To stain or use grain filler first?

Just curious on what suggestions people think is best, should I stain first, then use grain filler, or use grain filler first, then stain?

So far I have asked two people and both had different answers, any suggestions.

Cheers

What guitar and what body wood?

There is no correct answer. As if often the case, it depends on what you want to achieve.

If it's something like ash, where you do need grain filler if you want a smooth finish, then you have both options available. If it's a closed pore wood like basswood, maple or alder, then there is no need to grain fill. And maple veneers don't need grain filling per se, though you may feel the need for a neutral grain filler around the edges by the bindings where the veneer can often splinter when it's been trimmed and you want to fill the dips left behind.

Assuming you need to grain fill say ash, you can stain first, and grain fill after with a contrasting colour, either lighter or darker. But there is a risk of over-sanding and sanding through the stain on the wood leaving lighter patches which then need re-staining. Easy to fix, but a risk of then getting the base stain on the grain filler and affecting its colour in areas, so it might look a bit odd. But you can then always re-stain the whole body to prevent this.

Grain filling first allows you you apply several coats of grain filler (three applications is often needed). This can be darker than the overall stain and allows you to get the surface flat before staining. You could argue taht staining both gives more of a blend, so the result looks slightly more more natural.

But if you want to use a lighter grain filler with a dark body stain, then you really have to grain fill afterwards.

For something like ash, I'd probably use a spirit based strain rather then water based. Partly because I feel it penetrates into the wood a bit further (neither go particularly deep), and if you use a water based grain filler, then it's less likely to loosen and get pulled out if you stain over the grain filler. Id probably go water based if binding is involved as spirit based stain does get into the normally invisible cracks in the binding far more than water-based stain does.

So, what kit and body wood do you have and what look do you want to try and achieve?

Simon, thank you so much for your detailed answer, you basically explained everything I needed.
The Body is mahogany with a spalted maple veneer top, so I don't really need to grain fill the top, but mainly the rest as the mahogany on my last build took quite a few coats of tru oil to get smooth, and hopefully this should help.
I was planning a dark brown stain with tru oil finish.
Thanks again mate

No problem.

It can be very confusing.

To beat the horse a bit further, to get a more dramatically figured to when sanding is not advised (maple veneer), how bad an idea would it be to fer some dry black pigment and rub it in? Follow up with a brushing or blowing with an airgun.
Or should I expect the yellow stain to smear that around and ugly it up?

You can sand maple veneer lightly, but you only really get one go at it before you then risk sanding through to the glue layer beneath. So you don’t want to use too concentrated a dark stain otherwise you won’t be able to sand back enough to expose enough light maple again, and the whole top will be dark rather than the flame or quilt being highlighted.

Better to use a very diluted stain and apply several times if necessary, than to try and apply a concentrated stain sparingly.

I’ve done it once myself and that worked OK. You are still reliant on the veneer having a good strong flame or quilt pattern though for it to look good. I’ve had a couple of kits where the flame pattern was very weak apart from in a couple of areas. Highlighting a weak flame or quilt won’t make it look much different, and could just increase the contrast between the better patterned areas and the plain ones. One got finished with just TruOil and one was painted over.

I’ve never used pigment powder yet, but I’d imagine that if you did just brush it on and then blow most of it off, then it would mainly just dissolve in any stain applied over it and just darken that stain, possibly with some darker blotchy patches.

I’m not sure what gives flame or quilt maple its pattern, (something I’ll now research) but it must be down to the grain in those areas running at different angles to the main grain lines. So in the pattern areas you have bits of cut-through end grain being exposed. As end grain takes up more dye/stain than ‘normal’ grain, a darker stain should highlight the flame/quilt pattern and remain after some light sanding. Even the yellow stain on its own will highlight the pattern more than when just a natural finish for this reason. But a weak darker stain first will bring the pattern out even more.

If you had a 5-6mm thick maple cap (or a solid maple body), you could go for a really dark stain as you have the ability to sand back a lot more. But with a veneer, you need to be subtle. Which is often all that’s required.

Good day Simon,
I have read through your answers in the above thread and have a further question.
I'm wanting to get the same effect (black stain on flame maple) as the J&H guitar made by Bob Hartman a few years ago. For some or other reason I can't upload a photo.
What would you recommend as a stain?
Thanks for the assistance.

I haven’t done a black stain finish, like that, so can’t really say what’s best. I’ve used a dilute water-based black stain to ‘pop‘ the grain on my ES-1 kit, but getting a highlighted all-black finish isn’t that easy.

