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Which finish will preserve the color of my redwood top the best. I've seen some tops that turn dark red and others that are nice and light. Given that the b&s's are quilted maple I'd like to keep the top as light as possible. For simplicity I was considering tung oil on the neck, maybe the b&s's and a french polish on the top. Any guidance is appreciated.

I want it to look like this:

I don't have an answer, except, the better UV blocking a finish has the slower the wood beneath will change.

Experienced fellows ought to jump right in.

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

Lacquer seems to keep redwood from darkening the most of anything I have used. I do a couple coats of french polish first.

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Michael F Smith
Goat Rock Ukulele
http://goatrockukulele.com

honestly, I think it totally depends on the wood itself .. I have some pieces that will finish lighter, some really dark ... same finish.

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Scroll down to the bottom of page 4. I did that one with TruOil.

viewtopic.php?f=10133&t=37283&start=75

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A man hears what he wants to hear, and disreguards the rest. Paul Simon

Remember that "Curly Wood"
has allot of endgrain on each side of the curl
NO matter how big or small they are.
End grain soaks up finish & stains.
This will make a dark/light/dark pattern .
from side to side of the curls.

Experiment with the leftover top wood
you have to find the look you want.
Shellac-blond(dewaxed) will help seal & make your top finish
look great!
http://www.shellac.net
Mike

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Mike Collins

So I'm familiar with french polish, but is this brushable? Then FP over top? I'm a complete newb to finishing and my last one looked so bad paired with other mistakes that I scrapped it. I don't want to make the same mistake this time around as this guitar is much cleaner, not mistake free but many fewer than the last.

This is a Redwood top done in oil violin varnish. It doesn;t appear to have oxidizes(darkened) yet.

Yep, FP generally starts with a coat or two wiped on. But wiping is tricky business too. You have to keep the cloth at a consistent wetness level, and move at a consistent pace, or it can look blotchy. The cloth wetness on the initial coat is what determines how deep it soaks into the grain and therefore how much darkening effect you get.

Another thing to try is hide glue sizing. Brush or wipe on a thin solution of hide glue, which doesn't soak in very deep, but does clog the grain so subsequent shellac wiping isn't so perilous. But test on scrap... I think I remember seeing something a couple years ago where a violin guy ran tests of various finishes on flamed maple, and hide glue was actually one of the best for highlighting curl. But the lack of soaking in deep seems like it would have the opposite effect.

I use hide glue on the heel and headstock endgrain to prevent darkening, but haven't tried it on curly wood yet, or as a soundboard sealer. But according to Somogyi's book, Eugene Clark does use it on the soundboard before French polishing. I need to try it one of these days.

Thanks- unfortunately I don't have any hide glue or a glue pot. Would fish glue work? I have loads of that stuff.

I googled the answer to my own question

http://www.leevalley.com/us/shopping/Te ... =a&p=47291

Hide glue and fish glue as sizing

Here is the info in case anyone else is interested. I'll give this a try.

Staining wood evenly prior to applying finish coats calls for careful preparation. Many woods are prone to blotching or uneven stain penetration that shows under finish coats. Evening out stain penetration requires some treatment to make the wood take the stain in a more uniform manner.

While thinned shellac or manufacturer’s “pre-conditioners” are often used, old-timers used a method that provided a safe, reliable and quite uniform conditioning of wood prior to staining. They used glue size.

Glue size is made by dissolving about 2 oz of fish or hide glue in a quart of hot (but not boiling) water. The glue will fully dissolve, giving a very light amber solution that is compatible with any stain color. Glue size will keep for up to two weeks in the refrigerator, but is always used hot. If there is any indication of spoiling, the size should be discarded. Note that modern synthetic glues such as PVAs (e.g., white or 2002 GF) and epoxies are not suitable for making glue size.

To use the size, first sand the project to final grit, vacuum or brush off loose sanding dust, then wipe on a wet coat of hot glue size with a clean rag. Let the work dry thoroughly. When dry, the surface will feel very rough. The water in the size has raised the grain of the wood and the glue has locked the fibers in their expanded condition. Re-sand very lightly to “chop” them clean. The idea is to sand smooth but not below the sized surface. The result will be wood that is quite smooth, but with enough thinned glue remaining in and on the surface to even out the porosity and allow a much more even staining. Water or spirit dyes, or even standard oil stains, may all be used. After the stain is dry, topcoat with any usual finish.

Practicing first on scraps of wood cut-offs from your project is advisable to develop the technique.

Not sure. I'd be worried about stickiness, incase the finish ever wears through anywhere. Still a concern with hide glue too, but fish is so much stickier.

I guess now's as good a time as any to run the hide glue tests myself, though. i have some old glue and shellac that needs disposing of anyway

EDIT: Guess you can run the test too then

Yeah I think I will run the test with fish glue. I have some dewaxed shellac that's a couple years old. Does it go bad? There's no exp date.

Water based finishes will be a shade or so lighter than solvent or oil based.
To prevent the wood from darkening over time, you'll need a UV blocker in the finish.

Yeah I've been working on leveling it all night last night. Had some ripples in the sides.

Leveling the finish should be easy comparatively. I've just been using 80 grit and a scraper. Once I take the scraper to it I can really see how bad the rippling is. Next time I have sides this figured, I'll go very thin and then laminate them to some mahogany. The method I'm using is not very efficient but I'm liking the results so far. If anyone knows a shortcut feel free to chime in

Just remembered I never reported back here... the results of my glue sizing test were somewhat inconclusive. It seems to look more or less the same as applying shellac directly, except for on some dark and somewhat figured redwood, where I wiped on a lot of glue, which got the wood nice and wet, it's darker than shellac. Redwood's color extract is water soluble... which gives me an idea. What about just using water to "bleach" the color out of it? I guess now that it's assembled, getting it really wet might be a bad idea... especially on curly redwood, after seeing Kevin's post. But for straight grained redwood, I might have to try that sometime to see if I can make one look similar to sitka.

well if the results are the same then I suppose that I'll just go with shellac. Shellac should work better for protecting the wood anyways. What I am most concerned about at this point is tearout of the top when I route the binding/purfling channels. will shellac help that situation or should I use making tape as well?