What timber do you intend to use?

Above samples were done on standard green shed pine plywood which is closest match to basswood. Ash & Alder are different colours where Ash can display a slight pinkish tinge and Alder has a bit more of a red hue.

Experimenting on pine helps to differentiate the different sample strengths and when moving on to the actual timber body best to apply a small bit of colour in the neck pocket rout or PUP routs being areas that will be covered up to see how it looks and what adjustments might need to be made to the brew.

On my 5 builds only one has come out close to what I was after and that was the Red J Bass but still had to make adjustments on the run where 2nd stain coat needed to be a fraction deeper in colour. Sometimes the unexpected surprises grow on you and has others commenting how good it looks when in fact it was nothing like how you may have envisaged. Practice makes a huge difference and helps you to understand what ratios of each part affects the end result.