m going to rub acrylic paint into the grain with a damp sponge so I can wipe it off the higher spots.

[HNB]

I would guess spray dark red or black over this red coat, then sand back. That way, the recessed areas would stay dark and the higher spots would be brighter red (like the example photo earlier in the thread).

I thought it over and I am going to go this rout. I am not going to do a darker red, but I am going to do a couple more coats of red and then one coat of black that I will carefully sand back to get the red to show.

[Shadoweclipse13]

This is SO cool. I love raised grain like that

[HNB]

I am nervous/excited to try this new painting method. (Well new to me.) I guess this has a few new things for me. The wire cup process and the sanding back process. Makes it interesting.

[DrippyReverbTremolo]

Cool. All it needs is metal flake.