Official Luthiers Forum!

I'm soon to be finishing a maple and sitka parlour. Yay! I read an article in FWW a while back on finishing maple first with water soluble aniline dye and then coat with amber shellac to achieve a bit of an aged look. I picked up a packet of amber dye from Lee Valley but have yet to play with it. The process is, dampen the wood, re sand and apply dye. I'm hoping someone might be able to share some knowledge on the something of this nature? I'll be top coating with nitro.
If you are using the water soluble type dye then raising the grain before dyeing is not a bad idea. The dye is used to pop the grain too not just give it a vintage look. What I do is use a darker colored dye on highly figured maple and then sand back to bare wood. The dark dye sits in the highly figured grain. Then I go over the top of this with a shellac dyed the color I want. In your case this would be an amber color. I use a one pound cut of blonde and add the dye. The shellac serves as a binding agent for the dye. You can spray or rub this on the instrument. I then topcoat with lacquer or urethane.
Also, if you do top coat with a tint, amber shellac or tinted nitro, what do you do if you burn through the finish to bare wood when you're buffing? YOU DON'T! I put several clear coats over my color coats and you make sure you don't sand through into the color coats!!!

And while I'm on the subject of finishing, I use Becker Acroma lacquer on cabinets. This is the nicest product I've used yet. I use 25 degree sheen and it has an incredibly silky smooth feel to it. I've played Tru Oil necks and I think this would have an even nicer feel. Any reason why I wouldn't use it on a neck? I don't see why not.

And the last time I was at the plant buying lacquer I let the tech guy sell me a gallon of Becker Acroma post cat high gloss. Apparently someone he knew uses it for musical instruments. Further questioning and it turned out buddy in the back re finished a guitar with it. Has anyone had any experience with this product? I have never used this product. This doesn't mean it won't work. Do some sample boards and see if it works for you.
I know, I'm just full for questions this morning but man, you can sure make a science out of finishing. And some of the end results like we see here make it worth the time and effort.

Thanks For Your Help,
Danny