Finishing maple burl/ash

[gordon_mlz]

Dudes
working on an 8-stringer right now with maple burl top over an ash body. Finally decided on a dyed burst to finish the maple top. I plan on using stewmacs premixed dyes for this. Im obviously going to test this out on some scrap maple from the same piece, but im unsure of the last step before sealing

Sand top several grits
stain top good and thorough with darker/outside color
sand with 320, heavy in the middle
stain top again with middle color
Sand with 320, heavier in middle
stain again with middle color

Sand again? How fine?

Tru oil several coats, do i sand in between? What grit?

I noticed PRS wetsands all their guitars as a last step using 1000 grit. What does this achieve?

Thanks guys!

 

[Lost of All Reason]

I got as far as "Dudes" and gave this thread a 5/5 rating

edit: forgive me for being useless here but I thought that was awesome lol

 

[bob123]

Maple is close grained, you don't need to seal it...

PRS also doesn't sand stains to 1000 grit, they sand the acrylic clear coat with 1000 to get a perfeclty smooth/scratch free surface before buffing and polishing.

 

[silent_k]

You might want to include a couple of grain raising steps prior to your first applications of dye. Take a moist piece of cotton (NOT soaking) and just wet down the surface of the wood, let it dry, and knock the grain back with 220 or 320 paper. If you do this a couple of times you'll get a smoother result when you get to the dying stage. Keep in mind, too (as you'll discover on your test pieces) that Tru Oil will definitely alter the color -- it's a pretty deep amber shade. I did a bass with an orange dye stain with Tru Oil on top a couple of years back and it looked awesome, but I can imagine it looking less awesome, to my taste at least with other colors (greens and blues in particular).

How are you planning to apply the Tru Oil? Are you using the kind in the bottle or in the aerosol can? I recently did some work on a Tru Oiled guitar from a couple of years back where I'd used the bottle version and got nasty witness lines in the final finish. I recently asked Birchwood Casey if the bottle and aerosol formulations were compatible, and they are, so I roughed up the surface with some steel wool and sprayed on a bunch of aerosol coats. It will still need to be leveled, but it already looks about a thousand times better than it did. I know some people use the bottle version for the first several coats to help fill the grain (which will be good on the ash back -- you didn't mention doing a grain filling step for that part of the body) then end with the aerosol for a smooth finish. It will still need some sanding, and you might want to let the oil from the bottle cure, do some leveling, then spray. That would obviously add a lot of time to your project, but the results could be pretty excellent in the end. I'm trying that with a project now (only I used polyurethane instead of tru Oil).

 

[gordon_mlz]

You might want to include a couple of grain raising steps prior to your first applications of dye. Take a moist piece of cotton (NOT soaking) and just wet down the surface of the wood, let it dry, and knock the grain back with 220 or 320 paper. If you do this a couple of times you'll get a smoother result when you get to the dying stage. Keep in mind, too (as you'll discover on your test pieces) that Tru Oil will definitely alter the color -- it's a pretty deep amber shade. I did a bass with an orange dye stain with Tru Oil on top a couple of years back and it looked awesome, but I can imagine it looking less awesome, to my taste at least with other colors (greens and blues in particular).

How are you planning to apply the Tru Oil? Are you using the kind in the bottle or in the aerosol can? I recently did some work on a Tru Oiled guitar from a couple of years back where I'd used the bottle version and got nasty witness lines in the final finish. I recently asked Birchwood Casey if the bottle and aerosol formulations were compatible, and they are, so I roughed up the surface with some steel wool and sprayed on a bunch of aerosol coats. It will still need to be leveled, but it already looks about a thousand times better than it did. I know some people use the bottle version for the first several coats to help fill the grain (which will be good on the ash back -- you didn't mention doing a grain filling step for that part of the body) then end with the aerosol for a smooth finish. It will still need some sanding, and you might want to let the oil from the bottle cure, do some leveling, then spray. That would obviously add a lot of time to your project, but the results could be pretty excellent in the end. I'm trying that with a project now (only I used polyurethane instead of tru Oil).

Haven't quite decided on spray or bottled type of Tru Oil. It looks like the spray is a little easier to work with, I'll check it out!

That's interesting about the Tru Oil having a deep amber overtone to it. That will actually work very well for the orange/red type of finish I'm doing. However, I'm also finishing a guitar in green dye, and that won't be so friendly. What is the alternative? Ultimately, the orange/red guitar will have a glassy acrylic clearcoat, and the green guitar will have a flat matte finish. Any advice?

 

[silent_k]

Haven't quite decided on spray or bottled type of Tru Oil. It looks like the spray is a little easier to work with, I'll check it out!

That's interesting about the Tru Oil having a deep amber overtone to it. That will actually work very well for the orange/red type of finish I'm doing. However, I'm also finishing a guitar in green dye, and that won't be so friendly. What is the alternative? Ultimately, the orange/red guitar will have a glassy acrylic clearcoat, and the green guitar will have a flat matte finish. Any advice?

Yea, I'll bet the orange/red finish will be complimented well by the Tru Oil. As for the green, if you're doing testing you might as well give the Tru Oil a try and see how it comes out -- it may be more subtle than I'm imagining (have a look at BlackMastodon's recent posts with pics of his green dyed top -- he's using tung oil, I believe, but it could give a sense of how the green and amber might go together: http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/luthiery-modifications-customizations/155945-eve-guitar-3-years-making-kind-8.html).

Depending on how experimental you want to get, you could always test out a polyurethane or lacquer topcoat as well. Polyurethane has a yellowish tint to it as well, but it's more subtle than Tru Oil. Nitro lacquer is pretty clear, although nasty to work with, and the water-based stuff I've tried (Target Coatings) is pretty clear, too, but doesn't enhance the grain as much. I did a poplar build with black dye and nitro lacquer (with a vinyl sealer) last year and while nitro is really stinky, it looked great and brought out grain patterns in the wood I didn't realize were there. Target also makes a water-based polyurethane (EM 9000) I'm planning to use on an upcoming semi-hollow build. Polyurethanes and some of the Target lacquer products come with flattening agents added to give a matte finish, although you can always achieve that look by other means.