Advice on stain + oil finish (newb)

[russmuller]

So I built a guitar with Sully Guitars last week, and now I'm looking to put a finish on it. The body is a pretty cool piece of swamp ash, so I've decided to go with the pirate ship driftwood look (along the lines of Carvin/Kiesel's antique ash treatment).

I'm doing some experimentation on pieces of scrap to see what works well together and test different combinations of layering grain filler, dye, and sanding sealer. So far, this is my favorite that I've come up with:

The process so far is:
1- black-tinted Timber Mate sanded back
2- Behlen Solar Lux jet black dye sanded back
3- a coat of sealer sanded flat
4- another treatment with the Timber Mate (a little more diluted) sanded back
5- another layer of black dye sanded back
6- another layer of sealer sanded very finely
7- then a few layers of tung oil varnish with some 0000 steel wool treatment between applications

For those who have more experience with dyes and oil finishes, is there anything obviously wrong or lacking with this sequence?

Also, I live in the desert where things tend to dry pretty quickly. I raced through this whole process in about 72 hours on this piece of scrap, but I am under the impression that any stage of the process should be given at least 24 hours to dry or soak in before sanding and moving forward. Any advice on how to space this out, or which stages are critical to allow more time to cure (and for how long)?

 

[jwade]

No advice to offer, just want to say how badass that looks!

 

[Hywel]

My level of finish expertise extends to slapping tru-oil on things until I get bored so I might completely wrong but wouldn't the first sanding sealer step stop the dye from being absorbed into the the wood? Same kinda thing for the tung oil. I wonder if you could leaver the early sealer out, stick it on last and then oil/poly it.

I've also seen some recipes for making the wood grey rather than yellow if you want a more monochrome finish. I think it was vinegar and steel wool.

Either way it looks great!

 

[spn_phoenix_92]

That's actually the look I'm planning on going for with my baritone Tele build, thanks to you I now know how to achieve it
Looks great btw

 

[russmuller]

In that case, I'll keep posting pictures as I go through it. That way you can learn from what goes right and what goes wrong.

I disassembled the guitar to prep for finishing.

I'm using the ebony-tinted Timber Mate slightly diluted in water to fill the grain. This is the first coat going on and mostly drying.

 

[russmuller]

Sanded back the first coat of grain filler. Looking pretty damn good so far.

 

[russmuller]

I decided to mask off the sides to minimize any streaks of dye giving me stripes down the sides.

My masking job wasn't super effective, but it was at least helpful.

Letting the first coat of dye soak in.

Tomorrow morning, I'll flip it over and dye the back side.

 

[russmuller]

Masking off the rear for dye:

First layer of dye on the back.

Again, the masking didn't yield perfect results, but still kept things mostly under control.

I'll probably dye the sides on my lunch break, then start sanding the front later tonight.

 

[StarbardGuitar]

Hey, sorry that this is too late since you've already done the dyeing, but I had the same problem with stain seeping through the masking tape one of my builds. If you want to avoid getting dye or stain in a certain spot, your best bet is to seal that spot with sealer or paint of some sort. That way any stain that gets on that spot can easily be cleaned off, as it will just take sanding through that very top layer of the sealer. Good luck!

 

[russmuller]

Hey, sorry that this is too late since you've already done the dyeing, but I had the same problem with stain seeping through the masking tape one of my builds. If you want to avoid getting dye or stain in a certain spot, your best bet is to seal that spot with sealer or paint of some sort. That way any stain that gets on that spot can easily be cleaned off, as it will just take sanding through that very top layer of the sealer. Good luck!

Yeah, I will employ some kind of tactic like this when I want to have the contours accented a different color in the end. In this case, I just didn't want stripes running down the sides if I put too much on.

Now that the front and back are dyed, it's time to do the sides.

 

[russmuller]

First coat of dye sanded off the front:

And the back:

 

[russmuller]

Alright, the first coat of dye has been completely sanded. That end grain was a tough mother... I had to go down to 120 to even begin fading the color out. But I'm pretty happy with how it's coming along.

Now that this first batch of filler/sand/dye/sand is through, I'm going to do another round of filler but more diluted this time. It looks like sexy wooden chocolate.

 

[russmuller]

Drying off nicely.

A little more time to sit and then it was flipped over to do the back side.

And here's after that coat was sanded back:

I've discovered that even when I'm planning to sand thoroughly through something, little drips and runs are a nightmare to remove. Going forward, I'm putting much more effort into masking and babysitting after each application to wipe away any drips.

I decided that I want to keep the stain out of the contours on the next go-around, so I masked off their edges and applied a few coats of sealer.

I'll call it success.

 

[russmuller]

I added another, more diluted coat of dye and sanded back. I used a rag this time, and after sanding I added some highlights before sanding some more. I'm pretty happy with the results so far.

 

[russmuller]

First coat of sealer.

 

[TamanShud]

Duuude! This is coming up gorgeous

 

[Deegatron]

Dis gon b gud.

 

[russmuller]

Thanks, guys!

Here it is after a few coats of sealer sanded flat on the front and back.

Now that the sealer is done for the front and back, I need to clean up the sides of the guitar. There are drips to clean up, and there are a few spots where I'm not impressed with how things looked after sanding. I may come through and dye just the edges of the guitar and leave them pretty much black. If I don't like it, I can sand it back until I do.

 

[Deegatron]

If you're going with the two tone look I would say it would be best to have the top and back completely black then sand back the bevels... I think that would look killer.....

 

[canuck brian]

That's looking awesome! I've never used the black grain filler before so it's awesome to see it on an ash body!