Tips on finishing basswood

[jarro_2783]

I'm interested in building https://www.pitbullguitars.com/shop/...ic-guitar-kit/ (yes I'm a leftie), and I've done a fair bit of research to be pretty confident that I can actually do this. The only thing I'm stuck on is the finish.

I quite like natural wood finishes, but I've read that basswood isn't great for stains and could end up patchy. As a first timer would dingo tone be an easy option for this guitar? Or can anyone suggest any other choices, maybe a stain I can get from bunnings?

[Trevor Davies]

Hi Jarro,
I used Feast Watson (FW) Prooftint Stains on my TB-4 build (which is basswood) and it went on easily. I finished it off with lots of coats of tru-oil, then polished.
I'm currently doing a build using FW wipe on poly and that seems to working well (though it takes 6 hours to dry before another coat). Not sure how it will polish up!

As Colin mentioned , don't oversand before staining- I went up to 240 grit before staining.
I also like the idea of being able to get supplies from Bunnings.

[Simon Barden]

Dingotone is too variable in outcome to be recommended.

With any body composed of several pieces of wood, you get what you get in terms of how each piece reacts to staining. Ideally you’d have a one-piece body or the sections coming from the same piece of wood. However that’s very unlikely. Basswood is normally used by manufacturers for solid colour guitars, but mainly because the better pieces are normally pretty bland with regards to grain. You do get figured basswood, but the majority is quite featureless.

Variations in colour between pieces of the wood can sometimes be lessened by first bleaching the wood using a hydrogen peroxide solution. There are also pre-stain preparations that will give you a more even take-up of stain. I’ve never used either method, but it has been successfully done by people on the forum, so worth searching for.

Endgrain will also absorb a lot more stain because of all those exposed open pores, so you can try starting off on the endgrain using a more dilute stain, and then using a more concentrated stain on the main surfaces. Alternatively, you can try a sunburst effect with darker edges that embrace the endgrain effect.

As has been said, don’t sand to too fine a grit. You want to sand to get the surface level, and that’s it. You can fine sand the finish you put over the stain, but you don’t need to do that for the stain stage. The finer the sanding, the less even the stain take up can be. P180 should be fine. The body might feel nicer if you sand to P400 or higher, but it’s not about the wood feeling smooth at this point. Flat and consistent, yes; really smooth and shiny, no. Water-based stain will raise the grain anyway, and even spirit-based stain will raise it slightly.

Another option is to use a tinted lacquer instead of a stain. You’ll still get sime colour variations if the pieces of the body vary in shade, but you won’t get light and dark patches on the same piece of wood or any real endgrain issues. Bleaching first is another option if the body pieces are significantly different in hue.

[jarro_2783]

Thanks Colin, the JM and the strat look great. Would you just use a small jar like this: https://www.bunnings.com.au/feast-wa...stain_p1569883 or do you need a bigger tin? I just want to avoid buying $50 worth of stain if I'll use a quarter of it not knowing how it will end up looking.

Also what do you do for the back of the neck? Do you just clear coat it and sand the clear coat smooth?

[Simon Barden]

That's more than enough stain for a guitar. You can thin it with isopropyl alcohol or metho if you want.

Yes, clear coat the neck then sand down and polish. You normally do the sides of the fretboard (but not the top of the fretboard) as well.

[Rabbit]

Yes, clear coat the neck then sand down and polish. You normally do the sides of the fretboard (but not the top of the fretboard) as well.

Or sand down till flat and leave smooth with no polishing so that it doesn't stick to your hand

[Trevor Davies]

Hi Trevor,
I will be interested to hear your thoughts on the wipe on poly.

All the best

Hi Colin,
50 ml of stain should be enough for a couple (if needed) of coats of the body and neck.

For the wipe on poly - This is the first time I've used it on a guitar. I'm getting up to 20 coats (only used 3 coats for my dining room table ), with light 1200 grit sanding to deburr. It is nice and glossy. I have been applying it in single long strokes (and not retouching any part) using cotton cloth wrapped around tissue paper. I 'm doing 1 coat a day (could possible do 2 but it is quite cold and wet in Perth at the moment). I still need to give more coats to the headstock and logo to get more depth. Hopefully next week I can do a final sand and polish.

I have not had any trouble with the wipe on poly, and it is a reasonable price for 1 L, and easy to get. (I do really like Tru-oil, the way it is applied, the feel of it on the neck - but it is a little pricey (and sometimes hard to get)).

Hopefully I will have more comments about wipe on poly soon!
regards

[jarro_2783]

Thanks everyone for the tips. I think I've got enough to go off that I'm confident to just get started and try something. I guess I've always got sanding to cover some mistakes. Plus I'm not ruining a fender or anything, I'll learn from what happens and have something unique at the end either way.

[McCreed]

I have not had any trouble with the wipe on poly, and it is a reasonable price for 1 L, and easy to get. (I do really like Tru-oil, the way it is applied, the feel of it on the neck - but it is a little pricey (and sometimes hard to get)).

Hi jarro. The only thing I'll add is that you can make your own home-brew wipe-on poly for way less than what you'll pay at the hardware store. Plus you have the added advantage of being able to play with the mix ratios if needed.

Just buy the oil based poly of your choice (gloss, satin etc) and mix it 50/50 with mineral turps. I've been mixing 60/40 (poly/turps) for my spray gun, but that would probably be fine for wipe-on application also.

Regular poly and turps will cost you about 1/3 of what they charge for "wipe-on poly" which is simply thinned poly!

[jarro_2783]

Is poly for the clear coat, which Colin said I could also Scandinavian oil for?
I can't tell what these are supposed to be from the description, is this a normal one? https://www.bunnings.com.au/cabot-s-...rnish_p1520455

There is a wipe on at bunnings which is $39 for a litre, so the above plus turps only works out a little bit cheaper once you thin it, so now I'm not really sure what I'm looking at.

Another question. Is there anything that you can substitute for Tru Oil? I saw this post https://www.buildyourownguitar.com.a...l=1#post199734 and thought that the basswood came up quite nicely with the oil not being tinted.