Mahogony Deluxe First build hoping for the best

[jpowers123456]

Just received my body and neck.  All mahogony body, mahogony neck with ebony fretboard.  I am looking to finish it is a manner similar to the PRS Mira in orange as seen here: http://prsguitars.com/mira/index.html.  This is my first build so I would be gratefull for any help you might be able to lend me.  I have read many of the boards and think I need to do the following to get the look I am going for.  Either stain, seal, fill, then topcoat, or seal, fill, tone, top coat.  I was planning on doing a black filler, already ordered it.  I am not sure which is my best bet and given my lack of experience would appreciate any help.  I will post pics this weekend but it is a fairly standard Tele deluxe with belly and arm coutours.  I was thinking the orange stain or transparent tone would look good with black hardware and a tortise or brown shell pickguard.  I am going to try to either do a Jimmy Page wiring job on some seymour duncans or may even try out the new P-rails.  Advice and/or input welcome.

 

[bpmorton777]

Mahogany is a pain in the *** to fill. Look for other threads on this subject here on the forum. Aftr about 8 fills I just said F it and it'l have some grain showing through. The order in which you do your finish wil depend a bit on what you use to finish it.

Brian

 

[jackthehack]

Your best bet would have been to have Warmoth do a trans amber finish for you; the pics on the PRS site aren't the best fro color temperature, that does not look very orange at all to me. Here's a pic of my BK trans amber VIP, pretty close:

http://www.unofficialwarmoth.com/index.php?topic=873.0

Another variable that could make a bit of difference is what shade of mahogany is the body you ordered? It can go from pretty light to kinda dark:

At any rate, first thing you'll need to do is fill; the referenced PRS finish looks like it was filled with black. There are a number of threads with pics on grain filling mahognay, it can be a bitch. I would suggest you get both black and clear grain filler; start with black to get the grain colored, then do the final fill(s) in clear to make the process easier.

As to the amber color; are you going to use rattle cans or do you have a compressor/gun? If using compressor/gun, Tonar might have some formulas to get a similar amber tint for gloss nitro lacquer.

Do you have a Mohawk distributor anywhere close to you? They have an amber color in the Ultra Classic Toner like the red I used on the Thinline, CB has mentioned it's pretty close to Fender Neck Amber (their online color chart sucks, don't go by it, the actual colors are real different. After work I can sand back and shoot a mahogany test board with Fender Neck Amber and see how close that looks....

 

[jpowers123456]

There is a Mohawk dealer a mile from my house so I have access to these products.  I plan on using oil based filler and hope that will improve the filling processs, I have heard the water based shrinks more, not sure if that is true or not.  I live in an arid climate so things shoule cure up real fast, hardly any humidity.  I would like to use rattle cans although I do have a spray gun that I have not used for many years, mostly because of the trouble of mixing pains and setting up the spray, keeping water out of the compressor line, etc.  I could consider the use of it if it is essential.  Thanks for all of the support.

 

[jackthehack]

I don't know what you're going to use for oil based filler, but if it's the Jasco product Tonar uses, it looks like the stuff definitely takes at least a week to dry... Mine's been hanging in the sun almost two days and still feels damp.

 

[jpowers123456]

I ordered some of the Lawrence McFadden off of the Stew-Mac sight for filler. they told me it was an oil based broduct and it built up faster.  Are you trying to dry yours in humid or dry climate?

 

[jackthehack]

Lawrence, KS; been moderately humid the past couple of days, but expected the black filler hanging direct sunlight to feel dryer more quickly.

Haven't used that McFadden product, shows "New!" on StewMac website.

The issue with mahogany isn't getting the filler to "build up", so much as it is very easy to sand the filler back out of the tiny pores. Let us know how that works....

 

[jpowers123456]

This is my fourth attempt to post a picture, clearly I am doing something wrong.

 

[jpowers123456]

One more

 

[jpowers123456]

Okay, these are pretty accurate representations of the coloration, I am surprised they were so accurate.  So, has anyone done a dye then stain then topcoat?  I was thinking about trying the Mohawk Ultra Penetrating Stain, Orange, M520-238, with black filler.  I have some mahogony sample pieces but all are a bit darker than the body or neck (see attached).  I am going to head over to the Mohawk dealer in the morning and try out some of the products. What are the negative aspects of using stains versus toners?  Does one give a deeper coloration than the other?

 

[jackthehack]

I was posting under the assumption that you were going to use the Mohawk Amber toner, but you just posted the last.

There aren't really any major positives/negatives between using the toner or stain.

