Quilted Highlights under Dingotone

Hi DingoBase

I am about to embark on my first build and getting buried in finishing options from both this forum and the web generally.

I have a LP-1MQ and would like to highlight the quilting. I am shying away from black timbermate because and the general darkening of the cap and the sanding issue on the thin veneer.

I like the idea of staining the cap and then wiping of after 30 mins to stain the lows and cleaning off the highs. It appears that this cannot be done with Dingotone so the question is:

"Can is use a water based stain a little darker that Karijini Red, wiped on and off a couple of time to darken the grain, and then use Karijini Red and the Dingotone process to finish?"

Second Question

Will the wax finish on the cap fill any grain in the same way as applying and sanding off coats of Tru-Oil?

Third Question if am allowed this many

Should I fill the grain with a mahogany color Timbermate on the mahogany body before applying the Karijini Red Dingotone.

Greg

You should be ok to use a slurry of timbermate to pop the grain and fill the pores before sanding, same with the Mahogany.
When you sand the cap, it is best to sand only with 320/400 grit just to smooth off the timbermate and remove any fine scratches.
The above should answer q.3 :)

Thanks for your quick response Dingobass

What colour Timbermate are you recommending I should do the cap with? Is the Timbermate to be used to create the highlight? I think black will be a bit contrasty and I think I would prefer a red a bit darker than the Karijini Red.

Are you suggesting that I do not use a water based stain under the Dingotone process.

Thanks Greg

Hi Greg,

Subject to what DB says as he is an expert. When making the timbermate slurry you can mix the timbermate with the stain coat of KArajini red. Therefore, if you use a darker timbermate such as mahogany, the KArijini red will make it darker.

However,

Each stain coat you apply will always soak into the grain more than the ..."non grainy" bits and therefore will always be darker and somewhat pop the grain.

Zandit75's LP-1S is a perfect example by only using dingotone colourless it still brought out the grain and flame in the spalted cap..here it is when he got it .... http://www.buildyourownguitar.com.au...?t=5745&page=4

and here it is after the colourless Dingotone

http://www.buildyourownguitar.com.au...t=5745&page=14

I guess what i am saying is, you may achieve the results with just the stain and without trying to pop it...

Wot Andy sed :D

First time I've ever got a DB whatever I sed!!!!!!!:cool:

Cheers to that

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Andy40

Hi Greg,

Subject to what DB says as he is an expert. When making the timbermate slurry you can mix the timbermate with the stain coat of KArajini red. Therefore, if you use a darker timbermate such as mahogany, the KArijini red will make it darker.

However,

Each stain coat you apply will always soak into the grain more than the ..."non grainy" bits and therefore will always be darker and somewhat pop the grain.

Zandit75's LP-1S is a perfect example by only using dingotone colourless it still brought out the grain and flame in the spalted cap..here it is when he got it .... http://www.buildyourownguitar.com.au...?t=5745&page=4

and here it is after the colourless Dingotone

http://www.buildyourownguitar.com.au...t=5745&page=14

I guess what i am saying is, you may achieve the results with just the stain and without trying to pop it...

---

Thanks for the plug Andy!
Greg, my guitar has not been touched on the top by any grain filler. I sanded it very, very lightly to about 400 grit, and then applied the colourless stain. I only used one coat of the base stain, then 2 or three intensifier coats. I'm onto about the 4th top coat now.
http://i640.photobucket.com/albums/u...psv5ejil9v.jpg

http://i640.photobucket.com/albums/u...psl2ngsodq.jpg

I hope this helps in your decision making!

Thanks Andy. I have read through Zandit75's diary and it sure is great job. I will be interested to see whether he needs to or is going fill the cap.

However I am still at a loss as to whether to/or when to and ifso how to fill the cap.

Your first option of mixing the timbermate with the Karijini stain sounds a bit messy, particularly if I needed a second coat. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Your second option which I would call the bog standard DT option I have considered and prepared to do. I was expecting that the cap would pop nicely just with DT but thought perhaps a bit of a boost of the grain might be helpful. However Dingobass has made no mention of filling in his videos either with Timbermate, wax or Tru-oil. The cap filling is what is causing me to go round and round in circles.

