"tortoise Shell" Dye Finish

[mikhailgtrski]

Hi guys,

My PRS clone will be ready to finish in a few weeks and I'd like to achieve a finish similar to this one:

PRS Private Stock #61

I'm thinking stain black/sand back, then tobacco brown and amber dyes...

Suggestions?

Thanks.

Edited March 10, 2006 by mikhailgtrski

[Rodney]

Technically, i believe that finish is Tiger eye, not tortoise shell.

To get tiger eye, you do dark brown, sand out, Brown again in a lighter pass,

Then a top coat of yellow.

For the real tortoise shell,do the brown, sand out. Then do a diluted brown pass.Then do a pass of red, then scrub it out with alcohol. top it off with yellow.

This gives you the 3 shades in real tortoise shell.

Be carefull when scrubbing out with the alcohol. If you overdo it you can bleed through into the binding giving the dreaded "celery stalk effect".

Good Luck

[gun]

Too me It seems black (and sand), then tobacco and some amber. If you cut the body try on some scraps. I think at 99% the colors are those.

[Maiden69]

They got the wrong information on that guitar on the PRS site. For starters the description says it is a big leaf quilt maple, when it is a flamed (curly) maple. About the finish, I think that the tiger eye is a bit more brownish than that, but it is very close.

http://www.prsguitars.com/showcase/private/ps107.html

http://www.prsguitars.com/showcase/private/ps13.html

[Drak]

Suggestions?

Yeah. Practice on a piece of cutoff from your top wood, and try out your color combos a LOT if you really want to achieve what some other guitar looks like.

A LOT.

PS, Rodney is right, it's dark brown, not black. And the fact that you have to ask us tells me you better do a lot of practice runs first, or you will be way off target and will have to settle for whatever happens if you don't.

I have a weird feeling that there is a really light shader coat over top of the basic colors on the wood, something about the way it looks, but I'm not 6 inches from it looking at it in real life either...

[Rodney]

You may be right, Drak. Sometimes a very light toner pass may be sprayed to make the color "pop". It could also be a photoshop effect to maintain the color integrity. All of the photos are done in house so it could be shaded to be more accurate to what it looks like in person.

[Drak]

PS, it's nice to see you back Rodney!

I have 2 or 3 Rhoads V's that are coming along -sweetly-, you're gonna love 'em, and there is a certain member here named METAL MATT that would love to see some of your work unless he already knows you, hehehe (I wouldn't be surprised if he did already know you).

...and gun, if you use black as your base coat then use -any- sort of yellow (yellow is usually the starter and primary color component for any amber), your final color will have a bothersome greenish hue to it, that's why it's a dark brown base and not black.

Have a look at Big D's Tele for proof of this common beginner mistake.

The primary component color in black is blue, and blue + yellow = green of some ~disturbing~ nasty vomit-inducing shade.

Want to prove it for yourself? Take any black dye and dribble 1 or 2 drops into the sink with water slowly running to break it down, you will see the dye break down into it's base colors and you'll see the blue break out more than anything else.

[Rodney]

Hello back atcha (and a PM) If I see Metal matt I'll drop him a line.

Your dead on about the black again. The only stains i've ever used a black base on were obvious - black cherry and grey black and deep blues.

[Drak]

I DO use black a lot as the base of a stain/sand back, but only as a darkener, unless I'm doing a blue guitar...like, if I'm going to use a yellow or amber topcoater dye, I will usually start my initial stain using Blood Red with a few drops of black mixed in to darken it up some, or even with Browns, I'll add in a few drops of black to help make it darker, but not enough to have things go green on me, unless that's what I was looking for

...that's why I recommend you use scrap pieces and PRACTICE on scrap a -lot- until you LEARN these basic color functions and how they interact with one another until you KNOW what's going to happen BEFORE you hit the real guitar body with your stains.

[Maiden69]

Drak, I have been thinking about using an alcohol based black dye for the sand back technique. Just because I think that if I do that once I go over it with the water based blue, green or red, it won't bleed back and make my color darker. Is this possible? I got something brewing over here and I still debating the color to use.

[Drak]

Drak, I have been thinking about using an alcohol based black dye for the sand back technique. Just because I think that if I do that once I go over it with the water based blue, green or red, it won't bleed back and make my color darker. Is this possible? I got something brewing over here and I still debating the color to use.

No, it -will- bleed. Alcohol-based dyes will certainly bleed into whatever dyes you put on top of them. The water will pick up the black on your wipecloth and mix the two together.

