Question On Finishing With Dyes On Figured Wood

[bacanador]

Hello

I have been experimenting with dyes for some time, and last time I tried doing something similar to warmoth's blue burst

Even though my finished guitar didn't come out bad, I didn't get the same effect, I tried using a dark blue sanding back and applying a lighter blue mixed with a little bit of green. for the burst I decided to go with green, cause I wanted to make it somewhat different, but the center I wanted the same color. The guitar came out fine but the look is not as good. Does anyone have an idea on how to achieve this effect, or even this color, Mine came out a much darker shade of a blueish green.

Thanks in advance for any input on the subject

[fryovanni]

How did you apply your color?

[bacanador]

How did you apply your color?

I applied Dark Blue dye first, then I let it dry sanded it back almost to bare wood, then mixed a blue with a little bit of yellow because I wanted to achieve that turquoise color and applied it, the final result was nice, but the color was not what I expected, after I applied the clear coats, the color changed even more and looks green now.

[WAK Guitars]

Maybe if you applied the blue, then sanded back and then applied more of a yellow it would look more like the colour you want. Cause blue and yellow make green, so maybe if it was like a 80% blue 20% yellow or something.

[fryovanni]

Did you spray or wipe the base coats of dye, then tint your clears for the burst, then finish with clear?

[bacanador]

Did you spray or wipe the base coats of dye, then tint your clears for the burst, then finish with clear?

I wiped the dye. I did lightly tint the clear with blue, and finished with clear, would spraying the dye give better results?

[fryovanni]

Did you spray or wipe the base coats of dye, then tint your clears for the burst, then finish with clear?

I wiped the dye. I did lightly tint the clear with blue, and finished with clear, would spraying the dye give better results?

It depends, if you were able to get a good even base coat of dye then spraying wouldn't help. If you tinted and sprayed to add the burst (this would have been my suggestion if you had not). Tinted clear will keep the figure lively. The "stain black and sand back" will give you a look that does not move as well as the light plays on it(you are painting the shadows on), although it looks good in a picture.

How about a picture of what you came up with. You may have a knockout look, and we are just talking about a subtle shading adjustment.

[bacanador]

Did you spray or wipe the base coats of dye, then tint your clears for the burst, then finish with clear?

I wiped the dye. I did lightly tint the clear with blue, and finished with clear, would spraying the dye give better results?

It depends, if you were able to get a good even base coat of dye then spraying wouldn't help. If you tinted and sprayed to add the burst (this would have been my suggestion if you had not). Tinted clear will keep the figure lively. The "stain black and sand back" will give you a look that does not move as well as the light plays on it(you are painting the shadows on), although it looks good in a picture.

How about a picture of what you came up with. You may have a knockout look, and we are just talking about a subtle shading adjustment.

Here is a picture, as you can see the blueish green became green and it is much darker than the color I wanted to achieve

[fryovanni]

I think it looks great We are just talking about a tint issue. You probably could play with your initial wiped dye tint to back it off a bit. Use the tinted clears to develop a better range of color and depth. Look at the tinted blue on the left side of the waist. You can really see a nice shade of blue coming through. The nice thing about the tinted clears is that you can control the shade much better than with wiped dye, and you retain the depth and movement in the figure. Looks to me like you just need to play with your shading a bit and you can achieve just what you want.

Peace,Rich

[bacanador]

I think it looks great We are just talking about a tint issue. You probably could play with your initial wiped dye tint to back it off a bit. Use the tinted clears to develop a better range of color and depth. Look at the tinted blue on the left side of the waist. You can really see a nice shade of blue coming through. The nice thing about the tinted clears is that you can control the shade much better than with wiped dye, and you retain the depth and movement in the figure. Looks to me like you just need to play with your shading a bit and you can achieve just what you want.

Peace,Rich

Thanks for the input, I guess it will be a trial an error till I get the color I want, it just gets expensive , I will try this again on another body and see if I can get closer to that warmoth finish.

Thanks

Jose

[John Abbett]

I think it looks great too..

I have a question for this thread. I'm planning on doing something similar, and Rich said

"The nice thing about the tinted clears is that you can control the shade much better than with wiped dye, and you retain the depth and movement in the figure."

Does that mean I get a better result if I don't dye the wood with a wipe on, but tint the clear coat? I've always read that I put on some tint, sand back, put my color or multiple colors until I get what I want and then several coats of clear.