I would suggest that you get some of the orange stain you mention and some of the Ultra Toner in Amber.

Try applying either to a small portion of the top or back of the body to experiment and see what the color will look like on the wood. Do this only on a flat surface so you can easily use a palm sander to sand it back.

Keep in mind that either toner or stain will darken/deepen in color as you apply more coats and the body will take more than the neck to even out the coloration differential.

If you wind up using the stain; stain -> filler -> spot re-stain if needed in case you sand through stain sanding back filler -> sanding sealer -> gloss nitro top coats

Toner: Compeletly finish fill/sand back -> sanding sealer -> toner -> nitro gloss top finish

 

[jpowers123456]

I feel like an idiot asking you if you have ever used stain, especially once I looked at your most recent posting on the blue bass.  Looks real nice.  I assume the grain fill will not show such dramatic grain with the mahogony given the tiny grain of mahogony?  NAy idea how deep the stain penetrates?  I noticed you used a solvent to clean the wood before the stain?  Warmoth applies something to the necks and the bodies to stabalize them? 

 

[jpowers123456]

I will test drive both the orange stain and the amber tonar, a you recommended in the morning when the store opens.  Gonna be hard to get it out of my head until I am able to have a look in the morning.

 

[jpowers123456]

Do you typically doing any prep sanding before the initial staining or filling or is the sanding Warmoth did adequate given the amountv of sanding involved with the filling process?  Also, what doyou do, if anything,  to stabilize the grain?

 

[jackthehack]

I've never gotten anything from Warmoth that needing any sanding prep prior to starting the finishing process.

I just bleached that swamp ash body to whiten it a bit to take the blue stain, you shouldn't need to do that on mahogany with the color you're going to use.

Stain penetration varies with the product used and wood it's applied to; with mahogany the reference to touching up stain anywhere it gets sanded back applies mainly to edges, real easy to sand those back through the stain.

The grain fill in mahogany will just show those little black grain pores like in the PRS picture you posted.

Don;t know what you mean by "stabilizing the grain"?

 

[jpowers123456]

Well, I got out to the Mohawk dealer and he shot some of the Amber Ultra Classic Toner on one of the pieces of mahogony I had.  Just about spot on match to the PRS Orange color I posted earlier.  Attached is a picture of the sample srayed with amber.  Looks like I will use the toner instead of stain.  A couple of questions.  What is the normal masking strategy for the neck? Do you usually mask just to the edge of the playing surface right from the beginning or do you mask the sides of the fretboard while filling.  Fretboard is ebony so the black grain filler should not have much of an impact I would guess.  The salesman at the Mohawk store indicated a coat or two of the EZ Vinyl Sealer before the grain filler, is that correct?  I was going to shoot the  sealer this weekend as the grain filler has not arrived yet, that way I could do a coat of filler during the week and let it dry until the weekend, if it will take that long.  Is there any need to do any sanding with the sealer and is two coats appropriate?

 

[jpowers123456]

Oh, one more thing, any need to wipe the body down with anything before the sealer? 

 

[jackthehack]

"Just about spot on match to the PRS Orange color I posted earlier."

I thought that would probably be the case. You shouldn't need to seal before applying your filler, that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Seems like if the sealer did anything it might inhibit the filler from sticking as compared to if it wasn't there.

You'll just have to be patient and wait in the filler. I never bother masking the fretboard when filling, not much need to the way you apply it, and if you get a little on the edge of the fretboard it comes off real easy when you sand the filler back.

 

[jpowers123456]

Well the pieces that were sprayed with toner look exactly like the photos (color wise), however, once I sprayed with gloss topcoat the color has seemed to darked quite a bit, a lot more red.  So, I sprayed a couple of sample pieces with the gloss lacquer, one with no toner, two with varying amounts of toner before the gloss and they all have taken on about the same color.  Any recommendations here?  Is it the gloss, would a satin finish look any different?  The sample pieces are a bit darker than the body or neck but my concern is the gloss will just bring out the natural redo the mahogony no matter what.  Would astain provide any different result?

 

[jpowers123456]

I just got the grain filler in the mail and the can says to spray the wood with a thin coat of vinyl sealer , scuff, tack cloth, then thin the grain filler with naptha or mineral spirits, apply a full even coat with a brush or rag, leave on for about three minutes, squegee  or coarse rag the excess off, let dry overnight, spray a second coat of vinyl sealer, scuff when dry.  Does that sound right?  It sounds a little different from what I have been seing here for sure. Are you recommending I definetly skip the vinyl sealer?