And interestingly enough, my 'normal' basecoat black is Solar Lux (alcohol-based) Black, and whenever I use it for my basecoat black, I always mix in a little water -on purpose- because I believe that water helps 'drive' it into the grain and helps ~define~ the quilt or curl or whatever...

The SECRET WAY (ala Dan Erlewine) to do this is to:

1. Sand your black back -pretty thoroughly-. Sand it back a LOT, until you can clearly see the original color of the wood itself reappearing in the 'normal' areas.

2. Use an airgun and -HIGH PRESSURE- (40-50PSI) to shoot on your topcoat dyes.

What this does is that when you use a -HIGH- pressure, basically when the dye hits the wood it's -already dry-. You can watch the proceedings (since you're the one shooting it and are standing right in front of it) and to make a long story short, the dyes have -no time- (or moisture) to interact with each other, since your topcoat dye is damn near dry as soon as it hits the wood.

When doing this, you ALSO want to make your first 2-4 coats of finish DRY coats, you are trying to keep the dyes from blending with each other, very wet initial finish coats will give the dyes a few minutes to interact and bleed.

If you are using a wipecloth to apply your dyes, then you want to do it AS FAST as possible. The more and more you wipe around, the more your black is darkening your topcoat colors. Check the bottom of your wipecloth if you don't believe me, hehehe...

Now, this way goes against the way Myka and Perry do things I believe, but this is the way I do it and I was taught, and it works for me.

There are a lot of ways to achieve what you want I guess...

[mikhailgtrski]

Suggestions?

Yeah. Practice on a piece of cutoff from your top wood, and try out your color combos a LOT if you really want to achieve what some other guitar looks like.

A LOT.

PS, Rodney is right, it's dark brown, not black. And the fact that you have to ask us tells me you better do a lot of practice runs first, or you will be way off target and will have to settle for whatever happens if you don't.

I have a weird feeling that there is a really light shader coat over top of the basic colors on the wood, something about the way it looks, but I'm not 6 inches from it looking at it in real life either...

←

Yes, I will definitely try it out on first on something other than my flame top - no cutoff scraps 'cause it's a Warmoth body, but there are some specialty hardwood places in Seattle... This will be my second dye finish - the first one turned out great, but it was a simple scarlet red on quilt. I agree with you on the black - basic color theory says black & yellow makes green. Ugh.

Thanks to everyone for the input.

Mike

[Maiden69]

Now, this way goes against the way Myka and Perry do things I believe, but this is the way I do it and I was taught, and it works for me.

There are a lot of ways to achieve what you want I guess...

←

Yeap, Like I told you I did David's (Myka) way, and it worked nice. I did notice at the begining picking up a bit of black, this is why I thought that if I used a solvent (alcohol?) based stain it wouldn't bleed into the waterbased one.

Thanks for the response.

[mikhailgtrski]

1. Sand your black back -pretty thoroughly-. Sand it back a LOT, until you can clearly see the original color of the wood itself reappearing in the 'normal' areas.

When doing this, you ALSO want to make your first 2-4 coats of finish DRY coats, you are trying to keep the dyes from blending with each other, very wet initial finish coats will give the dyes a few minutes to interact and bleed.

←

Hmm... this brings a couple of questions to mind:

1. With the sand back method, do you prep the wood to 320 grit, or is 220 ok, since you're sanding it again after the first dye application anyway?

2. Will a water-based sanding sealer interact too much with the dye? I'm hoping to use KTM-9 for the clearcoat. Would it be safer to use a clear epoxy sealer/grain filler, i.e. System 3 Epoxy?

LMII - KTM page

Thanks for the help

[Drak]

1. With the sand back method, do you prep the wood to 320 grit, or is 220 ok, since you're sanding it again after the first dye application anyway?

2. Will a water-based sanding sealer interact too much with the dye? I'm hoping to use KTM-9 for the clearcoat. Would it be safer to use a clear epoxy sealer/grain filler, i.e. System 3 Epoxy?

1. I've sanded to a final of 220 and all the way to 4000 ( ), to be honest, I don't think it matters that much between 220 and 320.

2. It probably will interact some, just try to get your first coats a little dry, but nothing extreme where you might screw something up.

[Rodney]

1. With the sand back method, do you prep the wood to 320 grit, or is 220 ok, since you're sanding it again after the first dye application anyway?

2. Will a water-based sanding sealer interact too much with the dye? I'm hoping to use KTM-9 for the clearcoat. Would it be safer to use a clear epoxy sealer/grain filler, i.e. System 3 Epoxy?

1. I've sanded to a final of 220 and all the way to 4000 ( ), to be honest, I don't think it matters that much between 220 and 320.

