The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
  1. #1

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    Hi
    Im looking at getting an archtop project for restoration. The one I have my eye on has a finish thats really beat. Cracks, chips and areas where the finish has come off completely. Ive stripped a guitar before and hand sanded it but just wondered if I stain it wine red will that stain the binding on the body and f holes or will it be ok if I wipe it off straight away?
    many thanks for your time and all the best

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #2

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    According to this loosely related article I just read. Cover anything you don’t want stained

  4. #3

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    Staining goes directly into the wood and is considered nearly non-reversable. Customary and traditionally is to bring an instrument to the wood, apply a sealer coat (clear) and apply coloured finish over that. That protects the wood, allows you to apply or strip back any finishes you apply (and step back any messes, errors you make) and give you a nice deep and beautiful finish.
    Stew Mac even has canned spray lacquer in different colours so you can do a sunburst if you want. A guitar finish will also put a translucent finish on it so you can see the underlying grain if you want.

    Stains are avoided for those reasons.
    Good luck with whatever you chose to do and I hope you love your guitar when you're done!

  5. #4

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jimmy blue note
    Staining goes directly into the wood and is considered nearly non-reversable. Customary and traditionally is to bring an instrument to the wood, apply a sealer coat (clear) and apply coloured finish over that. That protects the wood, allows you to apply or strip back any finishes you apply (and step back any messes, errors you make) and give you a nice deep and beautiful finish.
    Stew Mac even has canned spray lacquer in different colours so you can do a sunburst if you want. A guitar finish will also put a translucent finish on it so you can see the underlying grain if you want.

    Stains are avoided for those reasons.
    Good luck with whatever you chose to do and I hope you love your guitar when you're done!
    This ^

  6. #5
    Hi Many thanks for your comments its much appreciated. From what ive seen some seem to finish the guitar and then scrape back the binding and there is a tool for this on stewmac I just saw some video on youtube where someone stains the guitar green and from what I saw the dye didnt seem to colour the binding.
    It will be a cheap project a battered epiphone emperor broadway thinline but I would like to make it look nice with a wine red finish

  7. #6

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    It depends on the binding. Most stains shouldn't affect plastic binding that much, if at all. Wood binding will act just like the rest of the guitar. I've done stains using fabric dyes, which work fairly well, but I've only used them on solid and semi-solid bodies. Since the build was from scratch, I installed binding after the dye was used. I haven't tried it on a body with binding already installed, but I don't think it would be that difficult to scrape off any dye from plastic binding. Jimmy is correct, the dye or stain penetrates into the wood, and once you apply it, you can't really remove it. If you do use dye/stain, make absolutely sure it's the color you want before you start. I've used black and red, and I like the results well enough. I wouldn't use them on a guitar with value that I wanted to maintain, though.