Hi, I'm looking for some insight into how to achieve this 'translucent black' finish on this guitar:
Stephen,
It's possible that it's an aniline dye, possibly black diluted to give more of the grayish tone and then topcoated with a lacquer or other clear finish. It would take some experimentation to try to come close to it.
Dale
Stephen J> Hi, I'm looking for some insight into how to achieve this 'translucent
It can be a dye or plain old stain. What gives it the translucent look is many coats of clear the buffed to a high polish. Also figured woods see to have more dept. In the picture that looks like Flame Maple or also called fiddle back maple, but it sure doesn't look like a good example.
The effect you're seeing there is from the grain of the wood, not anything special about the stain. It's (very) curly maple.
-Leuf
Its dye. Using dark stain on a light colored wood like maple looks like hell warmed over. It doesnt matter if its hardwood or soft. It doesnt work well
I'm not really talking about the wood, I'm just talking about the type of stain used. The sap wood is gray and the grain is black and I want to know how to get that effect.
Warmoth offer bodies with this kind of finish and they call them dyed. If you don't want to buy a finished body or neck you can buy the raw materials from them.
In rec.woodworking Stephen Jones wrote: : Hi, I'm looking for some insight into how to achieve this 'translucent : black' finish on this guitar:
:
If the color is applied to the wood itself, it's dye, not stain. There's a technique for highlighting figure in e.g., curly maple which involves taking a very dilute dark aniline dye, dyeing the wood, sanding off most of the dyed part (leaving some in the endgrainish part of the figure), then topcoating it with any other color. Jeff Jewitt discusses this in a FWW article, and his book on finishing.
It's also possible there is a tint in the lacquer on the guitar -- hard to tell from the photo.
-- Andy Barss
Warmoth Guitar Products, Inc.
6424 112th Street East Puyallup, Washington 98373-4313 USA (253)845-0403 or snipped-for-privacy@warmoth.comWarmoth Guitar Products, Inc.
6424 112th Street East Puyallup, Washington 98373-4313 USA (253)845-0403 or snipped-for-privacy@warmoth.com
I bought a DVD from stewmac on guitar refinishing. On of the techniques for Highly figured wood he stains with black shoe polish. then he sands it down leaving just enough black to highlight the grain then he dyes it. It just looks unbelievable. He said he found shoe polish works the best and the wood has to be very highly figured.
Years ago I found out how the Mexicans achieved the black stain used on some of their furniture. Go out to the road with a hammer and old screwdriver. Chip up some asphalt or tar from the road and put it in a can. Pour some leaded regular gas into the can and let the tar dissolve. Unleaded and Hi test gas are OK, too. You then use a rag and apply the blackened gas to your wood, like stain, but rub it in. Repeat until you get the desired stain. My uncle figured this out because he knew Mexicans couldn't afford to buy stain, and the roads in Mexico are generally pretty bad.
Are you sure it was Mexico and not the state of Pennsylvania?
Hah! Over my way Penndot has the state highway all tore up, and our New Yorker immigrants have knocked out half the little one-lane stone bridges over the local creeks: it's getting hard to get anywhere around here. Took 'em years, and the exit of the idiot former head of Penndot, just to replace the Dark Hollow bridge.
Asphaltum is available in one gallon cans from Hood Finishing. I really like it over aniline dye. For example, Moser's Bright Golden Orange dye looks pretty silly when you first apply it, but let it dry and then apply thinned asphaltum, and it takes on a deep rich reddish brown hue, looking very vintage, but with incredible depth; definately not bright orange anymore!
Asphaltum can be thinned with paint thinner or naphtha. It looks like black tar in the can, but thins to a rich warm brown.
ALso, the guitar in the pic does not have any asphaltum in the finish. It is definately black aniline dye. Aniline dye really pops the grain on curly maple like that, and is available in a wide range of bright colors, as well as traditional wood tones. I've had good results using Mosers water-based aniline dye from Woodworker's Supply.
Basically, the darkness of tone is achieved by the strength of the mixture - add more dye powder to the mix for darker, less for lighter. Wash the wood with a wet cloth and let dry, then final sand, to raise the grain and sand it flush again before applying the dye. Flood the wood with the dye, then wipe off the excess. You want the dye to soak into the wood, as opposed to sitting on the surface of the wood like stain.
No. The grain is running the opposite direction you think it is. What happens with curly maple is the grain is reversing so parts of it are reflecting light and parts of it are not. If you tilt that guitar a bit the parts that are dark now will be light and vice versa. As far as what technique to show it off the best the other posters know a lot more than I do.
-Leuf
As others have noted, stains on maple don't take well (aren't usually attractive). When I've tried it, the results were blotchy and hard to control. Dyes were suggested, and I've heard one other recommendation, from a luthier- nitric acid. It has an interesting look, but ask a chemist about precautions.
Tinting one or more coats of lacquer is how this is normally done. No stain or dye is applied to the wood, since stains and dyes tend to diminish the lustre of the figure in the wood.
I learned this the hard way. I built a bass guitar body with a really nicely quilted maple top layer about 1/4" thick. Before finishing, I applied a Woodburst medium-brown stain to the wood, and lost most of the lustre of the quilting in the process. You can still see the quilt figure, but it doesn't capture the light the way it should. I was very disappointed by the result.
--Roseville Steve
This picture is an example of the same type of curly maple with no stain. First, unfinished:
--Roseville Steve
Probably not a stain, but a dye or ink instead. My guess would be that it is not "translucent" at all, but a solid black. The grain in the wood shows through because the chatoyance in the curly maple reflects light in different directions.
That's my guess, anyhow- based on ebonizing more subdued woods, where the grain lines remain visible, but the effect is much less dramatic.
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