When to Dye Back/Sides/Neck?

[glasalle1]

Hi John!

I was going to send an email, but thought perhaps others would want to know as well. I will be prepping 2 guitars for finish soon (My Stella and a Nick Lucas, which I just did the binding). I want to dye both, as the Stella is figured QS White Oak with craters for pores, and the Nick Lucas is Cuban Hog (This will be dyed dark, with a hand rubbed sunburst on top).

Anyway, I was thinking I prep everything, Dye, seal, pore fill, seal, finish. I am planning on trying Royal Lac for these 2 guitars, based on feedback I have been reading (using a pad, and not spraying).

My goal is for the Stella to get a darker finish and hopefully not look like 20th century oak furniture :-), and the Nick Lucas as stated above dyed brown, with a Hand rubbed sunburst on top. I'll be dying the necks as well.

I have read on the internet some folks pore fill first, then dye.

Thanks!

Glenn

[Ben-Had]

I pore fill first then dye. I'm pretty sure Dale Bartholomew taught me to do it that way.

[glasalle1]

Looks like if I am going to use Royal Lac and Seal Lac, I have to pore fill first, sand back to wood. from Maunufacturer:

1) A layer of Seal-Lac is essential. No sand through' s. Seal-Lac will act as a barrier between the epoxy and the finish.
2) Once the pores are filled with epoxy, surface needs to be sanded back to wood. This minimizes the overall reaction between epoxy and finish.

Glenn

[glasalle1]

Just n case anybody else is going to Dye their guitar. I think I decided to finish these 2 guitars the same way I did my previous 2, Tru Oil Back and Sides, and French Polish the top. I'll try Royal Lac on the next 2. I think this is the Schedule I will use (at least until I change it :-)

- Finish sand the body and neck to 220
- Dye Back and Sides Med to Darker Brown (For Nick Lucas. For Stella, I decide to do some test panels and see how the Z-poxy will color the wood without Dye first, then decide)
- Seal all with Shellac
- Pore fill with Z-Poxy: 2-3 applications with Squee-Gee, then last coat diluted 50% with Alcohol. See Todd Stocks Youtube vids - thats how I do it.
- Finish sand to 600 grit (Recommendations for Tru Oil are that it prefers a smoother sand than other finishes)
- Seal with Shellac
Back and Sides:
- Wipe Tru Oil on thinly with grain.
- Wipe off excess
- 2 coats per day, total 15 coats
- If needed, level sand after number of coats using 400 or 600 grit and backing block
- let cure for 2+ weeks
- Micro mesh 3000 - 12000 w a little dishwasher liquid
- Swirl remover
- Meguiars 7

Top:
For Nick Lucas:
- Sand off Seal Shellac
- Mask Purfling
- Apply Hand Rubbed Sunburst, trying to get the late 20's Gibson look.
- Seal with Shellac
- French Polish ala Robbie O'Briens vids

For the Stella:
- French Polish ala Robbie O'Briens vids

I ordered fresh Shellac flakes and the Alcohol from Shellac Finishes website, the makers of Royal Lac: https://www.shellacfinishes.com
In the past, I used 95% Everclear for French Polish, but since I moved to Florida, that is not available (the 75% Evercleafr is, but that won't dissolve the shellac flakes)

Before I start all above, I still need to inlay the fretboards, and glue fretboards on Neck. For the Nick Lucas, I decided to use some beautiful dark Brazilian RW for the bridge, and head plate. I have a Mad Rw Dark fretboard that matches almost perfectly. Decided to go RW instead of ebony. For the Stella, going with Ebony mustachio bridge I already made, and fretboard, with the upscale inlays found on the higher end Oscar Schmidt guitars. A lot of work to do!

Since the next few days are going to be cool and very dry here in Florida, and my shop is not finished, I am going to bend some beautiful cocobolo that I have already thicknessed for an OM, and get that in the mold for the next guitar. I have another nice set of cocobolo (i only have 2, and plan on not buying anymore. I don't seem to have an issue with it, but don't want to tempt fate, so want to build 2 together, then no more cocobolo) that I have to get to thickness for my Jumbo Prairie State guitar I have build (17.25" across lower bout). Then bend that as well. Issue is the cocobolo was horrible to sand on my perform 10-20 sander - took forever, gummed up paper. Using 60 grit, and wondering if I should switch to 36 grit that i have.