From memory you filled your LP at the Tru-Oil stage. If I go bog standard DT then I would do a wax finish, but Tru-Oil is a real option as in your case.

Thanks Z
I was writing my reply when you sent yours and I didn't see it.

By the sound of it you are not expecting to have to fill your cap after the last coat. Do you intend to wax?

Hi Z

I should have added that as we all agree the guitar is looking magnificent.

Am I the first see her with four coats? I am honoured.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GregLane

Thanks Z
I was writing my reply when you sent yours and I didn't see it.

By the sound of it you are not expecting to have to fill your cap after the last coat. Do you intend to wax?

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I'm not expecting to have a perfect glassy coat. I am not using Tru-oil, just the Dingo product.
Spalted maple is also a very uneven timber in the first place, so there are divets and crevices in the grain that would be very hard to fill even if I did use a filler like Timbermate.
I am looking to put a couple more top coats on before leaving it for about 3 weeks before polishing it with micro mesh pads, and super fine car polish.
I'm expecting to still have some unevenness to the finish.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GregLane

Hi Z

I should have added that as we all agree the guitar is looking magnificent.

Am I the first see her with four coats? I am honoured.

---

Haha, yes you are actually, I'm about to add them to my build thread! Thank you for the praise!

You can always just use the neutral timbermate as a slurry to fill.
Then attack it with the DT and the figure will still pop nicely.

Looking the biz there Zandit!
This is the level of gloss you can get with DT.

Wood porn!

BTW Greg

I noticed that the other part of your question was whether you can use a waterbased stain to pop the grain under the DT.

The short answer is, yes you can, because you intend to use the DT stain coats, then intensifier then finish/or tru oil finish. DT finish wont work over a waterbased stain itself, but if you have the foundation of the stain coat and intensifying coat, it works fine.

Personally I think using a waterbased stain will be harder to do than the timbermate option.

First, it will provide no grain fill, not an insurmountable problem, just be prepared to have to put more final coats of DT on or tru oil at the end. The timber will also take more stain without any grain fill.

Second, no matter how much you blotch away, the timber grain itself will soak up the stain, meaning that most likely, you'll need to sand back the timber to get it to pop as you wanted. Timbermate is a little bit different, mostly it fills the grain and only stains the wood a little. So I think either way you'll be sanding whilst holding your breath anyway.

Greg, I know that you probably don't have a bunch of spalted maple or mahogany lying around to test, but find a couple of chunks of pine and test both theories of yours out (or any other combination). I've done a bunch of tests on pine fist because sometimes it just doesn't turn out the way you first thought.

If I missed any questions, sorry, just let me know.

Good luck mate.

Thanks for all the help. I think I am making progress in my poor old brain.

One question left for Dingobass :

In your second video on the dingotone process there is a red guitar and a yellow/gold hollow body. Have either of these guitars had a dose of filler on the cap or did the DT process slowly fill? Can you use the DT top coat to fill and sand off a few times if necessary? Can you use the wax for any last little bits of filling?

Whoops I think that's three questions.

As for the rest.

My proposal for the body and the neck is to timbermate with a neutral (mahogany if close) colour then use the dingotone process (Karijini Red) all over.

I am not going to proceed with the highlight on the cap proposal. DB and Andy have convinced me I will get enough highlight using the DT process. Looking at more photos I am convinced.

Andy
I have a bit of straight grained maple and some mahogany from furniture projects so I will definitely be doing some tests now that I have a bit of an idea what I will do. I am sure there are lots of questions to come.

Glad to see you finally got that well deserved promotion from DB.

Neither had any filler, mainly because I was lazy :P

However, after about five coats of intensifying coat and cutting each one back with 800 grit most of the grain had filled.
Then by the time I finished they both were reasonably grain filled... I highly recommend grain filling first, saves a bunch of time.

Thanks DB.

But that leads me to seek one more piece of advice. Would you use a colored timbermate on the quilted cap LP? The quilting looks fairly mild on my LP although I have not looked at it damp yet. If so what colour under Karijini Red. I think the black is a bit contrasty and seems to dirty the wood on quilted but looks good on spalted where there is a black grain.

Hi Greg,

I just realised that you had a quilted cap. I haven't done one yet, mainly because i don't prefer quilted tops. Please bear in mind that the spalted veneers are a bit thicker than the quilted veneers. As I understand it they are very very easy to go through. I think H's TLQ probably gives you a good idea what a quilt will look like without any popping elements.

