Bringing out the grain - Woodworking Talk

frankp · 09-13-2009, 12:19 PM

This picture is also on my thread "A couple of works in progress" but thought I'd put the question here for more exposure.

The top to this guitar is quilted maple, but it's very difficult to see right now. I've sanded to 600 and want to bring out the figuring as much as possible before I finish. I was thinking Tung oil or Boiled Linseed Oil, but I have limited experience using either except with non-figured wood.

The dye is waterbased dyes (can't remember the brand) that I bought at woodcraft. I don't know how the oils will react with it so I'm mildly concerned that they might "blend" the colors, which isn't what I want.

The guitar will be finished with some epoxy for pore-filling and then with KTM-9, which is a water-based finish that is similar to nitro-cellulose in appearance but a little bit harder once it cures.

Any suggestions about things to use under epoxy to help bring out the figuring?

cabinetman · 09-13-2009, 01:14 PM

Excerpt from Luthiers Mercantile International:

Can I apply the KTM9 over an oil finish, shellac or a solvent based sealer?
KTM9 adheres well to shellac, but it is probably best to avoid applying it over oil, varnish, or other solvent based products such as nitrocellulose lacquer or sealer. The only products that we know for sure to be safe are flake shellac (like we carry, avoid the pre-mixed hardware store variety) our Microbead filler, the System 3 epoxy filler and the previous KTM product, KTM4. It’s possible that it may be compatible with other waterbased products available, but we can not be sure.

You might experiment with a sample letting BLO completely cure dry.

Julian the woodnut · 09-13-2009, 07:30 PM

You could also lay down the oil and let it cure, then lay down a layer of dewaxed shellac as a barrier between the oil and the finish.

frankp · 09-13-2009, 11:09 PM

Thanks for the ideas... whatever I use will be sealed first with epoxy and then finished with the KTM 9. I'm just looking for something to make the figure "pop" before I epoxy it.

Wood4Fun · 09-14-2009, 05:59 PM

i was just playing around with dye and BLO this weekend. it seemed the dye put over the blo came out really bad. I also did blo over the dye and it was better than the other way around, but it was still sort of muddy looking.
this was using the water based mix of the transtint dye from Rockler (I think that is where I got it).

Before you do anything to that intricate dye work you've done, do some testing on a piece of scrap to see how it goes.

I've done dye on maple and then shellac and the grain showed up very nice, but it was the honey amber with I suspect would allow more of the grain to show through vs being covered by some of the color you chose.

cabinetman · 09-14-2009, 06:34 PM

Frank,

Since you have already used waterbased dyes, experiment on a sample, and let them dry out (cure) completely, then try BLO, and then let that dry out completely. I would just go with the KTM, not the epoxy.

You could experiment with aniline dye, alcohol (methanol) based dye on some samples. You can mix them with more concentration, they carry more color than waterbased, and won't raise the grain.

rdrr · 10-02-2009, 06:24 PM

Frank, did you figured out anything to put under the epoxy? I have a similar situation where I what to use epoxy as a void filler on the maple burl top of the bass I'm building. I want to put down to bring out the figure before the epoxy goes on just not sure what will work.

frankp · 10-03-2009, 08:27 AM

rdrr,

I ended up using some Boiled Linseed Oil. I only needed to do that because the pattern of my dyes made it difficult to see the grain. On my daughter's guitar (see my thread called "a couple projects in progress" under the projects category) we just went directly to the epoxy and it turned out great.

If you haven't dyed the maple, epoxy should be pretty good at bringing out the grain by itself. My daughter's guitar was maple top with purple dye and it looked great. (The figuring on her top was far more prominent than on my guitar.) We sealed it with two very thin layers of epoxy and then put on 4 or 5 layers of KTM-9. The KTM-9 recommends something as a void filler, and I definitely recommend using something. The back of my daughter's guitar (also figured maple) got only one coat of epoxy and 3 coats of KTM-9 and there's an obvious difference between the back and the top finish.