After seeing the image that started that thread
I decided to try this out on a small scale.
My result left a little to be desired, but I figured I'd show the result and tell what I did and what mistakes I think I made in the hope that the information was helpful to someone else.
Instead of a guitar, I made a simple stupid box. The result can be seen at .
The dye was Transtint 6023 Black thinned with alcohol.
The finish was ML Campbell Magnamax precatalyzed lacquer.
Procedure was to cut all the pieces to size, sand flat to 320 grit, then apply dye, assemble, and finish.
I didn't have anything small enough to measure the dye properly so I had to eyeball the mix and think I got it too heavy. has a nice set of graduated cylinders for 11 bucks that should address that problem in the future. Instead of applying, letting soak in for a few seconds, and then wiping and letting dry and repeating, I let the dye dry on the surface, and ended up having to sand most of it off and start over.
Once the dye was applied I glued up the box prior to finishing. Once the glue had set I shot a coat of finish and let it dry sanding hard then went to work on it and found that the flat surfaces were no longer quite flat. Next time I'd reflatten the exterior and redye as required before finishing, or just not dye the exterior until after assembly. As it stood I had to build up enough finish to be able to flatten the surface of the finish without going through.
Sanded through the finish in a couple of spots anyway, took the dye with it, so ended up with light spots on edges and corners--decided to let it ride to see how it looked. Next time I'd touch it up. First time tried to shoot the whole thing in one go. Ended up with very rough finish on some surfaces. Sanded smooth as I could without going through, masked, and did one surface at a time and it came out much more satisfactory. Took three coats before I had a satisfactory degree of smoothness.
Next time I would have either prefinished the inside, left it completely unfinished, or lined it with something--getting a smooth finish on the inside of a box that size post assembly is problematical--could have done it by brute force and awfulness if I had had another week or so to work on it but as it stands I'm just going with what I've got.
Once I had all surfaces flat with 320, I went on down by grit to 800 then shifted to Micromesh for final finish--this worked out well--note how clearly you can see the reflection of the markings on the bandsaw fence in the photo.
End result was that the figure on the maple was clearly visible and most of the chatoyance was preserved. Next time will be better.
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--John to email, dial "usenet" and validate (was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)