Don't forget to check the quilted veneer for glue spots as you may need to contend with those first and see how you go with that. Dependent on whether there are any glue spots and/or how bad they are and/or whether you get them out, because if they are bad, you may need to change your plans before going too far down one road.

If there's one thing i've learnt in building these kits, and that is to stay flexible.:)

If there's no bad glue spots (or I got them out) and it were me, given how thin a veneer the quilt is, I would actually invest in a scrap piece of quilted maple to test on. A bit pricey, yes, but you only get one shot at it and you want that finish to last forever.

I know this is DB's area of speciality being posted under Dingotone but just felt compelled to throw in a couple of thought provokers....

Maple is usually a pretty tight grain so not sure how much benefit will be gained from adding timber mate to grain fill? Also need to carefully consider which Timber Mate colour you select as what is on a chart compared to the open pot compared to finished product once dry is an eye opener as in all 3 states they are different. Tend to like the idea of adding some of the base stain coat to Natural Coloured Timber Mate to make a slurry out of the intended base colour as in the TM line up this one has a slightly off white colour and you would therefore think it should come out just a bit darker than the stain.

All this sounds like a lot of work for probably not too much gain and begs the question 'How does the Quilt look after a wipe down with a damp rag?' as this gives you a pretty good indication of how the quilted pattern will stand out under some sort of a finish. I suspect it may look OK as is but from past threads with quilted tops they have been riddled with glue spots and also extremely thinly veneered. Pablo's Orange Tele comes to mind where even an experienced builder sanded through the cap.

One question for the DT experts, when applying 1st stain coat is there any way to wipe off as much of the finish as you can thus leaving behind stain trapped in the grain but mostly removed from the surface? This is how I accentuated the grain on my flame Tele but used inks as they were easy to wipe off, even up to 24 hours later and wondered if DT was as forgiving or does it just flood things out with subsequent coats?

I got to admit waz, i only applied one coast of base clear to my LP and there was no way i could have wiped much off. The grain sucked it in to every nook and cranny

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zandit75

I got to admit waz, i only applied one coast of base clear to my LP and there was no way i could have wiped much off. The grain sucked it in to every nook and cranny

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Yeah, that is how things went with the basswood on the 2 EX's......1st coat was very, very thirsty indeed. 2nd or 3rd intensifier coats helped to bring out what small amount of grain was on offer.

Well Andy and Waz I think you many have finally frightened me off timbermating the cap because of the sanding issues. As a learner it might be prudent to be a bit more careful and try something smarter when I catch the disease.

DB has not answered me about timbermate and sanding on a quilted cap even though he has recommended filling earlier in this thread. Wonder if he is worried too.

But that leaves me with an unfilled cap. As mentioned the grain is tight and DB mentioned 5 coats of intensifier sanded back to fill the guitars on his video. I guess I can do some filling there and also between top coats. Finally Tru-Oil appears to be a good solution particularly if I decide to go for a more gloss finish.

I like Waz's the idea of popping the grain with a dye and then wiping off to clean the high spots. I have seen some great examples on the web where a lighter colour such as yellow was used which sort of reversed the quilted look with lighter colour in the higher intensity areas. Maybe I will leave that for the disease as well.

So after all that I think I will go for bog standard DT process, no highlight other than what comes with two or three coats of Karijini Red and fill and sand off as necessary between intensifier and topcoat stages. Topcoat maybe Tru-Oil. I will timbermate the mahogany base and it will also be Karijini Red.

I will go and give the cap a rub with a damp cloth to check the quilt and look for glue. I bought some GoofOff yesterday in anticipation.
I might be back on my build diary real quick.

Sorry, missed the Timbermate question...
No problems on quilt, just make a thickend cream consistently and use a rubber squegee to apply before sanding.
Then sand it off with 400 grit, this will also be enough to remove any scratches etc.
After that, go mental with the DT.

Oh, and using poo oil over DT will incurr a life sentence in the cupboard under the stairs in the naughty wearehouse... :D

Thanks DB but this as been overtaken by event of bubbles in my quilted top. Please have look under Gregs First Build in the build diary.