Suggestions to get this color on Korina / white limba (dye?)

gybe!

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Hello all!

I am just about to start on my first finish and have found this board to be a great resource from a lurker perspective, but it is time to start getting more info!  I have a white limba / korina bodied strat in progress that I would like to do kind of a worn in WWII style theme....As in, if you were to imagine what infantry green would look like after spending the past 60 years in the ocean and washing up on a beach.  As part of the whole theme, I am going for something that would feel more like a piece of beachwood.  So, a 'worn' smooth as opposed to a glass like polished smooth finish.  Here is the piece of wood the body is being routed from:
bodywood.jpg


The closest things I can find to what I am imagining is the pictures below (not mine), but I would like to do a very similar color scheme, perhaps a bit lighter, but still achieving the gray/black/washed out green feel. I would also like to capture a lot of the grain pattern of my korina in my finish
Luxxtonech.jpg

luxxtonech1.jpg


My initial thought is to skip any grain fill or sealant, dye with a mix of green/black/brown dye (alcohol or water based?), and then shoot with a satin nitro to finalize the finish.  I will have some scraps to practice on, but any advanced suggestions are welcome!
I am especially uncertain about grain filling and sanding as it is my understanding that korina does not absorb dye to great depths of the wood and once grainfilled may not absorb dye at all (?)
Thanks!
 
I am about to do a swamp ash body in a similar finish, but lighter with a little more green. I plan on starting with coat of black aniline dye to stain grain lines, then sanding back, then green dye, then multiple layers of tung oil followed by wax. May be a little more yellow than what you're going for.  :party07:
 
I think the green might actually come from the black dye. Alot of "Black" colors are actually just other extremely dark and concentrated pigments. You can see them sometimes if you wipe them really thin.
 
When I was in the army, that color was referred to as "Loam." 

Don't know if that helps or not, but there you go. 
 
I think you are on the right track. if you get the body sanded up to 320 grit you can start  your staining.
if you look trough old finishing  treads here you will see bodies that are finished in wipe on poly finishes that should
give you an idea of what the wood looks like  after maybe 2/3 coats, you will see the grain pores showing.
Thats what wood will look like without grain filler.
If you do go the grain fill do it before the stain  2 coats of thinned sealer/ base coat, lite sanding between coats ( that used 320
grit that you preped the body with won't be to new  as a fresh piece of 320) then as many coats of satin (a couple of hours between coats
very lite sand between coats till it looks right to you.)
You have scraps  do samples.
If you go green dye add very small amount of black you can always add more.
Water based dyes will take a bit longer to dry( might want to finish staining  hang the body overnight to dry shoot sealers next day)
Good luck
 
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