White flamed maple?

Hello Guitar Gods.

I am wondering whether I'm on to a hiding here, but I was wonderin'.

I just got a new kit, an LP shape thing from fleabay, it has quite a nice maple cap on it, with a nice flame. I was going to do it flamed black, with solid black body, sort of like a deluxe looking LP Custom black beauty jobby. But the maple is quite pale and from looking at it I thought, hmmm maybe I could the same but in white. but I have no idea how you would actually do this? I thought maybe a light black stain to start to really bring out the flame but without making it too black and then a pale white thin paint over the top.

Maybe something like this..

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/496803402617658300/

Whadya reckon? Doable, or stay with the black?

I'm not sure how you would manage that. You could use ebony Timbermate to pop the grain, but the white stain is a problematic issue. You would need to do tests of scrap timber to be sure it could work, as your top is probably a thin veneer so you wouldn't really be able to sand back any errors without destroying the flame.

You'd probably need to pop the grain with a dark grey stain (black may be too severe, though you could test it out with some lines of stain on some scrap wood first), rub back carefully to leave just the highlights, then spray a couple of coats of nitro sanding sealer, rub back, then spray with a white tinted nitro lacquer (not solid nitro paint), followed by nitro clear coats. Look at the picture of the Tele body here http://www.northwestguitars.co.uk/wh...aerosol-250ml/ where you can still see the ash grain beneath the white lacquer.

I reckon that finish with highlights underneath would get you close to the photo. But you'll only get one chance at the dark/black stain popping and you'd have to be prepared to paint it a solid colour if it just didn't look right when the white lacquer went on. You'd obviously be able to simply spray on more white lacquer to thicken the white and show less of the grain underneath. I'd suggest a solid white for the back and sides.

It's never a great idea to mix paint types, so I'd stick with nitro throughout, which will make it quite expensive as nitro paints aren't cheap. However, getting an off-the-shelf tinted lacquer in anything other than nitro is near impossible.

You could try a can of white auto paint over some stain stripes on some scrap wood to see if a thin coat of that would give a similar effect. However, you'd need to be very accurate with your spraying to avoid doubled sprayed areas that would give a patchy effect with some areas becoming solid rather than translucent. Tinted lacquer is much safer in that respect.

You only need to spray on enough white lacquer to get the effect you are after, and that may not require very much at all. So I'd wait a day between coats to allow the lacquer to dry and give a good finished impression before deciding whether to spray another thin coat. The more layers you put on, the more the detail underneath will be hidden.

You could try a white dye, but with a dark pop stain below it you're likely to get the white turning a pale grey as some of the dark stain will leach out and mix with the white, whereas the sprayed nitro will stay white.

Don't forget to check for glue spots. I'd get some glue remover and go over the veneer join and around the edges regardless, just to be sure, even if nothing seems to show with a turps or metho rub-down.

Im about to try this but with a blue underneath the white

Have tried something similar for a build with popped flame in black and a white artist paint. For this added a touch of black to the white artist paint I wiped on as was looking for a bit of grey. It didn’t pull that much of the original black but wasn’t a great success.
http://www.buildyourownguitar.com.au...?t=5812&page=2
I am about to do another trial with feast Watson whitewash style stain to see if can get a better result.

Attachment 25279Attachment 25280
Im hoping to stain the back bondi blue then use this over the top

I would use a good quality black fountain pen ink wiped on intitially and allowed to dry off for a few minutes before wiping as much off with a damp (not too wet) rag to soak back up as much of the ink as possible. Maybe hit it again with another damp rag next day and see how things look. Sometimes a very light sanding may be required if too much black is still present. If not enough, repeat same process but don't do a third. Just need to be careful the top doesn't get too wet as that can sometimes caused the veneer and glue holding it onto the body to separate.

Easier than using timbermate as that requires lots of sanding on top of precious little flame veneer thickness.

Never used Limewash but that makes sense if you want a watery milky white appearance.

Cheers, Waz

Have given up on this and decided on just a black flamed top. Seems easier with what I have available.

Actually easier is wrong, achievable is the correct term.