2. It probably will interact some, just try to get your first coats a little dry, but nothing extreme where you might screw something up.

←

I would add (and this is in the case of alcohol based stains especially) that sanding to well can cause problems. If the 220 you use is old or you really go nuts with 320 it can cause spots that are almost buffed in appearance. They get a gloss and will prevent the stain from sinking in.

I used to have the problem alot near the end of the day that the sanders hadn't changed thier paper and the tops were so glossy I had to wet them down to get the stain to adhere.

I'm looking forward to seeing your finish. I always liked the brown mixture colors.

[Devon Headen]

You can sand finer than 320 as long as the paper cuts well. David Myka sands to 800 before dyes if I remember correctly. When the grit falls off and you start burnishing the wood is when there's a bigger problem.

[Maiden69]

Nope David sands to 400, I PMed him about doing my top, and here is what he told me.

To prep the wood I wet it and sand back to 400 grit about 3 or 4 times. This reduces the amount of grain raising to almost nothing.

To get the color I got on #010 the process is like this:

1. Saturate with black and let it dry

2. Add blue to the center and purple around the edges (go heavy), let dry

3. Sand back with 400 grit until you expose a good amount of white maple again. Don't go too far or you will risk a not so deep finish.

4. Add blue all over the top

5. While still wet add black around the edges and using a rag with purple dye blend the black and blue areas together.

6. If it looks too dark add some blue into the center to lighten it up.

7. If the whole thing looks too dark wipe it back with a damp rag.

8. Repeat 4-7 until you get the results you want.

You can always satureate a rag with water and pull away most of the dye. Also you can let it dry, sand back, and start over. I don't think you will need to once you get the hang of it. #010 was my experimental guitar with this dye technique and it turned out pretty cool (I think!). Treat the dyes like watercolors and blend them on the wood itself. Don't be afraid of using too much dye either. The wood will only take so much and after a while you are just pushing it around. This is when you can really start blending it.

If you want to talk over any ideas feel free to call me:. I am usually available any time during the day from 9am to 9pm.

Keep me posted on you rpgrogress!

~David

[Devon Headen]

http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.ph...912&hl=tutorial

This says 800.

[Maiden69]

(Using a yoda voice)

hUmm, Very contradicting David is, no!

[Drak]

I don't tink he's really contradicting, it's just a stage or two different in grit, no big deal.

Peace be to you, Brother.

[Devon Headen]

I wonder why he switched to 400 instead of 800. Maybe he started having problems. I'll have to shoot him a PM.

[Myka Guitars]

Devon, Thanks for the PM.

Yeah, there is some confusion here. I am always experimenting with my processes and decided to use a higher grit on one of the guitars so I went to 800 grit. It didn't make a difference to me so I just use 400 grit now. I also didn't experience any burnishing but this may be the difference between orbital and hand sanding. I will use an orbital up to 220 and then do the rest by hand. It is my way of going over every littel detail. The other reason is that I like to sand with the grain and my orbital just spins and spins.

Drak is right on about the black mixing with your lighter colors and darkening them. I use a lot of dye so it flushes dye out of the wood almost as much as it pushes some back in. It's a weird approach that can turn ugly if you are not careful. But I never had a top get too dark that a serious infusion of lighter dye didn't brighten up. I use a lot of dye and the tops are very wet when all this is happening. I go through about 6 or 7 applications of dye (and spot removals of dye). What I am usually trying to do is get something of a dye burst happening so the edges need to get more dye than the center. So I flood the whole thing with too much dye and gradually push the lighter color into the center and letting it soak into the edges.

Wierd, I never got the green tint even though I have used yellow over black. It is probably because I have never used just yellow and black. There was always a bit of brown in the mix.

EDIT: This method will not generally produce the clean PRS style tops. I wanted to do something a bit different so be warned: you won't get standard results.

~David

Edited June 7, 2005 by Myka Guitars

[Maiden69]

David, with the results that you got on your guitars, and the ones I got on mine... I realy don't care much about the "standard" PRS ones.

Thanks for the clarification about the different grits.

One more question, if you may answer it here, will flame maple react the same as quilt when stained? Or do quilt because the figure is bigger soak more stain?

[Myka Guitars]

I agree Miaden, the results look much deeper to me. And I like a darker top. Too bright looks, weel too bright. The flame and quilt react about the same considering that each piece reacts a littel differently. Some are more white than others, some have mineral streaks which soak up more or less than the surrounding wood. Other than that I haven't noticed any real difference between quilt and flamed figured maple.