Natural finish on an alder body

[CD]

Has anyone ever seen a natural finish on an alder body? I'm curious as to how it would look. Would the wood be hard enough not to dent up easily?

 

[rahimiiii]

I had a guitar with natural finished alder... it was a Fender American Deluxe strat. I did not like it too much because alder looks a little too dark for natural finishes, they look better in sunburst. I am sure some others might like it better...

 

[Ayrton]

Washburn N4 is alder o natural.

 

[willyk]

The back of my lacewood topped bass is clear glossed alder. See if you like it, I do personally but not everybody will.

 

[jackthehack]

Not all alder bodies are created equal; if you want to do a natural finish it might behoove you to pay a little more and get a one piece alder body... Blow up the showcase pix and check the grain pattern, some of the less expensive alder bodies are really better suited for solid color or burst finishing. I usually oil stain, you can experiment with products like Minwax oil finishes, at least a light stain with a light color like pecan can help bring the grain out without fundamentally changing the natural wood's color. After you let the oil stain COMPLETELY dry out you can add your tung oil/tru-oil/nitro/poly finish on top of that. The alder back of the zebrawood laminate in the picture below has two coats of pecan stain with one coat of darker jacobean Minwax oil stain with 4 sealer coats and 12 nitrocoats on top of that:

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

That's pretty nice.
I've not seen an absolutely clear finish on alder that I've particularly cared for, but their have been a few translucent finishes I've seen that looked ok.

 

[SkuttleFunk]

I have done a couple natural finishes on Alder. It's a great look if you have the right pieces of Alder. Here's a couple recent basses

Back side:

Front side:

The first of a new model I will be offering as standard

all the best,

R

 

[jamesabrush]

Here's the unsanded version of my truoiled strat body I'm working on.  I think it looks great!

 

[AutoBat]

My Mexican strat is 3 piece Alder looks great in a gloss black.

 

[DangerousR6]

My Mexican strat is 3 piece Alder looks great in a gloss black.

:laughing11:

 

[rapfohl09]

My Mexican strat is 3 piece Alder looks great in a gloss black.

:laughing7: I expected someone to say something like this eventually.

 

[phorty]

Here's the unsanded version of my truoiled strat body I'm working on.  I think it looks great!

That looks fantastic!