I bought an unfinished Tele body off eBay sone time ago that had a black-stained maple top. It was very black indeed and you could only just tell it had a flame to it. Unfortunately, because it had black binding that I wasn’t aware of, and the top was so black, I thought it had a thick maple cap, so robustly sanded back to expose some unstained maple which I was going to tint another colour. But before I got to that state, it turned out that it was veneer and I’d sanded through to the body wood.

So if you do try and go for black, just make sure you dilute the stain well and don’t go too dark all at once. Build it up slowly and wait until each application has dried to check the colour. Don’t forget it will look more intense with a clear coat on. I expect the Bob Hartman guitars had thick maple caps which made it easier to apply a strong black first, then sand back and apply a more dilute stain. Though I’ve seen good strong flame and quilt maple finishes on the kit guitars as well so it can be done (just not in black).

But you are always going to be reliant on the quality of the flame or quilt on the kits veneer. Some kits have had gorgeous deep and consistent patterning in the veneers, some could hardly be called patterned at all and some have only had strong patterning in patches. If the pattern isn’t there in the first place, you won’t get the results you want.



I’ve only used either water-based or spirit-based stains from the likes of Rothko and Frost. I prefer spirit stains as they are a bit easier to work with to get a uniform finish but I find they do get into cracks in binding far more than water-based stain, so I now only use spirit stains on all-wood bodies.

What I haven’t used are all the other various Indian inks and leather dyes that others gave used, but they all seem to give good results.

But whatever you use, always check for and remove glue marks first. With veneer tops, they will be there, especially down the join line and where it meets the binding. Fingerprints could be anywhere.

And I’d mask any white or cream binding before staining. You can scrape surface stain off binding, but once it gets right in the cracks it’s almost impossible to remove. The binding (at least the stuff the PB kit guitars use) gets hairline stress cracks in when it’s bent. The tighter the radius, the greater the stress on the plastic and the more cracks there are. I ended up painting the binding on my ES-1.

Simon, thank you so much for your help previously with this build, I am at the stage now where it has 30 coats of tru oil, and looks great, and now I am looking to get the full gloss finish and remove some of the minor imperfections.

What is the best method to achieve this:

a) use a cutting polish, the type used on cars to cut it back a touch, and then use a wax?

b) use fine steel wool to scuff, and then use a wax?

Are there any methods other than these, or would either of these suit?

Cheers, and again thank you very much for your help.

For full gloss, I'd wet sand back using P600 until the surface is flat with no pits in it at all, then go up through the grits to P200 or maybe P2500, and then use a medium and then a fine cutting/polishing compound. Meguiar's Scratch X2 is a good fine compound and their normal cutting compound is good for the medium. But there are lots of alternatives and you can even use a even finer compound like Micro-Mesh Micro Gloss type 1 to polish the polish.

After polishing, I've never ever felt the need to use a wax (and always avoid polishes or waxes with silicone in them as this makes the surface almost impossible to refinish if you ever ned to repair a scratch or dent without a lot of sanding back and suitable solvents).

Wire wool + wax is not a finish I've ever used, but it seems to be used to give more of an aged, slightly satin finish, not a full gloss. But even then I would personally be wet sanding with P600 first to get the finish free from pits/orange peel before using the wire wool (or use a coarser wire wool to start with).

But unless the surface is really hard (this normally takes a couple of months with TO in my limited experience), I'd avoid using wire-wool as it can leave short metal fibres sticking in the finish. The 3M Scotch-Brite pads are a better and less messy alternative. I have the dark maroon, grey and white pads which equate to 0, 00 and 0000 wire wool. But they do tend to come in large packs which are relatively expensive.

Simon, once again you clarify things perfectly, thank you so much, very much appreciated.

I’m sure there are other options to getting a smooth glossy finish, but sanding and buffing is the mainstream option. Having a buffing wheel may reduce some of the necessary sanding work, but probably only if you become very proficient at spraying your finishes.

The usual provisos go with wet sanding. You want to avoid getting water in holes, as the water can soak into the wood, which then swells up around the hole and can crack the finish. So best to avoid drilling small holes for scratchplates etc. until afterwards. If pre-drilled, you can fill the holes with wax first to keep the water out. Beeswax (get it in blocks for candle making) is probably the easiest solid wax to use, but I have heard of beeswax paste also being used. Wipe down the finish immediately after wet sanding to remove the water. Removing the sanding residue when going to a finer grit also helps get a better finish as the old residue particles can still scratch the finish, which makes it harder to remove the fine scratches made by the previous grit with the finer grit paper you’ll use next.