Help me decide on a finish!

[BLK_RTS]

I have a swamp ash '72 P-bass body scheduled to be delivered on Friday (pic attached).  I can't decide how to finish it!  I'm a fan of natural and kind of gnarly looking finishes. 

I was originally thinking about using some Odie's Oil and tinting it a bit to do a kind of dirty looking burst sort of like this...

But then I saw this.... [youtube]-huZ9gtzr5s[/youtube]
I'm just not sure about the accentuating the ash grain stripes that much.  But it does look pretty cool.

Then I came across this.... [youtube]1lMwlYAKMfQ[/youtube]
If I did this I'd probably sand it back in the center of the body a bit to give it kind of an aged burst look.

All of these options would get a finish coat of Odie's Oil and wax.

What do you all think?  Give me your votes!

I should mention it's getting a Maple/Maple Warmoth P-Bass neck with standard black dot inlays, Black/White/Black pickguard, and all black hardware. 

 

[rgand]

I'm not a fan of burning the wood although some like the look. The vinegaroon or ebonizing is something I may try myself one of these days. You can darken wood some without the tea and have a nice darkening without quite so much black tone to it. It's an easy process. I find one of those big steel wool pads in a quart of white vinegar will dissolve completely in 3-4 days and the solution will keep for a couple years. If it weakens, just add more steel wool. It's the iron that reacts with the tannins and wood has some in it naturally, the amount depends on the type of wood. The reason for the tea is to give the wood more tannic acid for the vinegar/iron solution to work on.

 

[BLK_RTS]

Thanks Rgand!  I really am leaning hard away from the torching at the moment.  When I came across it I was kind of intrigued because I'd never thought of doing something like that before, but the more I sit with it the less I like the idea.  I'm kind of leaning towards using a dark oil based stain of some sort over the whole thing and then sanding it back in the center so that the edges stay dark and it leaves it in the deeper grain lines all over but lightens up the higher wood where I sand it down.  And then finishing it with Odie's Oil and Wax.  Kind of giving it a look similar to the first picture I posted.  I thought about doing a black grain filler, but I don't really care about filling the grain entirely...I like the natural feel and I'm definitely not going for a smooth mirror finish.  My thought is that the dark stain over all and then sanding back the center will still darken up the grain lines a bit like a dark filler would.  That vinegar oxidation method seems pretty cool too though.  Decisions, decisions....

 

[rgand]

Looking forward to see what you do with it. :icon_thumright:

 

[BLK_RTS]

Me too!  Haha

 

[BLK_RTS]

I think I'm going to try the steel wool/vinegar oxidation on the back to see how my particular piece of wood reacts to it.  If it looks cool I'll do it on the front also and either darken the edges with the tea method or just use a stain to darken the edges.  If I don't like the way it looks I'll just stain a dark color over it on the back and have that dark color creep around the edges onto the front and I'll finish it rough and dirty looking like that first picture I put up.  (I'm kind of just thinking out loud here in case anyone has an opinion or advice to share on my thoughts)

 

[BLK_RTS]

Did some tests and I think I'm going with something along these lines.  Dark brown water based dye over the whole thing and then sanded down in the center so it accents the grain and gives me a little bit of a burst effect on the edges (I'm not at all going for a perfect burst...more like the look a piece of wood would get over decades of people handling it and their forearm resting on the body...a darker patina on the edges).  Then an amber water based dye over the whole thing ahs also sanded back a bit here and there to get the wood to shine through and almost look like it was sun bleached in spots.  Then some India ink on the edges and kind of rubbed in certain areas to give it a grimy look.  Oh, and before all that I'll be banging it up in spots to give it some imperfections that will catch the dark stain in the beginning.  Followed up with a few coats of Odie's Oil and a few coats of Odie's Wax.  I'll post pictures as I go!

 

[rgand]

That brings out the grain nicely.

 

[BLK_RTS]

Yeah, I was pretty happy about how that worked on the test.  So far on the actual body its not worrying quite as well.  The brown dye doesn't seem to be sitting down in the grain as well as on the test.  I think it might be because Warmoth does such a damn good job of sanding.  On that test I only sanded to 180 and then the sanding passes in between dye colors were at 220.  I think Warmoth had the body at 220 to start with.  I'm liking how its turning out so far though.  Might have to figure out a way to darken up the grain without messing up the rest of it though.