aerosol nitro lacquer over minwax oil-based stain?

[Dave Locher]

So I have been experimenting a lot with scrap pieces of the maple that I used for the top of my guitar, and I am not coming up with the look I was after. I'm pretty sure I can get it with a can of Minwax oil-based stain - I used it on a guitar 20 years ago - but what I don't know is if the nitro lacquer will adhere in the long run?
I am going to try the stain and the lacquer on a piece of scrap this weekend to see if it goes on okay in the short run, but I used poly as the top coat on that other guitar all those years ago and this time I'm using nitro lacquer. Will it adhere properly in the long run?

[Dave Locher]

Somehow I forgot to type that I have been experimenting with water-based wood stains that I got from Guitar ReRanch. If anyone has any tips on how to get a rich, dark brown using those powdered water-soluble dyes I'm open to suggestions there, too.

[Barry Daniels]

I've used minwax oil stain a few times under nitro with no problems. But the normal caveat of testing on scrap is always a good idea. If it causes no problems after a couple of days, you should be good to go for the long term.

[Dave Locher]

Thank you, Barry. I am really liking the look of amber clear over "black walnut" Minwax stain on my scraps of flame maple. I just can't get the water-based dye right. It's either too light or it looks like someone spilled koolaid all over the wood. I'm sure it's because I have no experience using it. But a quick wipe with the minwax sure brings out the grain and figure. Me likey.

[Barry Daniels]

Yep, dye on bare wood is a difficult thing to get right. Certain wood soaks up too much or can be blotchy. My preference is to use dyes to tint my finishes which gives you a lot more control on the color. Oil stain is good about bringing out the character of wood grain without the blotchy problems. I usually add oil stain or a UTC to my pore filler to get a good base color started, and then take it from there with dye tinted lacquer.

[Michael Richwine]

Minwax stains are mostly a mix of pigments and dyes with an alkyd binder, IIRC (Haven't used them in years). Painters topcoat Minwax stains with lacquer all the time. No problem, as long as you let the stain dry thoroughly so all the solvents escape. Recoat too soon, and you can get a "bloom" - whitish clouds in the topcoat that aren't moisture blush.

Overnight is usually plenty, if you haven't tried to pile the stain on.

Might want to read up a little on instrument finishing. It's not like other wood finishing. I think that you'll find many instrument makers may use a dye stain to establish a light ground color (often yellow or amber) and perhaps to "pop" the grain of figured wood, but then build color in the clear coats, as Barry suggests. That's a little hard to do with aerosols, though. Might be able to add color layers by hand, as some makers do. Takes practice, though. You can find descriptions of different techniques on various fora, maybe even here. I don't come around a lot.

Stain the wood directly, and you end up with a "kitchen cabinet" look. That's fine, if that's the look you're after......

[Dave Locher]

As you can all tell, I've only refinished one guitar in my life, 20 years ago, and it came out just "okay." And as you may have guessed, by wood finishing experience is all from furniture.
I have been using a lot of scrap pieces of this maple experimenting to get the look I am after. I have some amber-tinted clear and some "Amber" clear that is really more like Gretsch orange so some of the looks I have produced in my experiments have been interesting but not what I was chasing after. The water-based dye is just giving me fits. A very weak mixture gives me a very slight tint to the wood, but does nothing to enhance the figure. Not at all what I was expecting. So after about 10 or so variations of that, I just wiped a piece with some minwax I had laying around and voila, it looked pretty to me.
Now that I know the minwax and lacquer are compatible I think I have my path. (And I should have realized it, because most of the furniture I helped refinish was minwax topped with Deft, which I believe is a lacquer. It has been 25 years or more since I did that sort of thing on a regular basis - I was a teen when my parents finally stopped using me as free labor for their antique dealing.)
I have read enough about instrument finishing to confuse the heck out of me! I think it's time to just dive in and chant my new mantra: "I can always sand it down and paint it black if things go south"!