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Help dyeing Gibson LPJ


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Hi, I am new to ProjectGuitar and guitar DIY in general, and currently in the beginning phase of refinishing my 2013 Gibson LPJ (originally the guitar had a rubbed, satin finish with no lacquer). I am staining the top blue with some Keda dye and will lacquer it afterwards :happy:

I sanded it to bare wood then dyed it but I have a problem. The original white paint from the guitar (and possibly some kind of varnish) is still sitting in the grain of the maple, and it means the dye didn't penetrate properly.

This is after dyeing then sanding back with quite rough grade 150 for a few minutes:

guitar.thumb.jpg.0f68e9b9fd1e6e3df0adf906aad140cc.jpg

Should I keep sanding until the white is gone then re-stain, or apply a base coat first? The speckles of white give it some weathered look which I don't like.

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welcome to the group. 

 If anything is on that wood-paint/glue/whatever- the dye/stain wont soak in properly. You will need to sand it until all paint/varnish/whatever is completely gone. The good news is maple doesnt have extremely deep pores- so a session of 80 grit ought to get that gone in no time- then you can go thru your other grits to finish sand. when you are sanding with the 80 grit-when you think you are done - clean the dust off- lightly dampen the body and look (at an angle) and move the body around under a light source and make sure you have gotten it all. dampening the body may help you see better.

You may have this topic moved to another section of the site (finishing) by the admins- so dont be alarmed. 

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Good response, Mr. Natural.  If you removed enough hardware, you can random orbit sand quicker to get past the white.  Don't use a belt sander - takes extreme skill to not get dig pits.  But you do need to remove the surface til white is gone.  Then it should be easy from there to fine sand, then re-stain.  The stain should take pretty evenly, even if some stain is still present. 

  If you intend to gun spray, then you can mix slight amounts of transtint into your clear to help with even darkening, but that is advanced, requiring perfect lay down of even coating mils in order to not get runs or sags, which are near impossible to even out later.  If you do spay a tint coat (which can look better than dye stain direct on wood), then thin the lacquer twice as much as normal for topcoats.  

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Yes, I also agree with @Mr Natural and @StratsRdivine .  Just a case of sanding a bit further.

 I tend to avoid mechanical stuff because I've 'dug in' too many times, so I would personally hand sand using 80 grit with a block and then use finer grit when all of the previous finish is gone.

I refinished a white lpj last year - I'll try and find the thread....

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Thanks for the replies. I kept sanding and eventually got to the white (previously I was using much too fine), and the new stain looks much better :)

1.thumb.jpg.7fbd009cc24acbbaf4a6ed0bd3f13ada.jpg

After this picture I sanded back a tiny bit with 400 and did another layer to get a darker blue but the light isn't good now to show it. Next I will dye the rest of the guitar, then grain fill the body and seal everything. Then I will maybe start a new thread and document progress from there, once I have something interesting to show.

Lol thanks Andy, this is pretty useful!! (will probably skip the binding,,)

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