IanKJ

I've been doing some reading, and I'm kiiiinda running into a bit of confusion regarding mineral spirits and methylated spirits. One thing I know for sure by now is that mineral spirits apparently DO NOT raise grain, and are thus good for grain highlighting, but I did see something about how methylated spirits DO raise grain a touch, but when I tried to look into this more, I couldn't find anything. Google keeps giving me results for mineral spirits when I try to Google methylated spirits, so it's hard. What's everyone's knowledge about mineral vs. methylated spirits in both grain raising and grain highlighting? And, actually, what's everyone's knowledge about the two in general when it comes to guitar shit?

I've been looking into this, and I wanna know if anyone has any words about it. Has anyone used sanding mesh/sanding screen for de-whiskering as opposed to sandpaper? Everything I'm seeing says that you may wanna go this route, just on account of the way it works (no grains gouging into the wood, just screen for the raised grain to get caught up in, you get the idea). Anyone know of a reason one or the other might be a better way to go?

Also cool. From everything I've gathered, I think I'm definitely going to go out of my way to avoid water at any cost, except maaaaaybe for the colored finish. I would like to avoid water even then, but I hear it's easiest to avoid blotchiness when using water, so I'll probably do that. I think I'll try to get a couple quilted maple scraps off eBay and see what's up beforehand. Other than that, I think I'm good to go on the veneer questions, so thanks to everyone for the help, and I'll be asking some other questions as I need them answers. Thanks again! Oh yeah, what's everyone's preferred way to get rid of glue spots? I've seen the heat/moisture method and the sanding method, does anyone have a preference?

Cool. Cool. That was very nice, succinct info. I was thinking the same thing with going in with a brown first instead of a black for the grain pop, and does anyone have a suggestion for best non-water-based dyes? Also! Does anyone have a trick for finding glue spots before staining? I've seen enough of these Chinese kits get put together to know you're 95% likely to have glue spots you should have dealt with before you started staining. Is there a trick for finding'em before they find you?

Also, I see the decimal is kinda small, so please note that it is "POINT 6 MM." as in "Not a full millimeter."

Hey, guys. I've recently begun a Les Paul project, and have picked myself up a quilted maple Chinese body n' neck. The details on the page say that the maple veneer is .6mm thick, and I'm looking for any and all advice in dealing with it. My plan is to do an amber finish, no burst. Since I know that it's advisable not to wet a thin veneer too much because of delamination, I wanted to know if anyone has any information about how to deal with a thin veneer. My specific questions are: 1) If I wanted to do a "figure pop", is .6mm going to give me enough room to do a sand-back? 2) If I wanted to keep from getting too much water on the veneer, should I maybe perform the figure pop with a non-water-based stain, do a sand-back, and THEN stain my main color with a water-based stain? Or should I honestly stay away from water altogether? Thanks for any help, and again, I am looking for any and all help with veneers and just staining in general. Thanks again.