Considering Dye on finishing a hard rock maple baritone neck

[Philip Donovan]

Hello all,

I've arrived at the place on the build of a 28.625" baritone neck that is ready for finishing. The body of this guitar is nearly complete and is swamp ash finished with steel wool in vinegar for a barnwood aged grey effect, then numerous coats of Tru-oil. I'm pretty happy with how that turned out but, my experiments with steel wool/vinegar on hard maple have been iffy at best. I get a sort of "Monkey poop grey" that's not too nice to look at, dull and not interesting. Of course, the hard maple neck besides being a very hard and different wood than Swamp Ash doesn't have a whole lot of pronounced detail in the grain. Enough to help perhaps with a right approach.

While looking at other options I've come across a couple of videos that use dyes, as many seem to prefer this on hard maple. There was one video using Keda Dyes where black dye was put on, then sanded down to where fresh wood was starting to be seen, then another color dye was used after that to create an interesting grain popping effect. I kind of like that and would be pleased to have that kind of effect on my necks final result.
For matching the neck to the barnwood grey body I thought that Kedas black dye with Empire Red might look quite nice on the hard maple neck.

It's probably worth mentioning that should I use dye, it would be beneficial to find a dye that would allow for the greatest opportunity for the grain to be visible, and not be obscured. It appears that there are certain dyes with certain solvents that would help expose the maples grain as much as possible since there is only a moderate about of grain appearing on this neck to start with.

Just curious. I have a Wood craft 10 minutes from my house in Reading Ma, that has Transtint Dyes. Do you think I could get a similar effect with the Transtint dyes compared to the Keda dyes? Or, are we looking at two different things here? Transtint appears to have color choices that would work for the effect I'm going for, just want to make sure the Keda and Transtint don't require very different application approaches. This would be my first time working with hard maple and dyes.

Thank you, any advice is very welcome! This baritone project has been moving along surprisingly well for a first guitar, I'd like to see if I can keep it that way!

Thank you ,
Best,
Phil D

[Alan Carruth]

If you want the wood to reflect light it's best to use a clear colored finish, rather than dying the wood. Dyes are effective (in a way) on figured wood, since they enhance the contrast, but they do it by soaking into the exposed end grain more. The 'stripe' of curly maple becomes more pronounced as the end grain bands are darkened, but you lose the 'chatoyance'; the shimmer of the wood as the dark and light bands shift at different viewing angles.

Aniline dyes are often used for this. They come in various sorts, soluble in different solvents, depending on the finish you want to use. You just mix the dye with the finish. The important thing is to seal the wood with some sort of clear coating before you put on the finish coats, and get it to a nice smooth surface that will facilitate getting an even coating; the more colored finish the darker it gets, and it can be really hard to produce an even color on an inadequately prepared surface.

Traditionally one such clear coat is shellac, often applied as a filler with pumice. For this you start by applying a 'spit coat' of thinned out shelac on the surface, which is allowed to dry. Then you use a pad wet with alcohol the work in pumice powder, adding more alcohol and pumice, or shellac, as needed. It takes a bit of practice to get it right; too much pumice with too little shellac, gives the surface a 'gritty' feeling, but too much shellac produces 'mud' of wood dust and pumice on the surface, which is hard to remove. Properly doner you end up with a smooth surface and no open pores that will soak up the finish.

Of course, you can always just start with few clear coats, sanded back in between to be sure the surface is level, and then add the color.

There are lots of variations on this theme, and each one produces a different look. Your best bet is to practice with samples of the same sort of wood until you can get the result you want reliably. It's well worth the time and effort.

[Barry Daniels]

I would never apply dye to a bare maple neck. The end grain of the heel would adsorb much more dye than the neck shaft and would become very uneven.