Aniline stain dried with white powdery sections - Help!

[Geoff738]

Can anybody tell me what happened? And more importantly, how to fix it.

I started out putting a coat of stain on my mahogany body last week. I used a red aniline dye powder that mixed with water. I didn't get any of the whitish bits with that first coat.

Grain filled and sanded a couple times.

Final sand with 320. And wiped down with a tack cloth (same one I used prior to the first coat of stain).

Decided to add a bit more dye to the mixture (was a bit purplish on the first coat and I wanted a brighter red.) Other than that, nothing was changed.

Needless to say, a bit bummed - it looked awesome when it was going on and wet.

Ok, for some reason my photos won't upload. I gave the powder a quick rub with a cloth and most of it seems to be coming off.

Could the storage medium for the dye (a plastic cup covered with saran wrap be the culprit? The fact that it was stored in the garage and it may have gotten fairly cool in there at night, although not below freezing?

Am going to do another coat, Will sand with 600. But not sure if I should dump all the dye I've mixed up, or what exactly.

Cheers,
Geoff

[Geoff738]

Anybody? I tried rubbing out as much as I could. Did the moisten the wood, let dry and finely sand thing, which removed pretty much all of the rest of it that I could see. Reapplied stain and .... it's back, probably worse than the previous coat.

Could it be reacting with the timbermate?

I'm kinda at a loss as to what to do next. Do I sand it all off, rub it out as best I can and proceed to the clear coats (tung oil)? If I do that and the oil brings it out again, am I truly screwed?

If anybody has any ideas, please let me know.

Cheers,
Geoff

[Arbiter]

I suspect it's your grain filler. I was always taught to not redye after grain filling.

Think you may be in for a resand, sorry.

[Geoff738]

Originally Posted by Arbiter

I suspect it's your grain filler. I was always taught to not redye after grain filling.

Think you may be in for a resand, sorry.

I'm hoping this is not the case, obviously.

I just gave it a quickish wipe down, and right now, it looks awesome. I think I'll leave it for a couple more days and see what happens. If it looks good after that, I'm tempted to go ahead start the tung oil. Although I'm worried that might bite me in the backside down the road. If it is just a surface thing though, I think I may be ok. I'll try and get a pic or two some time in the next day or two.

I'd still like to know what it is and why it happened. My guess is that the powder is some kind of salt that was in the dye or the timbermate that precipitated out when the dye and timbermate met. But that is very much just a guess.

Cheers,
Geoff

[glen smith]

Bump.

[Geoff738]

Glen,

It's the stain. The timbermate website suggests it should work fine with water-based stains.

I tried the stain on something else and got a bit of the white powdery stuff (no timbermate involved).

So, it was the stain itself, an error mixing it or some strange reaction with the plastic cups I mixed it in.

FWIW, I have now put a coat of tung oil on the guitar. I'm hoping that will prevent whatever was going on there from surfacing again. we'll see, I guess.

Cheers,
Geoff

[glen smith]

Geoff, I am glad you got it sorted out. Could you post a new pic?

[Geoff738]

Originally Posted by glen smith

Geoff, I am glad you got it sorted out. Could you post a new pic?

Well, I'm not sure I got it sorted. But I decided to go ahead anyways. I put a light coat of tung oil on the heel of the neck and then put a drop of water on there, and it did bring a bit of the powdery stuff to the surface.

Despite that, I've forged ahead and I'm hoping a couple or three coats further will do the trick to prevent that. Gonna avoid wet-sanding for a bit. I'm worried that when it gets really humid here that things might not look too good.

We'll see.

I'll try and get some more pics in the next day or two.

Cheers,
Geoff