Finishing Technique

[Narcissism]

I was reading about it in a magazine today. When you notice an imperfection in your stain, what you do is you wet sand the imperfection using the stain as your sanding liquid. This is supposed to be used on cabinets and stuff with uniform stained applications, but I figured it could apply to a guitar somewhere.

Would it work if you were using colored poly? Shellac? Lacquer?

[Woodenspoke]

I was reading about it in a magazine today. When you notice an imperfection in your stain, what you do is you wet sand the imperfection using the stain as your sanding liquid. This is supposed to be used on cabinets and stuff with uniform stained applications, but I figured it could apply to a guitar somewhere.

Would it work if you were using colored poly? Shellac? Lacquer?

I think they refer to direct staining of the wood. You have that confused with a tinted finish.

[ihocky2]

You have to watch what type of stain you are using as well. If it is a dye and not a stain, the area you are sanding will get darker as more dye is added. Stains will only ever get as dark as the stain itself. Dyes however will get darker, since you are in essence strengthening the dye with each pass.

[Narcissism]

Yeah, it was an article about "stain" specifically. Not dyes or colored shellac or anything like that, just stain.

So from the two answers given, I can safely say that using this technique with anything besides stain would change the color of the wood. Is that right?

[Woodenspoke]

Yeah, it was an article about "stain" specifically. Not dyes or colored shellac or anything like that, just stain.

So from the two answers given, I can safely say that using this technique with anything besides stain would change the color of the wood. Is that right?

Again staining is not tinting. A tint applies a small amount of color over the body not too it. As you add additional coats the colors becomes darker, without removing the finish or removing a previous layer (hard to do as the layers melt together) tint does not not wipe or easily sand away.

Stain: applied directly to the wood, can be sanded down to remove color or darkened by adding more stain or what ever you are using like dye.

Tint: added to a clear finish, tinted finish does not change the color of the wood. Its opaque you can see through it, The tint imparts a color hue to the wood below or to other tinted layers. Like colored sunglasses, you can still see through them. additional layers are like putting on another pair of sun glasses ontop of the ones you are wearing.

Solid color: non opaque finish, Solid red, green, blue etc. You can no longer see the wood at all. Successive coats only add thickness not additional color. Again it is a finish and does not change the wood color underneath

All of these are generally finished off with a clear coat. But that is not the rule

I think a finishing book should be on your to buy list or look for some of the excellent finishing technique posts buried in this forum.

[Narcissism]

I do understand the difference between Stain and Dye/tint. That's why I chose dye instead of stain for my bass. Stain would not have given me any type of burst, as you cannot fade a stain. You can sand it and maybe get some fade, but it wouldn't be nearly as awesome as with dye.

Anywho, my question has been answered. Basically, the answer is more obvious now that I've reread the article and the answers to this post. I know stains are uniform, so it only makes sense that sanding with a stain as your compound for wet sanding will produce the same results, as long as you're sanding with the same stain as the original one applied.

If i use dye as my compound, it'll just come out as a dark spot, or a lighter spot, and I'd have to resand in order to get the proper evenness in color.