Anyone know the best way to get a flat finish on an ash body. I stained this strat with red dingorone and finished with tru oil. I didn’t like the finish as the tru oil seemed to “yellow” the finish. So I am sanding back and re staining orange. I will probably end up just spraying nitro but I would like to get a flat “glass” finish. Anyone any advice on how to achieve this?
Grain filling can greatly reduce the amount of coats you’ll need to get a flat, shiny finish. Without grain filling, especially with ash, you’ll find that you’ll be applying heaps of coats as the finish will just sink into the open grain and take forever to build up nicely. Timbermate is commonly used amongst forum members. Also, if you’re going to use nitro, I cannot stress enough, please uphold OH&S to the highest level possible, nitro is nasty stuff.
Any oil based finish will add a bit of yellow, particularly over time I think though others may know better....
I have been getting pretty good results with General finishes High Performance Top Coat which is a water based poly. It's recommended by StewMac though you can get it other places more cheaply.
I used satin, bit it comes in semi gloss and gloss as well.
I sanded down to 320 the wiped with a damp cloth to get the grain to stand up. When dry sanded again to knock down the grain. The mfg says you only need to use 220, and to use that between coats. I used 320 so as not to go through it.
I did as the mfg recommends and used a foam brush to put it on. They say it only needs 3-4 coats, but I used more to be sure to have enough buildup to sand flat since there are brush strokes.
Leave it at least 2-3 weeks before final sanding. It finishes very hard with no discernable yellowing.
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