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I'm getting ready to finish my first guitar and I haven't got immediate access to any spray equipment, or nitro lacquer cans, so I'm considering finishing with minwax stains and tung oil or possibly poly. Not 100% sure, looking for advise I guess. It's a neck-through strat style, maple neck, poplar body wings and a flamed maple top. Originally, I was going to bind it in ebony or ABS and do a natural finish, but I'm not having much luck with cutting the channels on my practice pieces, so I thought maybe I'd stain the top in a kind of walnut-burst with minwax stains, and leave the edge of the maple top as a faux binding. Does anyone have any experience with this kind of finish, and if I really want the flame to pop, will this do it? or is it recommended to stain the top black and sand it back first.

This is also my first time ever doing any sort of see through finish on wood, so any and all advise is greatly appreciated. I've read everywhere I could online about it, but there's so many differing opinions, it's hard to really judge what the best way to do this is...

Hi, Mark. The best way is the way that suits you. Lots of finishing methods and materials will work as long as they suit you. It is possible to hand rub a sunburst effect with stains. I've done it. However, I think it might be next to impossible to mask off a line to hold out your stain and create a faux binding effect at the edges. Some stain is surely bound to seep and creep in under the masking. You might be able to scrape those stains back to the natural maple...or you might find this difficult in the extreme. The best advice I can give you about that is to glue up several pieces of poplar and maple to simulate your wings, finish sand them, and then practice on them until you are certain that you are satisfied with the result. Pay particular attention to the transition between maple and poplar and make sure you like the effect there.

As to the clear top coats, I'd be inclined to leave the poly coating on the shelf and I'd look for a harder oil varnish. I haven't used many brands of tung oil, but it has always seemed rather soft to me. "Swedish oil" is a wiping finish sold by a number of manufacturers. I don't know whether this product is available in various degrees of gloss. All that I've used dries to a high gloss, which can then be polished glossy or buffed down to a low gloss surface. It is pretty forgiving and is very repairable. So is TruOil, which was originally marketed as a gun stock finish. Others might know of a brand of tung oil finish with good hardeners and driers in the recipe. With any of these products, you need a lot of patience. Apply them in very thin coats. Apply many, many, MANY thin coats. Don't rush it. If it takes a few weeks to build a surface finish, let it take that long. You must also let it cure out really well to develop its full potential hardness. When all of this is accomplished--and when the finish is fully cured--it is possible to buff these finishes to a beautiful gloss. Or you may buff them down with something like 0000 steel wool to knock down the gloss, and then buff again with a flannel rag. High and low gloss are both beautiful. Again, it's your choice.

You can get beautiful results using these products, but remember that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so it's pretty much up to you to develop a method that works to your satisfaction.
Best of luck with it. Let us see it when it's finished!
Patrick

I'm a hack at finishing, but the best advice I've heard is take your time & experiment.

I'm on my first electric, a Les Paul with quilted maple top. I originally wanted to just stain the top amber then put clear over it. Luckily, I was able to experiment on some scrap & learned that it looked splotchy and very home made, like when someone tries to refinish a piece of furniture for the first time.

This won't help you, but I got the best results by first staining amber, then sanding off the stain, then spraying amber tinted coats of lacquer.

Kevin Looker

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I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

Kevin, that's a real nicely figured top you've got there and it looks like your method worked very well.
Patrick

i finished my first guitar off a few years back using nothing but minwax stains. i added about 12 coats of poly afterwards. polished the guitar by hand using car wax. it did the job, but there are better methods

Hey, Mark,
I thought about your "faux binding" question some more and realized it might not be so difficult after all.
Ken LeVan, a very fine banjo maker, has a technique for masking off areas of decorative banding with sanding sealer to hold out stains and dyes while he is coloring the rest of his instrument parts. He also hand-rubs his color gradations. If you'll practice a bit with an artist's brush, this technique could work very well for you, too. Get a couple of nice, soft artist's brushes at a hobby store (don't use a stiff artist's brush). Ken has a very detailed tutorial on banjo hangout. Check it out here:

http://www.banjohangout.org/topic/240294

Good luck with it,
Patrick

Wow Kevin! Your LP looks ever so sweet! Can't wait to see finished pics.

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thanks everyone, much appreciated advice. That LP is looking really nice! I think I might even end up just doing a natural oil finish, once I find one thats nice and hard. the Tru-Oil is not longer available in Canada, unfortunately. I did get my hands on one spray can of it, which I only bought because I couln't find the nice rub on set.
I have a lot of scrap mahogany that I might just rip into binding strips if I can come up with a better jig for cutting the channels. I've never seen a guitar with a flamed maple top and mahogany bindings, hopefully it will look nice. when I picture it, it does for sure.