quilted maple finishing sugestions

rickmorgan2003

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Anwbody do a dyed lacquer finish with quilted maple? I've done a burst with curly, just wondering if one dyes it all black and sands that back before the primary colour to get that quilted pattern to pop. the goal is to go from the raw peice you see to the guitar that is finished
 

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Anwbody do a dyed lacquer finish with quilted maple? I've done a burst with curly, just wondering if one dyes it all black and sands that back before the primary colour to get that quilted pattern to pop. the goal is to go from the raw peice you see to the guitar that is finished

You're on the right track. A Dan Erlewine trick is to use a gray stain on the maple, then sand that back and spray with dyed lacquer. The black stains I've used are really aggressive, and if you don't like the initial effect you have to sand a LOT to get out the black. I've only tried this with powdered stain mixed with alcohol, which doesn't penetrate too deeply. For all I know, gray dye may penetrate as deeply as the black. Try it on some scrap first, show us the samples.
 
As others have said, once you get dye directly into the wood, its damn hard to get out. All my sunburst instruments have all the color in the sprayed lacquer, from solid black to a light peach. It takes practice, but the results can be very nice.
 
That Stew Mac Tobacco Brown is a great colour to use. Blackened yellow or Gutter cigarette puddle brown are also accurate descriptions. Mixed with that vintage amber you can't go wrong. I've had problems with the red mahogany stain kind of coagulating in the gun. This may have been a batch error.
 
Water stains are good for that figure deepening trick. I also use MEK soluble dyes sprayed directly on the wood for that early 1900s sunburst look. I lock the color in with Waterlox (yes, weird, but...it works), then spray a catalyze sealer over that, and go on from there. If I want a particularly opaque edge, I'll dye some urethane and spray that between poly sanding sealer and poly top coats. There's a huge range of what you can do between dying the wood, sanding, and spraying tinted lacquers or urethanes.

BTW, polyesters are just not good for subtle colors; I just use them for sanding sealer and top coats.
 
Rick, are you using MEK as the vehicle with that? Or other?
 
analine dye

I have used analine dyes (powder mixed with water) on quilted maple, followed by lacquer. The color came out vibrant and popped the figure beautifully. I tried the liquid dyes but that did not come out so well.

You can get either water soluble or alcohol soluble. I like the water. WEAR GLOVES. Just mix a little amount. No need for a quart of the stuff.

I just wiped the stain on with a rag.

Try it on a scrap first, of course. No need to go black first with the dyes.

Anne Flynn
 
For that stuff, I'm using the MEK soluble metal acid dyes from US Cellulose/ChemCraft. They mix just fine with my urethane sealers/adhesion promoters.

You eventually find what works, and that means using materials from different finish manufacturing companies. It also means being able to survive disasters on the way. I don't think there is a single company supplying modern finishes that can supply it all. I may use products from four different companies to build up one finish, and that is hard earned experience, believe me. But that's how it is, even with folks like Paul Reed Smith or Tom Anderson or Bob Taylor. Welcome to the real world...
 
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