Popping the grain on curly maple

[Paul Heagen]

I am building a guitar (electric solid body) with curly maple. I want to pop the grain with water-based black analine dye before my color dye of dark red. I want to make sure I have the process correct.

I plan to wash on the black dye first, then scape/sand, following with the red.

My question is whether I need to seal the black before sanding and applying the red so the black that is deep in the curl does not get diluted out when I wash on the red.

Any advice?

Thanks.

[Donnie Raines]

Hey Paul,

I am very close to you! I work with curly all the time...you are welcome to swing by and we can go through a few steps....your scraps of coarse.

722-0615

[Allan Johanson]

Practice on some scrap before your project and you'll be fine. On the pic below, I flooded on a water-based black aniline dye and let it dry. Sanded it off, leaving black in the open pores. I did this a second time to really emphasize the grain.

After the sanding, I added on my reddish colour coat. No sealer of any kind. But in my case this particular stain is solvent based, but I think it would have looked similar if the red stain was water based. I can't see it lifting out the black dye very much.

But try it out on scrap to see what happens with your dyes and your wood. Post pics when you're done.

Good luck!

Allan

[Alan Turner]

I can't comment on guitars, or black as a base, but I do use such syes often. My method is to firswt raise the grain with water, distilled esp. on maple, and sand back with 320, lightly. That way, when you put the water based dye on, you will not have a lot of grain raised. It would be pretty easy to sand unevenly on the dye. With the grains first preraised, you will find that the surface, esp. if initially scraped, stays pretty smooth.
Note, you might use distilled water to cut the concertrated dyes for the same reason.
Good luck. Curly maple is among my favorite woods.
Alan

[Paul Heagen]

Donnie,

I'll call you and perhaps find some time to stop by and compare notes I saw your curly maple table with painted base a while back. Nice work.


Allan,

Exactly the look I want. Thanks.


Alan,
Thanks for the reminder about distilled. I usually do use distilled. I had some interesting colors emerge a few years ago with tap water on maple. -- green/gray as I recall!

I'll post pics when done.