Dye/staining swamp ash: seal before or after colouring?

[Ace Flibble]

Got a swamp ash Jazzmaster body on the way. I'm going to try to get a finish like Mayones' 'gothic black', which is a non-glossy flat black finish which does not completely fill in the grain of the wood, like this:

My question is, how best to do this? I've done 'worn' finishes before, but not with black and not with ash. Also, when I've done them before I've been spraying. I've now moved house and no longer have the facilities to spray properly (and I don't like the idea of just using rattle cans), so I'm looking at dyes and stains which can be rubbed or brushed on. I was going to go for Wudtone, but it seems their 'black magic woman' finish isn't so much 'black' as it is dark brown.

Should I give the wood some sanding sealer then dye/stain, or dye/stain then seal? Does anybody have any experience with dying or staining swamp ash? I hear it can come out pretty blotchy with some stains/dyes, but nowhere specifies exactly which.

 

[bagman67]

India ink is a great, opaque black.  I would probably top the black color coat with a matte or semigloss wipe-on poly.


Are you planning on finishing the entire body in black, or are you doing a top-only job like the example below? If the latter, note that masking raw wood is hard.  If you don't have binding to serve as a hard edge, you might want to undercoat your colorcoat with shellac so the masking will be clean at the edge.  Otherwise you run the risk of seepage into the uncolored area.

 

[sixstringsamurai]

Tried that, wound up with this.....


http://unofficialwarmoth.com/index.php?topic=22695.0

 

[Ace Flibble]

Huh, so was that colour on top of the sealer? I definitely don't want to end up with it being patchy or not colouring random areas well.

Not going for the natural back, so that's fine. It's a Jazzmaster, all curves, so everything is being finished uniformly. Trying to riff off the Fender American Deluxe series' Montego Black finish (and having to spend a fortune getting the Warmoth pickguard duplicated in gold...)

Only with the satin, textured ash.

 

[tangent]

You don't even need to dye or stain the wood to replicate that look. 

You can just use any matte black paint and a matte poly topcoat with no grain filler, or maybe with a minimal amount of black grain filler.  If you want to use black stain though, minwax waterbased black stain works well and will give that look, can get it custom mixed at any hd or lowes.

Swamp ash is difficult and with some pieces impossible to dye uniformly, but that doesn't matter in this case since you are going for an opaque black finish, you can just keep throwing more stain at it and eventually it will be uniform black.

Also most flat matte topcoats are too thick to spray without specialty equipment, so you would probably have to brush or roll it on anyways to get that look.  Varathane 'soft touch' matte poly is good, I think rustoleum makes a flat 'soft touch' poly also.

Attached a pic of swamp ash back I dyed recently.. in this case I bleached the wood before applying the dye to get a more uniform color.

 

[Ace Flibble]

Thanks. I'll probably go with rustoleum's stuff since it's one of the few brands available here.
I get what you mean about paint options available. Perhaps focusing on dyes and stains is barking up the wrong tree, it was just the first thing that came to mind when thinking of ways to do this without spaying. I've seen a few all-in-one wipe-on black poly wood finishes around, perhaps I'll just nab one and experiment.

 

[sixstringsamurai]

http://www.wudtone.com/shop/?wpsc_product_category=finishing-kits&paged=3

I have read lots of good stuff on these guys, yet to try em out.

 

[Ace Flibble]

Yeah, Wudtone is what I was going with first, until I found out their 'black' never goes entirely black.

However, I've used their surfer girl, olympic girl and amaranthine finishes before, and they're great. Just a total pain if you get dust settling in them. So while their black finishes are no good for me this time, I'd still recommend their stuff. Essentially they're hard-curing and self-levelling oil finishes premixed with colour. You could mix up your own version for cheaper, but it's awful convenient to have such common colours already available.

Hell, I used surfer girl for a semi-transparent finish on basswood and even that looked good!

 

[jackthehack]

Get some of this:

http://www.amazon.com/Mixol-Universal-Tints-Black-20ml/dp/B0036AYXLI/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1386616005&sr=8-3&keywords=mixol

...and apply iy WITHOUT diluting it; you'll get that same look, completely black.

Check this thread where a dyed a maple/rosewood neck to look completely like solid jet black ebony:

http://unofficialwarmoth.com/index.php?topic=13524.0