My Gameplan...be critical

[oceanruckus]

I have combed through this forum and found a wealth of knowledge concerning finishing. I have a plan now, but I want to through it out there to see if it is all good. I've got a swamp ash Z bass that I was planning on finishing with pure tung oil. Attached below is a picture of a bass that I like, but I don't know if my results will closely produce this. Here is the caption from the picture:

G4 bass : G4 swamp ash body, oiled in "teck" tinted/ wenge neck and touchboard (rough - no finish) / 6150 frets / graphite nut / GB7 gotoh tuners / khaler tremolo bridge / pick ups : split P diMarzio (humbucking)+MM bartolini (humbucking) more pictures

Not sure what "oiled in teck tinted" means (maybe yall do) but I figure I can get close with this plan:

1) FIll grain, sand, fill grain, sand (how ever much it takes...)
    -I wanted to use stewmac colortone waterbase grain filler. I thought about using the medium brown filler. On the stewmac website, there is a picture of brown filler on ash wood. Is that pretty accurate?
2) Finish with pure tung oil
    -Planning on using Behlen tung oil from Stewmac.

With this plan, would I get pretty close to the picture? I thought about filling with clear grain filler then staining it with brown stain, then finishing it with tung oil. Would that be better? I don't know if that brown grain filler is going to turn out exactly like that on stewmac website.

Or what about this route, filling with clear grain filler, then finishing it with a brown tinted tung oil? I know the best way is trial and error, but I don't want to spend a whole lot of $. Thanks!

 

[jackthehack]

1.) The StewMac brown water based filler won't look as dark as the picture in the grain when dry. If ordering from StewMac, get the Lawrence McFadden Rosewood paste filler see pic below on mahogany, that's more in line with the pic of the bass you posted.

2.) You could use a brown stain, MinWax oil based stains are available most everywhere and are very easy to use, and then Behlens on top of that.  As an alternative, you could order some of these Mixol universal tints: http://www.woodcraft.com/Search/Search.aspx?query=mixol and use them to tint the Behlen's. There are suppliers that offer pre-tinted "Tung Oil" but it's typically not real Tung Oil and you don't want to get CB started on that....

 

[oceanruckus]

Thanks for the info, i've heard staining swamp ash is a pain, so I am leaning toward tinting the tung oil. Has anybody had success with this method?