Halfway Through and I Have A Question or Two

[Walkingmanblues]

Finally got the neck finished--Tru-Oil--and have the frets dressed, nut roughed in, and tuning machines in place. I think it looks pretty good. (See pics below.) So anyway, I've now turned my attention to the body. Tonight I stained the top, so far so good, but there is a problem. I masked off a natural binding ala PRS with some 1/4" vinyl pinstriping tape and I had some bleed through...pretty bad in a few spots. So here are my questions:

Q#1: What is (are) the best method(s) for cleaning these up? I'm using StewMac dyes, water-based. Blue on the maple top, tobacco brown on the alder back.
Q#2: I have yet to stain the back and sides (a different color), my impulse is to wait until after I've done that before I start cleaning things up. Does that seem reasonable? Or should I address these issues as they arise?

Thanks for any help/recommendations you might have to offer. This is my first build and so far I've muddled through. Making lots of mistakes, but luckily most have been easy to correct: elbow grease mostly. Hope this the the case as well with the binding.

Oh, yes, here's the neck. Really like the way this turned out.

 

[Walkingmanblues]

No worries! Went with the obvious and used a scraper. It cleaned up nicely. Now I have to wait until next weekend to stain the back. Bummer.

 

[Disco Scottie]

Neck is looking good. This might be a dumb question, but when you oiled it, did you do the headstock as well?

 

[Walkingmanblues]

Thanks. Yes, Tru-Oiled the whole thing--about a dozen very, very thin coats--and then polished with micro-mesh pads down to 12000. I was surprised that the oil finish took the gloss that it did, but in retrospect I guess it isn't so surprising. I mean, it's a hard finish, why wouldn't it? Anyway, I'm pretty happy with it. Pretty cool when things work out the way they are supposed to;-)