Wudtone-- Black Magic Woman from the horses mouth

Had an interesting chat with Wudtone today about prepping my RC-4 for a BMW finish.

I had unfortunately taken the body down to 1000 grit (which I now know is wrong)

The following obviously in not applicable to veneers.

Basically the outcome for the project was:-

Basswood body-- BMW finish.

Prepare @180 Grit (yes 180) sanding along the grain.

First coat apply pressure to the application (push the bmw into the body). Dont mask the binding just clean with wire wool every coat. Getting colour into grain is mega important on the first coat.

5-6 coats should give you a deep colour, building up and smoothing finish as you go.

Maple neck --BMW finish--noooo

Very difficult to get a decent colout on a maple neck with BMW, advised me as a first time Wudtone user not to do this.
Suggested I use High intensity Dark Onyx insteadd.

Prepare maple neck to 240 grit sanding along grain.

Apply and smooth between coats.


Looks like all my efforts as sanding have been in vain, going to have to rough up the body a bit--orbital coming out for initial stages.

What "grit" finish are the kits delivered to?

Anyone have any thoughts

You could just clear coat it

At a guess I would say about 120 grit as 80 is still quite coarse and can leave scratch marks however it is best grade grit to use to sand off the machine marks.

On my latest build did most of the sanding on 120 and may have given a light dusting with 180. If you work the 120 well enough it comes up really smooth but not too shiny that the timber repels stain.

Cheers, Waz

Doing my mahogany neck with Wudtone colourless, sanded to 240, one coat clear with some added Wudtone grain filler, sanded with 400, 2 more clear coats gone on with a 0000 wire wool rub between each, looking a treat so far, smooth as silk, will give it one more coat later today then on with the satin top coats.