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Hello
This is my 3rd project and im going to combine the first two projects, 1 was tru oil finish, 2 was nitro ( each guitar was dyed with compatible dyes and finished with said finish) both guitars came out great.

For project 3 ( EVH music man style guitar) i want to go for a tru oil back and sides to a nice flat satin finish and the quilted maple top ( proper maple cap) to a higher gloss finish with the nitro.

After sanding.....

For the tru oil finish i am going to give it a dilute boiled linseed oil like i did before wait 24 hrs, then the second coat a slightly less diluted coat to slurry sand (400) the mahogany to fill the pores, wait 24 to 48 hrs and lightly dry sand with 400, wipe down and check pores and give it a full BLO coat applied with 600 wet and dry then wipe and hang an cure for a week ( Pores should be mostly filled).

The top will be masked off so i dont get BLO on the top. When its cured wipe on tru oil coats thin and wipe off, buff with steel wool ...and so on until its looking good. I found the Blo grain filling helps the tru oil go on much better.

On to the top not sure to dye and get a seal coat and a thin mist of nitro before oiling to seal it off in case of any tru oil seepage ( been told i can spray over cured tru oil with nitro, if i can was thinking of giving it 2 nitro coats to deepen the grain any advice would be good because i always have the nagging doubt the nitro may react badly with the oil over time).

The neck will be the same as the body satin back glossy headstock.

Went to a guitar show and seen some real high end custom guitars finished with this look and the contrast of the top and the body is great. really like this guitar as the EVH music man is one of my all time favorite axes. I like guitars with one volume and a 3 way switch they sound great.

earldunk wrote:
On to the top not sure to dye and get a seal coat and a thin mist of nitro before oiling to seal it off in case of any tru oil seepage ( been told i can spray over cured tru oil with nitro, if i can was thinking of giving it 2 nitro coats to deepen the grain any advice would be good because i always have the nagging doubt the nitro may react badly with the oil over time).

Yes you can typically run nitro over tru-oil. But if you are going to try and run tru-oil over nitro I am not sure that will work well in the long term. Why not just do the top in gloss nitro? Those guitars you saw at the show were likely finished all in the same material, either nitro or poly with the top being gloss and the backs etc being satin. When I do a finish like that I generally spray out the entire instrument with gloss nitro because it is harder than satin. After about a week the parts I want gloss are masked, the rest level sanded at 320 and 2 coats of satin shot over it.

That was my orignal plan just nitro on the top of the body and head stock and maple fretboard and tru oil back. The guitars i saw were like as described above according to the guy at the stand, he was not the creator of those heavenly guitars witch was a shame. I'm doing a test peice at the moment with teak oil and shellac gonna give it some coats over the next few days and see what that looks like.

Sorry was a mistype i was going to do the tru oil before the nitro on the top, was going to mist with nitro for the 100% nitro finish in case it ran or got through the masking tape.