LP Tribute refinish, take 2...

DirtySteve

DirtySteve

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So about 9 or 10 years ago (best guess) I redid the finish on my 2013 Tribute. I hated the original finish and one day I woke up, looked at it and decided it had to go so I sanded the whole thing down. I tried to do a stain that turned out horrible so I spent the next few weeks sanding it out, took forever to get it all because it penetrated so deep, I bet I sanded 1/32" off the entire top, maybe more, but I finally got it all out. By that time I was just frustrated and tired of screwing with it so I just ended up doing a straight Tru-oil finish leaving it natural. I never really like the natural look, but I didn't know what to do at the time so I've just lived with it all these years.

This is the original finish and then what I ended up with the first try..

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Well, I've done several Tru-oil finish jobs since then and I've learned a few things so I think it's time to try this again. I've about got it sanded back down to raw wood again. Tru-oil is easy to sand off so it was nothing like before. If all goes as planned I'm starting with a tea wash tomorrow to see if I can get some of that grain to pop. There's actually a little birdseye in the maple that I'm hoping shows up.

I'm not asking for advice or anything (at least not at this time), I have a certain look I'm going for, but it's subject to change along the way so we'll see how it goes. I just thought you might like to see the process as I go...good or bad I'll be posting each step along the way.

Here's where it's at right now...

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After this snow storm 96" so far my friend Steve owns a body shop I want to try a color shift color
last time I scored a 1972 Fender P bass and did Ice Blue metallic not including base cote or clear cote the color cote was $450.00
for a 1/4 cup it was mostly pearl my friend Duffy it was his dream bass I gifted it to him Duffy was a stage hand 15 years for Robin Trower
 
I wasn't initially planning to sand it all the way down, that came about yesterday. I was just going to tint the tru-oil and add coats on top of what was already there to add some color. Now that I'm into it I wish I'd done that, but it's too late now. Turns out I don't have it sanded as well as I thought I did last night, looking at it in better light I see I still have some work to do before it's ready for a tea wash.
 
I guess you gotta be ready and see what the wood will give you with whatever technique you apply. I have no experience with finishing a maple body or maple top guitar, but I think plain grain maple is a bit tricky to make it pop. Looking forward towards your progress!
 
This is after just 3 tea washes and it's already starting to do what I wanted it to do. After several more it should be right where I want it to be before I start applying Tru-oil.

Here's a before and after for reference and a 3rd pic showing it wet, which is the effect the tru-oil will have on it.

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I think this is the 7th tea wash, but I can't be sure, the beer is especially tasty tonight. :)

Here's another comparison to the original raw wood.

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And wet...

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I'm done for today. I think tomorrow I'm going to lightly sand it back a little to see if the grain stands out a little more, but I'm not expecting much. I'm not so sure I got all the previous finish out of the grain so it's not taking the stain as well as it would had I actually stripped it to get all the oil out of the more absorbent grain. I don't know, we'll see.

It already looks so much "warmer" than it did before. This is what I was going for as a base, I'm happy.
 
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syscokid said:
Nice and warm. Looks really good. What’s your recipe for a tea wash?
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10 black tea bags in about a cup or 2 of water, bring it to a boil, turn off the heat and let it steep for about an hour, then pull out the tea bags and squeeze them out completely back into the tea. Then I use a foam paint brush to apply, let it dry and repeat. As you've seen, It'll get slightly darker with each wash.

I believe I didn't get all the previous finish out of the grain because of past experience I thought it should've brought out the grain a little more, but I've never done a wash on maple so maybe that's just the way it is, I don't know.
 
I've done about 4 or 5 more times since the last pic. I went to get a pic a little while ago and my camera said no go, charge the battery. So I'll post another pic in a little while after my camera is charged.
 
syscokid said:
I guess you gotta be ready and see what the wood will give you with whatever technique you apply. I have no experience with finishing a maple body or maple top guitar, but I think plain grain maple is a bit tricky to make it pop. Looking forward towards your progress!
Click to expand...

DirtySteve said:
Yeah, I have no idea what's going to happen. lol
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Maple has a very tight grain and is not as porous as mahogany or other woods. Especially when there is no figuring. When you have a plain top, there is a consistent density and it will let in certain amount of stain or other base coat finishing. Normally, color needs to be added to the finish media (lacquer, poly, whatever). That is why you do not need pore filler or grain sealer on maple, and it is a MUST for mahogany.

When I did my Billy Bo, I applied antique cherry furniture stain to the quilted top, then sanded it after a few applications. It left stain in the softer, more porous wood within the quilt, and quickly removed the little bit of stain sitting on the harder parts or the grain. Then I applied transparent red over it. The cherry under the red gave it some depth.

Since you have no figuring, you'll have a very even finish when you're done. Can't wait to see it.


Cherry stain

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My sample piece as I was working on the project.

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Close up of the finish after I was done. It's very difficult to photograph.



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I was almost going to use just the cherry stain and clear lacquer, as it looked really nice. Buy, I really wanted it to be red.


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To follow up on my last post, I found a photo of what the maple top looked like after sanding back the cherry stain before spraying the transparent red lacquer. You can see where it stayed in the quilt, and where it was sanded away. Unfortunately plain maple with no figuring does not allow very good penetration of certain pigments. Maybe instead of water based, an oil based pigment would work better. But that would change your options for finishing. Best to use test pieces before trying anything new on the guitar.


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Well, guess what. I found some flaws in the top where I didn't sand some dents out good enough. I don't know why I didn't see them until now, but I swear they didn't show before. Anyway, that's just one issue, there's another. I just learned that you can do too many tea washes. The last one I did didn't soak in, it pooled in a couple of places and dried leaving darker spots. I hit them with a fine scotchbrite pad and it lightened areas around those spots so I tried to even it out by going over the whole thing and now there are more lighter areas and it's not even anymore. now I could probably lightly sand over the whole top and then do some more tea wash to bring the color back, but to fix those dents I'll have sand it down and start over.

I remember when I did these dents around the knobs, it happened way back when I did the first refinish and for what ever reason I had to remove the knob and the finish wasn't cured yet so my fingernails made dents. I guess the same thing happened while adjusting the bridge height. I can't believe they went though the finish and dented the wood, but here it is and I can't let this go.

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