Thanks for the reply! I'm pretty sure the dye is alcohol or water based, so it is not an issue of tru-oil being a solvent for the dyes. It kinda sucks that I'll have to wait a week but that seems like the best way to go. Hopefully it's dry by then!
Thanks for the reply! I'm pretty sure the dye is alcohol or water based, so it is not an issue of tru-oil being a solvent for the dyes. It kinda sucks that I'll have to wait a week but that seems like the best way to go. Hopefully it's dry by then!
I've done two builds using dye. One was water-based, the other alcohol-based.
The water-based one (ash) I finished with wipe-on poly, the alcohol-based one (maple veneer over basswood) I finished with tru oil.
In both instances there was transference of dye to the cloth with the first couple of coats. The ash body would have dried for at least a week IIRC; and the maple veneer/basswood (with binding) would have dried for at least several weeks due to another build going on.
I should also mention that I went over both with a very fine synthetic abrasive pad and wiped them down with a clean dry cloth before applying any top coat anticipating that there may be some lifting of the dye (and also to knock back any nibs of grain lift from the moisture of the dye) and it still happened.
That being said, I think it's just part of using dyes. In both my cases they were single colour so not a burst or transition of colours, so it was not an issue. I didn't have any problem with uneven colouring either.
If it were me in your case, I would wipe my tru oil in straight lines going in the direction of lighter colour (the pink) to darker (the purple) for the first four coats or so (or until you stop seeing dye on your cloth). Don't go in a circular motion or you risk just smudging the two colours and not getting a nice transition/fade effect.
Just my 2 cents.
Making the world a better place; one guitar at a time...
Thanks a lot for the detailed reply! Wow, that kind of sucks that the lifting happened even after all the steps you went through! I'll try to apply the tru-oil using our method.
Nonetheless, those are some beautiful guitars!
Last edited by koolimy; 14-08-2019 at 10:02 PM.
Thanks koolimy.
I should also mention that the only reason I "anticipated" that there may be some lifting of the dye, was because when I handled the body of the tele after drying, the dye still rubbed off on my hands! (that was my first dye job)
It wasn't because I'm super clever or smart!
Those are the little lessons we learn along the way.
Making the world a better place; one guitar at a time...
LOL, I'm actually finding the same thing, dye is rubbing off onto a dry cloth! It really might be one of the quirks of using dyes.
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Originally Posted by McCreed
