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I am working on an ash Tele body. I used a brown stain and sanded back to pop the grain and then started finishing with Tru-oil. As expected the end grain is darker than the face and back, but it also has "stripes" opposite the grain that I figure must be from the spindle sander going up and down. So, I was thinking of sanding the edges back down to the wood, sealing with Zinsers seal coat just on the end grain and trying again. Anybody had any luck doing something like this? I really like the way the top and back turned out so I would like to keep from touching that if I can.

thanks
John

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John Thiessen
http://www.iszacguitars.com

I don't see why you could not do this, but I couldn't tell you how well it would work. The seal coat will slow the absorption of the stain, but as to whether that will be enough or too much to get the sides to match the top, your guess is as good as mine. I have tried something similar with shellac as a sealer, with miserable results. Let me know the outcome, should you try this.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

Mike.

I had thought about doing this type of finish, what i thought i would do is to finish sand the front and back on a solid block and then apply a stain to both sides and then use my cnc to do the neck and pickup routs after that do the body contouring, so you get a two tone type of finish.

What do you think.

Jeremy

I don't see why you couldn't. I did a two tone once, and it turned out great, IMO. What I ended up doing was paint the whole thing a solid color, then sand away the finish from the top of the guitar until I got to wood, then clear coated the whole thing. Looked great. I could probably have just masked off the top when I shot the color coats, but sanding gave me a much smoother and even line of seperation between the two.
I say if you want to try something, try it. The results might just blow you away.
Good luck!

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

John

If you sand the end grain with a much finer sandpaper than used on the back, it will absorb less stain, oil, etc.. It will then be lighter in colour, and match the back.

Bob