Is there a second method that I'm missing?

This is my first attempt. So, I'm looking to learn one method and get it figured out to where it works for me.

Thanks.

-John

[bacanador]

I think it looks great too..

I have a question for this thread. I'm planning on doing something similar, and Rich said

"The nice thing about the tinted clears is that you can control the shade much better than with wiped dye, and you retain the depth and movement in the figure."

Does that mean I get a better result if I don't dye the wood with a wipe on, but tint the clear coat? I've always read that I put on some tint, sand back, put my color or multiple colors until I get what I want and then several coats of clear.

Is there a second method that I'm missing?

This is my first attempt. So, I'm looking to learn one method and get it figured out to where it works for me.

Thanks.

-John

I have tried putting only tinted clear, and the figuring doesn't show as much, I guess the trick would be a combination of both, that is what I will try next time.

[fryovanni]

I think it looks great too..

I have a question for this thread. I'm planning on doing something similar, and Rich said

"The nice thing about the tinted clears is that you can control the shade much better than with wiped dye, and you retain the depth and movement in the figure."

Does that mean I get a better result if I don't dye the wood with a wipe on, but tint the clear coat? I've always read that I put on some tint, sand back, put my color or multiple colors until I get what I want and then several coats of clear.

Is there a second method that I'm missing?

This is my first attempt. So, I'm looking to learn one method and get it figured out to where it works for me.

Thanks.

-John

John,

If you flood the exposed runnout(end grain, in the face of the board) with dark color, you will effectively paint on the shadows in the right spots. However if you move that board around the shadows should shift and change with the reflection angles. Some people like that painted on figure look, and it takes a good picture, but I prefer to see more natural reflection and movement. A base coat of dye or even sealer coat will bring out up the figure and still allow for some nice movement in the reflection. Dye black and sand back, will paint the shadows, and they will look the same at any angle. Tinted clears will act more like lenses on a camera, allowing you to see the natural reflections. You can't go too heavy though with the tinting or you will make it pretty opaque.

Rich

P.S. You guys should ask a guy like Perry about this stuff. He is does amazing finishes.

[John Abbett]

Rich,

Does "Perry" have a website?

I gotta see something that you think is amazing...

-John

[fryovanni]

Rich,

Does "Perry" have a website?

I gotta see something that you think is amazing...

-John

Last time I checked. Look up Ormsby guitars.

[bacanador]

Rich,

Does "Perry" have a website?

I gotta see something that you think is amazing...

-John

Last time I checked. Look up Ormsby guitars.

His Work is amazing, those guitars look awesome

[fryovanni]

Rich,

Does "Perry" have a website?

I gotta see something that you think is amazing...

-John

Last time I checked. Look up Ormsby guitars.

His Work is amazing, those guitars look awesome

Look up some of his topics or post. His user name is Rhoads56. He is a regular around here.

[Mattia]

Re colour: test, test and test again. That warmoth looks like it would require very bright colours in the middle-I'd likely apply a stain basecoat of lemon yellow or similar, and test s'more. You want colours that look like they're going to be waaaay to OTT if you want something that in-your-face toned, and then it's down to concentration (how dilute/strong), application and testing. The colour under a clearcoat will always be pretty different.

[John Abbett]

Thanks, that's what I was missing. I didn't know who Perry was.\

-John

[bacanador]

Re colour: test, test and test again. That warmoth looks like it would require very bright colours in the middle-I'd likely apply a stain basecoat of lemon yellow or similar, and test s'more. You want colours that look like they're going to be waaaay to OTT if you want something that in-your-face toned, and then it's down to concentration (how dilute/strong), application and testing. The colour under a clearcoat will always be pretty different.

That might work, dying with lemon yellow first, would you suggest applying the blue with tinted clear, or on to the wood directly. by they way what is OTT?. I will try this on a quilt maple telecaster body.

Thanks

[Mattia]

Over the top.

I like using a combination of wiping and spraying; on this, I'd probably wipe (and thereby blend) the blue/cyan with the yellow, and then spray tinted blue for the burst. And don't try it on a body, try it on scrap! Also, remember that that picture is photographed in a very well lit studio and likely punched up in photoshop to boot...

