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Hello, Just a question to throw out there to anyone, I have had a set of BRW sitting around a couple of months, and when I received it, it was a reddish-brick like, very pretty, but now that I have bent the sides and finished the box, the wood has taken on a darker tone,more chocolate to black in spots, still pretty, but I believe this to be oxidation right? My question is this, is there anyway or anything that will restore that reddish look before I seal the guitar without being to aggressive with sanding, or am I stuck with a darker
guitar than first thought?

Jeff

Probably stuck with it. The finish won't prevent oxidation, so even if you do sand it back, it will just darken again later. It's called dalbergia nigra for a reason

I have experienced a similar problem with some of my BR that I cut in the late-1980's. It had oxidized to a reddish brown, but as soon as I sand it a bit, it gets the dark chocolate color.
The pleasant surprise is that the finished guitars have lightened up again, but it generally takes over a year.

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John

The same stuff happened to me (it was just a bridge blank, though).

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

Tell the customs guys it's actually African Blackwood?

I have a set of CSA stumpwood that is very dark, verging on black, and I was recently sanding it to thickness and cleaning it up, and I like how it looks now. I certainly wouldn't fault it for color. It's not a pre-war martin or a nice classical, but its it's own thing. (Let's see how the sides bend, though).

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

If you have a scrap of the wood available you could try coating it with some liquid laundry detergent or dishwashing detergent, letting it sit for several minutes and then rinsing it throughly with water. I have done this with cocobolo and it does seem to lessen it's tendency to go black with age. The detergent pulls the oils out of the surface of the wood and can leave it washed out looking until a finish is applied. YMMV, so by all means test on a scrap of the wood you are using.

my back has several real light spots from the drying out during bending how do i even out the color

Wish I had the problem. No BRW here

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

Sure is. The last BRW guitar I finished had a bit of colouring to it, which looked quite attractive, but under finish it's basically black. But a very nice black! Pic here.

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Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au