It looks great - congrats and well done - great work! The black pup rings look awesome
RE the wipe on poly - I'm went through problems with the fumes. I did my coats in the shed out of the way of the family and moved it inside for the curing when the smell was not so bad... Now I have it hanging in the conservatory and so it's relatively out of the way. But the fumes were too much for me to handle to apply without a decent mask #lightweight.
I used a few coats of Tru-Oil on my maple neck and was really pleased with how it went on and the final finish. It doesn't smell nearly as much. But I think there are some concerns on what it does to the stain colour as it ages.
For grain enhancing - On my first body (ash) I used an oil based grain filler mixed with black oil based artist paint (although I think dark brown is a better choice). After leaving it overnight I sanded back and then applied a few coats of water based stain until I was happy - lightly sanding in between. I was quite pleased with the outcome.
For my second body (alder) I'm following the same process - even though the advice is alder does not need filling. But I couldn't get it to do what I wanted on my test pieces. I tried a dark water based stain and sanding back but that didn't work, I also tried raising the grain before the dark stain and that didn't work either. It was only the oil grain filler+paint that gave me any sort of grain enhancement. I've only been experimenting with alder off cuts so far - I haven't applied it to the body yet. On the advice of Mc I'm currently researching pre-stain conditioner. But as of yet I've not found anything in the UK that's similar. However it seems that this is just a thinned down sanding sealer that you apply and sand back - I'm not sure if I'm going to do this or just crash on and then wait for "told you so"s
Last edited by Groovyman32; 06-04-2021 at 09:01 PM.
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