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I plan on staining some mahogany b&s and the thought occurred to me- the inside won't match. Do builders traditionally stain the inside if they stain the outside? I was looking online at a few Martins and they looked pretty dark on the inside. How would you do it, just stain the board and sides after they're thicknessed and before any bracing or gluing is done?

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Jeremy Douglas

Jeremy, I don't think the insides of stained guitars are stained as well. At least I have not seen any that were.

my question would be how well would glue adhere to stained wood ?? if its an oil stain , may be a problem .I have given consideration to staining a back and sides < I thought the time to stain would be after the box is assembled and channels routed ,, giving you a bit of room to avoid staining the top ... I am not sure how the experts would go about it ! Jody

no inside. why do that? No on doing it before cutting, bending, routing. Your right not before the guitar is ready or at least box for finish process. With some finish stuff, could make for expensive firewood, particularly with heat while your standing there. Would do braces before stain or finish anyway unless your doing that in the cut stages, but again that would be a no. One step at a time.

I'm with my buddy Stan - why would you want to do this? In fact why stain the outside either?

If this is an early guitar for you, or a first, staining actually adds just yet one more opportunity for you to mess it up.

Why? Because it is all to easy when pore filling and finishing to sand through your stained wood too and have to touch that up with additional stain. If you mix your own stains ALWAYS, ALWAYS keep extra in a jar and save it for the life of the instrument in case you have to touch something up.

I was into staining too when I started but these guys promptly beat the crap out of me over it and I moved on to sunbursting and painting the tops black out of spite.......

I guess the best answer for that question would depend on the woods used and what color stain to be used.
One of my friends stained a curly maple guitar in red and in that case it would look weird to have a different color on the inside. Same with blues or greens. But if you just want to "shade" or "tint" the color of the woods were there is not a dramatic color change, I guess staining the inside is unnecessary.

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Peter M.
Cornerstone Guitars
http://www.cornerstoneukes.com

I was going to go with the traditional dark mahogany b&s look. I'm not planning on staining the top. I guess I won't stain the inside.

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Jeremy Douglas

I've seen that on Martins before That's not exactly what I'm going for. I plan on stain>wash coat> dark filler>sealer> gloss.

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Jeremy Douglas