Anyone tried bleaching wood?

[G-Axe]

Hey guys,

I'm trying to plan out a future build, and conceptually I want a really stark contrast in wood grain - like black and white contrast. The simplest way I can think to accomplish that would be an ash body, black stump DT stain, and then white grain filler sanded back to black and a clear coat over that. The end result would hopefully be something like this from Mayones, but hopefully a bit more subtle.

The less simple way would be to bleach the wood as close to white as I can get, and then use ebony grain filler. But the real question is how white could I realistically get a bit of ash? I'd settle for "driftwood", but I suspect I might have difficulty getting it any lighter than "platinum blonde".

From what I've read, it seems like Lye and Hydrogen Peroxide, followed by vinegar to neutralise is the way to go - anyone ever had a crack at it?

[FrankenWashie]

It's really not cool when your title gets truncated to simply "Anyone tried bleaching.....".

You could alway inlay a contrasting slice or veneer?

[gavinturner]

Hmm interesting effect. I would lean towards black dye and white filler.

cheers,
Gav.

[wazkelly]

Hi G-Axe, about a year ago a forum member based in USA did an awesome job possibly using lemon juice or vinegar as the bleaching agent. The end result looked like an aged floor board from a factory and looked super cool.

I found it in November 2015 GOTM and it was made by Kenfu. Here is the link to that page...
http://www.buildyourownguitar.com.au...?t=4347&page=3

and here is the link to his build diary ....
http://www.buildyourownguitar.com.au...ighlight=kenfu

Edit: Thanks for the heads up Simon. Cheers, Waz.

[G-Axe]

All good, found it - http://www.buildyourownguitar.com.au...ead.php?t=4323 - very cool distressed look. I really like Arzi's Barncaster in this month's GOTM too. It's not quite what I'm shooting for though. Rather than going for clapped out and ancient, I just want it to look like woodgrain in black and white:


And I guess black stain with white grain fill would in theory give the negative of that (and is much more doable):


There are some very nice guitars in that GOTM thread (and every GOTM thread, really).

[wazkelly]

If you go the white filler and black stain some forum members have found DT Black Stump may not be dark enough. Best to hunt down one of Muzza's build diaries as he was building a couple of PRS shapes and the black was not black enough for him.

Sounds like a cool effect you are hoping to achieve, and yes it would look best done with black filler and white body.

A quick google search brought up these pages... http://www.woodmagazine.com/material...th-wood-bleach
http://www.popularwoodworking.com/pr...bleaching-wood