Try and get a piece of pine that has roughly the same grain as your maple but obviously not as hard but cheaper and try a test application to see how it dries and if it changes the colour of the wood. If it turns out darker or no change at all. Then once it is dry rub your hand along it and see how it feels in your hand. Hold it in your hand and see if it gets sticky or oily with the heat of your hand. If it leaves a oily feeling or residue and see if your hand will glide along it without sticking.

The other thing that I forgot to mention about water based finishes are they are self levelling so if you were to have a slightly open grain it will fill any slight wood grain features unlike paints.

What ever you can get will be fine as long as you figure out how to apply it before you put it on the guitar as I found out in the early days. I am lazy and only want to apply finish once and in the early days my finishes were less than perfect. I thought appearance was important, and it is, but after seeing some artists guitars, SRV, Stings bass, I thought as long as it is sealed and stops the body from being affected by moisture I was fine with it.

I still try to achieve the best I can but seeing as you have to work with what you have then you can always cut yourself some slack. Unless you have the perfect setup and skill base then as long as the guitar plays its good. I have said before, guitars are for playing, not displaying. If I want something that looks good on a wall I will get a picture.