Grain filling a hand rubbed sunburst

[Bobarazzi]

I have a question regarding when to fill the grain on a body when I plan to do a hand rubbed tobacco burst. I’ve read some of the posts where it was recommended to grain fill first with tinted grain filler but that seemed a bit iffy to me.
Has anyone tried doing the tinting first and grain filling with Zpoxy finishing resin? I’ve used it on a guitar that I French Polished and it seems to dry pretty clear. I’m shooting for a high gloss finish and thought this might work. Any thoughts or has anyone tried this method?

 

[Sea Devil]

Freeman Keller should have an answer for you shortly!

 

[old wrench]

Staining or dyeing first - then using a clear filler, works just fine on Ash.

I've done a couple in just that way using the clear filler Aqua-Coat - it dries nice and clear

I don't know exactly how clear Z-poxy dries, but other "clear" epoxies sometimes have a slight ambering effect which can look perfectly fine with most finishes.

I'll find out for myself about Z-poxy finishing resin pretty quickly - I bought some to try out on a couple of builds that are just about ready for finishing - they aren't Ash though, one is Black Walnut and the other is Noble Fir - the Noble Fir doesn't require any grain-fill, but I hope to toughen up the surface a bit with the Z-poxy.

.

 

[eallen]

At the risk of stating what is already known, grain fill is only needed on open grain wood.

When I do a burst on figured wood and want to accentuate the grain such as a sand back I do the the dye sand back before grain fill. Then grain fill, seal, color as desired. If I am just doing a translucent burst on standard open poor wood then grain fill, seal, colors. I seldom find advantage to applying dy directly to non figured wood. Spray most of my colors though so you will have to make sure your dye mix does not soften the sealer. Doing your grain fill 1st, color 2nd, sealer first is fine as long as the grain filler is equally removed in all areas. Otherwise the dye will absorb differently where filler still remains and leave a blotchy mess.

As for Zpoxy, it has been my standard pore fill. It does add a slight amber tint to the wood depending on how much you leave on.

Eric

 

[telepraise]

I would grain fill first, level sand, then fill again if necessary. The hazard with dying first is that when you level sand the epoxy, you run the risk of sanding through and hitting the color. That kind of damage is very hard to repair and have it look good.

Since you're shooting for high gloss, I would get it filled and leveled to perfection before applying color. It may make getting a good burst easier.

 

[Freeman Keller]

Welcome, Bob. I've done a couple of hand rubbed sunbursts but never on wood that needed pore filling. I have also stained some wood that needed pore filling but that is pretty much limited to trying to change the color of mahogany to match something else. I also use Zpoxy as my pore filler of choice.

Most of the time you will be doing a traditional (Gibson style) tobacco burst on either spruce or maple - neither of those are porous woods and do not need filling. Just do your burst, seal and shoot the clear. When I wanted to stain and pore fill I always apply the stain first, then two or three coats of the finishing resin, sanding back just to the surface. The stain soaks deeply into the wood and requires very little sanding, I put on one full strength coat of Zpoxy and level sand that, then one or two highly diluted with DNA. That will soak into the stained wood and not require much sanding to be ready for your sealer. If you have purfling or parts of the guitar that you don't want to soak up your stain you can seal them with shellac or viny sealer, then scrape that before doing the pore filling.

Staining is one of the trickiest parts of finishing and more than anywhere else you should practice all of the steps on scraps of the same wood. You might be surprised at the way the stains behave and the process is pretty much irreversable. If you are new to hand applied stains Roger Siminoff has some pretty good documentation on how Gibson did it back in the Loar era.

Good luck, its tricky but the results can be stunning.

 

[Bobarazzi]

Thanks all for your replies. I will be using maple so I guess I shouldn’t worry about the grain filling. I appreciate the advice!

 

[Bobarazzi]

Welcome, Bob. I've done a couple of hand rubbed sunbursts but never on wood that needed pore filling. I have also stained some wood that needed pore filling but that is pretty much limited to trying to change the color of mahogany to match something else. I also use Zpoxy as my pore filler of choice.

Most of the time you will be doing a traditional (Gibson style) tobacco burst on either spruce or maple - neither of those are porous woods and do not need filling. Just do your burst, seal and shoot the clear. When I wanted to stain and pore fill I always apply the stain first, then two or three coats of the finishing resin, sanding back just to the surface. The stain soaks deeply into the wood and requires very little sanding, I put on one full strength coat of Zpoxy and level sand that, then one or two highly diluted with DNA. That will soak into the stained wood and not require much sanding to be ready for your sealer. If you have purfling or parts of the guitar that you don't want to soak up your stain you can seal them with shellac or viny sealer, then scrape that before doing the pore filling.

Staining is one of the trickiest parts of finishing and more than anywhere else you should practice all of the steps on scraps of the same wood. You might be surprised at the way the stains behave and the process is pretty much irreversable. If you are new to hand applied stains Roger Siminoff has some pretty good documentation on how Gibson did it back in the Loar era.

Good luck, its tricky but the results can be stunning.

Thanks for your advice. I think I’m going to practice a bit on another piece of wood to get the hang of it before I try it on the guitar. I’ve watched a few videos on how t it’s done and getting a a good blend is the trick. Wish me luck!

 

[Freeman Keller]

Thanks all for your replies. I will be using maple so I guess I shouldn’t worry about the grain filling. I appreciate the advice!

Bob I have done several guitars with maple tops and/or backs and they take stains beautifully. I have only done one tobacco (Cremola) style burst. The stains were hand applied Colortone in DNA with water born lacquer over it. I've quit using water born and gone back to plain old solvent nitro. My first burst, I think it came out OK

I recently finished an archtop with a spruce top (the mando also has a spruce top and is sunburst just like the back). All the time I was building it I was sure I was going to do a vintage tobacco style burst but I did not want as large a black area as you traditionally see. I wanted the amber center fading to red and then to dark brown right at the edge. The back and sides were mahogany so I wanted to pick up the dark brown in the side and have it lighten to the center of the back.

Fortunately I had lots of cutoffs from the top, unfortunately I simply could not get it to work the way I wanted it. The picture is more or less what I wanted, there are some stained piece of spruce and mahogany, the little white thing is a piece of the binding

Here are the two pieces of spruce and the guitar

It was pretty dramatic to me how much the stains were soaking into the late wood

This, of course, is what makes stains pop the grain so dramatically. You can use it or it can jump up and bite you.

As much as I wanted the dark tobacco burst I decide it just wasn't going to happen and instead shot a light more ice tea burst. I think it looks right on this guitar

Good luck with yours, show us the results

ps - you might want to move your finishing questions to the Finely Finished sub forum, some pretty good finishers over there.