Roasted Swamp Ash and Dye Questions

[Mr. Neutron]

Hi, Folks!

New guy here, with some questions about dying a Roasted Swamp Ash body.

First of all, is there a "next best" kinda wood for practicing finish, dye colors, & techniques that is remotely close to roasted swamp ash?  Or can just regular ash lumber be "baked" in an oven to simulate the thermal modifying process? I really wanna try some different things to get a translucent (I believe "translucent" is the descriptive word I need.....) blue finish on RSA wood. I've been trying fir 1X2 chunks, but believe that what happens on fir ain't gonna be what I get on roasted swamp ash, ya know? Other than under where the neck plate or pickguard would go, I really have no RSA wood to see what's gonna happen when I do something to it. From what I've read here, just sponging on some amber dye onto RSA won't get you an amber color. I'd expect the same thing trying to get a see-thru blue color......

I guess my next questions might be regarding application techniques. I originally simply wanted a guitar with nice, interesting contrasting grain with a Tru-Oil finish on it, and call it good, knowing a clear finish of some sort makes the cooked wood darker. After receiving my Warmoth Hybrid Strat body in RSA, I sanded some on it, wiped it clean, and blew it off with compressed air. I then embarked on a series of mistakes that I'm basically trying to cover. Worst of the mistakes is some Light Blue Rust Oleum 2X Gloss paint still left in the "deep grain" after sanding the crap out of this piece of wood.

Anyway, my next questions are:

Will dark dye (hopefully blue, but maybe black) cover up my faint lt. blue enamel paint grain lines I currently have?

Can a water based dye like Transtint blue go on without being uneven or splotchy?

If so, can someone please give me an idea of a good technique for dying a guitar body?

Can maybe sealing shellac be tinted, and go on fairly evenly?

The way Roasted Swamp Ash gets darker with clear coat, and will not always get you exactly what color you desire after you put some colors of dye on, does anyone have any experience with color (or combination of colors) a person needs to get a translucent dark sky colored blue?

I'm now considering trying to come up with a finish similar to this, but possibly in deep translucent blue with dark grain highlights, hoping it would cover up my light blue enamel grain debacle.

I will totally go with the look like the photo has, if that's what it takes to fix my mistakes. There's a video out explaining how it gets done. It;s basically dye with jet black Behlen's dye, then seal with Zinsser's Bullseye shellac. Next, a white pickling stain was put on, and wiped off quickly, across the grain, to leave the white color in the deep grain. You could pretty much topcoat with Tru-Oil, or Minwax poly,or whatever, I'm bettin'. My thoughts are to try a blue finish first, with dye. If it doesn't come out well on my roasted swamp ash, or if it doesn't hide the light blue grain highlights I don't enjoy at the moment, I could go with a couple coats of the jet black dye.

Sorry for the extremely long verbage.

Jimmie

 

[stratamania]

If you were starting with wood that doesn't have paint left in the pores, I would say follow the process described at the end of the post but after doing the jet black dye, sand a little after it is dry and then add some dark blue dye. You will end up with the blue looking darker and more interesting due to the black. Then carry on.

The only way you will find out if that will hide what you already did is to try it. Worst case is if it doesn't work you can always sand back and finish with a solid color or something.

Post the video you mentioned. It might be interesting to see.

 

[Mr. Neutron]

Thanks for the Help here, Stratamania!!!  :icon_thumright:

It gives me a glimmer of hope for my poor tortrured Hybrid RSA Body!!!  :hello2:

I'm kinda thinking like you, I guess. At this point, I can try most anything, and if it doesn't work out, sand some more......  :dontknow: There are some really cool finishes out there with paint and contrasting grain fill that look REALLY nice. I just wish I'd used a lacquer paint instead of enamel.  :tard:

Quick question. Will sealing with shellac allow a lacquer base clear or paint to be used over my enamel? It's normally kind of a no-no to go over enamel with lacquer. I think I'll run out to the barn and try hitting one of my fir test pieces (already painted with blue enamel) with some shellac, let it dry for a day or two, then spay some blue lacquer on.......

Here's the video. It gives 4 different "options" for finishes on some Ash cabinet doors. I see these ideas as being transferable to ash guitar bodies.

[youtube]https://youtu.be/epXzTe7vJng?list=PLKF9aKu_jALX8MY65TB2CFvNrnfF7l3Yg&t=300[/youtube]

The last option he mentions, with the jet black dye on the wood, seems like it would come closest to giving me a type of finish I can live with, that will cover up my screw up. Doing the guitar as he describes (beginning around the 5:00 minute point) seems like it has the best hope of allowing me to put a contrasting finish in the grain, with a shot at covering up that last tiny bit of light blue enamel left in the deep grain. I would like a kinda translucent/opaque "see-thru" blue colored main color, versus the black, but I'll take whatever I can get for now. It would  still show some grain texture doing it with the white pickling stain, but at this point, I'll sacrifice a perfectly smooth glossy finish for a small bit of texture. Might even be more desirable and easier.......

