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Hello everyone,

I was starting to stain my newly made guitar, using water based stain (StewMac ColorTone) - applied direcetly over the wood, using a rag.
I was using this method on 3 different guitars before, with good results.

I always expect some tendency to blotchiness, esepcially for the spruce top. I don't use a sealer, as it lighten the stain quite a bit - and doesn't allow me the color I want to achieve.
So far it worked good for me, some blotching here and there - but it was pretty subtle and even gave a special look that I liked.

This time, the blotching is sooo apparent, and it looks horrible (see picture attached).
Especially near the end of the the body, where the contrast is is very very clear.

How would you go about fixing it? or at least making the blotching more subtle.
I tried applying more stain to the bright areas - but it is as if it doesn't want to get any darker, no matter what.

Worst case scenario would be to sand it all over again, but if that's the only way to go - I'll do it. Although I'm sure I won't be able to sand it off completely, as the stain soaks into the wood.
But even if I did, what could I do any different to get a better results?

*unfortunately, spraying toned lacquer is not an option.

Any help would be MUCH appreciated, as I'm really frustrated at the moment. Thanks!

Is it possible that there is a contaminant on the areas that won't take stain? You could try sanding a small area in the light patch and see if it will take stain better. If it doesn't then you might want to consider a hand applied "burst" to hide the blotches.

I don't think there's anything you can do other than cover it up, sand it off, or call it a feature. Looks to me like it's related to grain angle. Areas with more exposed endgrain are showing up lighter, which is probably due to the dye wicking into the grain rather than sitting on the surface. So maybe some sort of sizing before stain would do the trick. I'd try egg whites. But test on scrap before you do anything to the instrument.

This is what happens when you apply dye directly to a carved archtop of spruce. I would bet the first two guitars you did, that turned out good, were flattops?

Dennis is correct that the cause of the blotches are the large amount of end-grain exposed in the curved surface. You would have to sand this one far and deep to get it even. You probably won't like this idea, but the easiest way forward would be an opaque pigment stain/finish.

Some water-based dyes can be bleached out using a two-part bleach. I don't know about Color-Tone--and I wouldn't be surprised if they can't be bleached--but it might be worth a call to Stew-Mac.

_________________
Tim Allen
"Never hurry, never rest."

Hello and thank you for your helpful insights.

Just wanted to share with you: I decided to go with a sunburst effect (using the same hand rubbed stains) in order to hide some (or most) of the blotchiness.
It wasn't what I planed, but well - it came out pretty nicely.

Still in the the middle of the finisihing proccess.

Thanks again!

Looks good, nice save!

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Had that happen on my first carve top, a Les Paul copy. Ended up hand rubbing a burst just as you did. Looks great!

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Tony Thatcher
Bozeman, Montana

That looks great. I've only ever sprayed water based dyes before and only when doing bursts. I've never had good luck wiping on water based without blotching, especially on spruce or maple.