Anyway, I welcome comments, advice etc. I am getting much better at finishing... and have a LONG way to go :-)

Glenn

[ruby@magpage.com]

Glen

I did a Nick Lucas a few years ago and hand rubbed the sunburst. I ended up having to VERY carefully spray the first shellac coats from a rattle can as I have no spray equipment. The dyes will dissolve and run if you brush or pad. I hated to do this type of shellac, but I couldn't see an option at the time:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/ruby1638/ ... 130471994/

Ed

[glasalle1]

Hi Ed,

That sunburst came out great! A couple questions:

-What brand spray shellac did you use to seal?
- what colors did you use for the burst. You really nailed the Gibson rubbed sunburst look.
- what color for back and sides?

Thanks,

Glenn

[ruby@magpage.com]

Glen - sorry for the delay - just got back from a week in the mountains if WVa. A friend lives at the very top of Big Bend mountain and directly below him is the tunnel that John Henry beat the steam drill in. Beautiful time of year, even in the rain.

I bought some of the S-M Color Tone liquid dyes, amber, tobacco, and medium brown. I mixed to the basic starter concentration in water because I thought the quick drying alcohol would be harder for a first-timer to control - I will use water again. My first samples were using the tobacco more and I did not like the "blackish" look that it gave. I cut out the tobacco and still wasn't getting it what I wanted, so I found a few Trans-Tint powders I had bought years ago and added their scarlet red as a layer and liked that. You can play with the color quite a bit by just rubbing with a wet or damp paper towel in a circular fashion (if you use water as a solvent) with whatever color you are trying to add - or no color, just water.

For the back and sides - it was several layers of brown and red, making a best-guess at color matching for neck and body. Both were pretty nice Honduras Mahogany from John Hall.

I am very happy with the result, but when I do it again (I will soon build an all-ash guitar from a lovely piece I got in WVa) I will wash over everything with a dilute brown to take some of the brightness out of it.

Until you get some experience, you can't tell what it will look like until you apply some finish. Count on making some samples, keeping good records, and putting some finish over them. The picture sequence that you see in my shots will show how "dead" the piece looks until you apply that finish

I used Zinser spray shellac from the hardware store for my barrier coat. This was tough because for almost my entire wood working career of over 50 years I have kept a bottle of freshly mixed shellac on the bench, using nothing but Everclear for the last 15. To use a pre-mixed, undated, mystery alcohol shellac was like nails on a blackboard - so far so good though. I used about 3 thin coats just misted on to desperately avoid any runs. When leveling my brushed on KMT-9, I was very careful and probably put on too much finish to try to avoid sanding through.

By the way - for the oak guitar I showed you, I used the Timber Mate water based filler for the grain. When I applied water based dyes on it afterward, it was not obvious that I had dissolved the filler and it was not obvious that I had made the dye job muddy until I had several coats of finish on. At that point I thought it did not look bad, but now I wish I had stopped and started over again to achieve better depth in the finish.

I corresponded with both Hans Brentrup and Brad Goodman, and on oak, they both used black dye first, sanding everything off except in the open grain, then filling with clear filler sanded down to raw wood, then finishing with color. There are pictures of their work in the oak guitar series:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/ruby1638/ ... 776959267/

Good luck

Ed

[rcnewcomb]

Aqua Coat says to apply the dye before pore filling
DIRECTIONS FOR USE: AQUA COAT CLEAR WOOD GRAIN FILLER should be applied after the piece is stained

It also says the pore filler can be tinted:
Grain Filler can be tinted with water-soluble colorants or dyes.

[glasalle1]

Thanks! I have never used Aqua Coat. I was going to use Z-poxy, mainly cause that is what I have used on the past 4 guitars, and am pretty comfortable with it.

Glenn

[glasalle1]

After some research, and looking at alternatives to Z-poxy, I think I am going to try Aqua Coat for the pore fill. Z-poxy evidently has issues with shellac under it - I have French polished over, so know shellac over z-poxy is not an issue. But I wanted to dye the wood, then seal before pore filling, and sounds like Z-poxy may have issues. Also, the fumes form the Z-poxy kind of bothered me in the past.

Anyway, looks like Aqua coat is very flexible - I can dye, seal, pore fill, seal, etc. Even add color to the aqua coat. Please it seems a bit more health friendly than the z-poxy.

Glenn