Yesterday I did the final metal fitting and drilled the mounting holes in the metal pieces. This allowed me to finish up all the marking and drilling on the wood chassis. This morning I applied the first coat of oil to the spalted alder. It looks very good.

First, let me show you how the chassis looks.

You can see how the oil really brings out the tone of the wood and all the veining. I’m very happy with the contrast and the overall tone. This chassis has a lot of visual interest.

Due to the spalting, this wood is very porous and literally drinks up the oil. I am estimating that it will take at least three coats just to seal the wood and fill most of the pores. It will then take several more coats to smooth out some of the tooling marks.

In several places on the end grain (inside the cutouts) there are places where the carbide cutter did not cut as cleanly as I would have liked. These tooling marks (small tears actually) are too deep for sanding or shaping, so I am going to allow the oil to do most of the filling. This will take the build up of a large number of coats. Depending on the weather, I can do one or two coats a day. I expect just this stage of finishing to require between one and two weeks.

I know I said three weeks ago that I was ready to get going. However, I’ve had some family obligations that have kept me very busy for the last three weeks or so. And it looks like that may continue for a while. As such, I will get as much work done as possible and post updates as often as I can.

Sorry for the slow progress. I know a lot of people are interested in this amplifier project.

As always, questions and comments are welcome.