Thanks again, Stratamania! And thanks to anyone else patient enough to read this, and still help!

 

[stratamania]

No problem, Shellac is generally known as a workable barrier between most things. Worth testing as you mentioned though.

 

[Mr. Neutron]

I hope this will help somebody finishing a Roasted Swamp Ash body........

The local Home Depot has walnut 1X2s (somewhere around $3.45 a linear foot.....) that seem to make a fairly good substitute for RSA when needing test pieces to experiment with. It's really close in color and graininess/texture. I went ahead and put some Behlen's Jet Black dye/stain on my Hybrid RSA body last evening. Found the walnut this morning, and cut it up into 8"-10" long pieces, and put more of that black dye on those walnut pieces. It seemed to take the stain just like the RSA, and dried about the same color........  :dontknow:

Bad news for me is that the black dye didn't cover up all my light blue enamel paint in the deep pores (left over from when my dominant stupidity gene took a crap on me......) as I'd hoped it might.

Good news is I still have options to fix that. Seal with shellac, and do whatever to it after that. I can put on pickling white stain like in the video above here, or grain fill with whatever color I may wanna try, and so on......

Here's some pics of the front and back after sanding the enamel paint off, and now with the dark dye on  it:

 

[rgand]

You obviously have something particular in mind but I like the light blue accenting the grain. It should be most interesting with a clear coat on it.

 

[stratamania]

Where the light blue is would most likely get hidden by the pickling white or grain fill as it will fill the same deeper pores of the wood.

 

[Mr. Neutron]

You obviously have something particular in mind but I like the light blue accenting the grain. It should be most interesting with a clear coat on it.

Rgand, I felt the same way, and kinda wish I would have kept that look. It would've been more unique, I think......

Yeah, I kinda have something else planned now. I hope it works, and hope I don't regret simply throwing a coat of clear over that light blue grain highlights......

 

[rgand]

You obviously have something particular in mind but I like the light blue accenting the grain. It should be most interesting with a clear coat on it.

Rgand, I felt the same way, and kinda wish I would have kept that look. It would've been more unique, I think......

Yeah, I kinda have something else planned now. I hope it works, and hope I don't regret simply throwing a coat of clear over that light blue grain highlights......

Looking forward to seeing what you get with it.

 

[Mr. Neutron]

With regards to putting black dye on this wood, it seems like my Behlen Solar Lux jet black dye has a brown hue to it after it dries. You can't see it in the photo above, but on both my test pieces and the guitar body the dye tends to lighten to brown after drying. I put the stuff on full strength; don't even know what you'd use to dilute it.........

Any way to make this "blacker"? Could scrubbing on some dark blue do that?

I wonder if I should've put down something like Minwax Ebony stain first?

Or will everything get darker (and stay that way) after I spread some shellac sealer down?
Hmmm, better head out to the barn & try that, I guess.......

Added in EDIT:

Okay, sorry for this post. I had some time to do a little searching, and dug up this video, coincidentally from the same guy in the video above. I noticed his dyed wood (with no sealer coat) tended to look dark brown, like my guitar body does. He did a coupla things, one of which was to put on a coat of ebony stain after the initial dyeing of the wood. And he put a topcoat/sealer on, which seemed to darken it up even more.

 

[stratamania]

Put some blue on there too, should help the color over the black and make it more interesting.

 

[Mr. Neutron]

Hey, Stratamania!!!

The blue Transtint dye I ordered last week from Amazon still isn't here yet, so I can't put that on. I'm interested in what some blue tint can do too, so I think I'll wait for that to show up.....

I do have a can of Minwax #2718 Ebony oil-base stain. I put some of that on both my test pcs., and then the guitar. The guitar body is a nice black color now, which could look even darker after it gets some sealer brushed on. I assume I can still throw a coat of blue on (before sealing), if my dye gets here sometime this decade, hee hee.

I actually plan on "experimenting" with some blue Transtint dye mixed in with the Bull's Eye sealer, and in the white pickling gel stain for the grain highlight as well.

For the contrast in the grain, I have lots of options. My personal favorite would be a light blue grain highlighting similar to what I had after I sanded off that light blue enamel, but on the now black body. I also like gold grain highlights, and silver as well. The white pickling gel looks good for contrast also. Just MY own personal thoughts on that  there......

I've played around with some hardware store wood grain putty and water-based craft paint a week or two ago. The silver craft paint mixed in with wood putty and spread in the grain actually looked pretty good on my experimental blue painted test chunks of fir. Since my guitar body's wood has some fairly deep grain pores, I kinda like the idea of some sorta grain filler.

I'm on the fence over how much texture I want to show on this body. I personally love a flat, smooth deep-looking glossy finish, with no grain texture showing, or flaws. But at my woodworking/grain filling skill level, that may be tough to achieve.

If anyone has any good grain filling tips, I am definitely all eyes and ears here.  :glasses9:

Thanks!