[Bryan316]

To me, it seems you could have done the center with a very very thinned ratio of dye to alcohol. It just looks like it was too much dye. Not necessarily too dark of a pigment in the dye.

Also, are you familiar with drybrushing? The concept is to dip a brush in the paint, then wipe off all the visible paint from the brush. Only in between the bristles, should there be very light amounts of paint. Then, you do a lot of brushing to get a little paint onto your work.

This can easily be applied to staining/dyeing. Mix up your dye with a much broader ratio, like maybe only a few drops of dye to an entire cup of alcohol. Then, get your brush dipped and clean off as much dye as you can. Then, even if you do strong strokes with the brush, only a little dye gets into the wood at a time. Then you'll increase the number of coats needed to get as dark as you want. Lots of control, lots of chances to go just a little bit darker as you progress.

Also, it's not too late to sand back that body. Do a high grit paper like 220, or maybe even steel wool, and just scuff back the center until it lightens up.

[bacanador]

To me, it seems you could have done the center with a very very thinned ratio of dye to alcohol. It just looks like it was too much dye. Not necessarily too dark of a pigment in the dye.

Also, are you familiar with drybrushing? The concept is to dip a brush in the paint, then wipe off all the visible paint from the brush. Only in between the bristles, should there be very light amounts of paint. Then, you do a lot of brushing to get a little paint onto your work.

This can easily be applied to staining/dyeing. Mix up your dye with a much broader ratio, like maybe only a few drops of dye to an entire cup of alcohol. Then, get your brush dipped and clean off as much dye as you can. Then, even if you do strong strokes with the brush, only a little dye gets into the wood at a time. Then you'll increase the number of coats needed to get as dark as you want. Lots of control, lots of chances to go just a little bit darker as you progress.

Also, it's not too late to sand back that body. Do a high grit paper like 220, or maybe even steel wool, and just scuff back the center until it lightens up.

Thanks for the info

I hadn't heard of drybrushing before, it seems like it would yield better results, I already started another project, and it also came out much darker, but looks better I think.

I will do this on another body, it didn't come out bad, and it takes to much time to finish a guitar, I would rather start a new project, this guitar isn't for me it is for my brother and he loved the results, so I'm cool with it, it is just not what I had in mind

thanks again, will try the brush on the next one

Jose

[John Abbett]

I'm doing test pieces for my blue transtint. I got the color where I want it, but I had a question.

On this maple, I did a grain raise and sand back to 220. I applied my blue (transtint blue dissolved in water), but I'm sooo tempted to sand after the stain. Putting the stain on kills the nice smooth wood work. Plus it seems to hide the curly figure on the wood. Those subtle highlights that are so cool. I want that deep vivid curly maple 3d look (I know, I'm asking a lot for a finish beginner). And putting the dye on highlights the endgrain, but seems to kill the rest of the character of the wood. I've got nice tiger stripes, but nothing else.

I applied the dye, let it dry and put a couple of coats of nitro, it looks "OK", but it's very flat, not vivid. Do you have any suggestions?

If it's going to come out like this, I would almost rather scrape it smooth and just put nitro on it, it would still have that curly maple character and reflective qualities.

Am I asking too much here? What's the secret for getting that deep color with the highlights still in place? What I did was darken the endgrain and obscure the character of the wood.

-John

[ToddW]

Hey John,

Curious, did you finish sand and buff the nitro yet?

There are lots of guys with more experience than I have who will hopefully chime in, but I can tell you that even after raising the grain and sanding, you'll still get more wiskers after you dye. Knocking those off with super fine paper is ok. Also, I think transtints can be mixed in alcohol. It'd still raise the grain some, but probably a little less.

It seems that a lot of guys who want to keep the livelyness and 3D effect don't actually dye to their final color intensity. On many threads I've seen, they seem use a lighter dye/stain to highlight the figure and start the process, and then they tint some clear coats to reach the final color. That's what I'm going to be trying, although my tinted coats may use shellac and not lacquer. Not sure I can spray lacquer through an airbrush, but 1/2# shellac seems like it'd be easy as long as I do a mist coat or two to avoid disolving the stain. I'm going to be having a friend with a furniture shop spray pre-cat lacquer over what ever I use, and almost anything will go over shellac.

Todd

edit for spelling, although there's probably several spelling mistakes left

Edited July 3, 2008 by ToddW