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The OM I'm working on is EIR back and sides with curly maple end wedge and binding. Though I coated with shellac at certain times in the process, I notice now that everything is fully sanded and pore-filled, the maple has a light purple cast to it. It's my first solo built guitar and not going to be sold, but I want to be able to prevent this from ever happening again. I love contrast, so I'm going to have to deal with this successfully in the future.
Next build will be Curly Maple B/S with Cocobolo appointments. How do you keep your light woods pristine during building with contrasting woods. On the same subject (and probably handled the same way but I wanted to mention it) I'm really struggling with whether to laminate the neck (a look I love) because that too is Curly Maple, and I'd be laminating with a Coco side cutoff.

Hi Beth,

To my knowledge, there is no miracle solution to this problem. I too get some purple in my maple bindings when using rosewood B/S. The best way I've found to reduce it is to scrape the bindings prior to applying the finish. I use the tip of a utility knife blade, using my thumb as depth controler, and scrape around the guitar. it doesn't get rid of all the rosewood dust, but most of it.

Hope this helps!

_________________
Alain Moisan
Former full time builder of Acoustics, Classicals and Flamencos.
(Now building just for fun!)

I also don't have a magic solution, but I did use cocobolo bindings and bridge
on my last guitar, and it's a major PITA as regards bleeding, both from sanding
dust, and even more from solvents in finish dissolving the dyes in the wood,
coloring an area 1-2mm around the coco. I think what Alain said about
minimizing sanding by scraping as much as possible will
help. A good vacuuming and air blasting regimen will help get rid of any
dust generated by final sanding or inadvertent sandthroughs. It might also
be worth thinking about trying one of the waterbased finishes for both porefilling
and final finish. I don't think water would dissolve the dyes in the wood. I'm going
to try the PolyWhey waterbased finish that Mike Collins initially wrote about for my
next guitar. There are several threads about it ongoing right now.

_________________
Gene

Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason- Mark Twain

Wipe with shellac on a cloth or paper towel. Do maybe a foot at a time, always using a clean piece of rag or paper. Work in one direction and never go from Rosewood to maple. Keep a straight stroke. I haven't had this be a big problem. Another thing that helps is to seal with egg white before finishing. Egg white usually does not cause bleeding of Rosewoods. You'll have to lightly sand it back after applying and letting it dry, but don't put it on too heavily. You can apply it with a brush or a rag. Brush works better. I have found lots of uses for children's water color brushes with soft bristles. They are great for glue and for brushing shellac or egg white.

_________________
Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Thanks all, for the helpful details!

Again, no magic fixes. Some things that help:
#1 Don't sand finer than 220 (finer dust gets trapped in the pores--especially spruce pores.)
#2 Clean up by vacuuming the guitar, followed by a wipe with blue "shop towels". (These pick up a lot more dust than regular paper towels.)
#3 If bleeding is an issue, seal difficult woods by wiping with very thin shellac on a barely damp pad. Make one pass, indexing your pad on the corner, if there is one. Wait a few minutes, then repeat with a new surface of the pad. Change pads when you run out of new surfaces. When the pad stops picking up color, you can be more bold.
#4 Pick woods that don't bleed. Wenge is a great wood for contrasting color schemes. It doesn't bleed in alcohol or water, and it's very dark.
#5 When all else fails, seal pale woods with CA glue before finishing. Thin CA will penetrate pores. Medium CA will fill small (Maple) pores.

End grain blonde wood, next to dark, staining wood is the hardest. I have a couple of these in the shop for finishing:

Oh well, so much for my plan to only use water-based finishes with coco. Guess I'll have to use Todd's method
of sealing with epoxy....

_________________
Gene

Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason- Mark Twain

Just to clarify, Todd,
Would shellac be better to seal the coco than vinyl sealer, or are you just referring to doing the shellac mist coat before the sanding steps?

Beth,
Since Todd was replying to my comment about using waterbased finish over Coco,
I think he was referring to applying a light coat of shellac just before starting
the waterbased finish coats.

_________________
Gene

Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason- Mark Twain