![Rolling Eyes :roll:](./images/smilies/icon_rolleyes.gif)
This tute just happens to be based around a Tobacco burst that I'm employing on my current build but the same principles can be applied to a two or three tone sunburst also.
First a bit of a preamble about the two main types of stains that are readily available and my observations of both.
I've used both water based and alcohol based stains over the years, and these can be purchased as an aniline powder from several different suppliers, there is also the "colortone" which comes in liquid form and can be used to perform the same as either (mixed with any medium). I don't strongly favour one over the other, they both have their strong points but the more I've done, the more I go for the liquid stain each time. The advantage I see in the liquid form over the powder based is that it can be mixed readily with alcohol to apply directly to the wood, added to the clear finish to provide a tinted finish or added directly to water. When added to water or alcohol it can be used pretty much immediately whereas the powder has to be mixed the day before with the liquid base, well stirred and left to sit overnight for the powder to fully dissolve. Also the strength of colour can be 'tinkered' with more readily, it only involves adding a few more drops and giving it a stir as opposed to adding more powder either seperately and adding to original stain or just to the existing stain, mixing well & letting it sit for a period of time once again.
Next is stain in the wood against mixing into in the clear coat or over the wood. If you have a plain looking timber such as Alder, Basswood or Poplar then stain in the finish is the way to go as it will go over the grain so that you are looking through the colour, thereby hiding some of that plain figure/grain. If you have a nicely figured bit of wood that you want the grain to be enhanced/shown off then stain in the wood is the best way to go.
You can use Alcohol based stains for this and apply to the wood if you intened on having the wood all one colour but for tobacco or two tone bursting I've never done it this way, as the Alcohol based stain seemed harder to merge/blend to that nice burst fade once its dried or even in it's wet form, the colours tend to get muddied. The one time I would use Alcohol stains direct onto wood with a burst, would be in the case of where I'm looking for a clear definition between the colours (such as a 3 colour Sunburst) and I would apply the stain through an airbrush or small spray gun (I know them as a door jamb gun). But having said that, as a general rule, if I have figured timber it would be water based all the way and I'd use the spray gun to get definition if it's required.
For stain into the wood and a nice progressive burst nothing beats water based in my opinion! This will be the method I hope to show you in this tute where there is a subtle change between colours as opposed to the more 'harder' defined line.
So to business
For the following Tobacco burst I will only need to use two colours, Tobacco Brown & Vintage Amber. I've shown the Stewmac 'colortone' product here, I'm not advertising or advocating their product specifically but I have found, personally, this to be the easiest and best product I've used in a liquid form. I have loads of aniline powders I've sourced and used, from several different suppliers, sometimes the powders come in a colour that just isn't available as a liquid (purple comes to mind although the Blue and Red does so I could mix my own if I had to I guess
![Embarassed :oops:](./images/smilies/icon_redface.gif)
I want to grain enhance my water stained (
![Wink :wink:](./images/smilies/icon_wink.gif)
For anybody that isn't familiar with grain enhancement, what happens is that by applying an intial dark colour, the end grains (the thing that gives the wood it's figure) absorb more of the stain than the normal grain. By sanding back we are removing the stain from the 'normal' sections (where it hasn't absorbed as deeply) and leaving the darker stain in the end grain thereby 'showing up' or enhancing these grain features.
For the darker stains such as a blue or red topped instrument (can be other colours but these are the main two), the grain enhancement stain can be just straight black but for the tobacco burst, whilst I wanted to be able to see the quilt figure I didn't want it too dark and dominant, I only want to enhance it not make it the main feature!
So to apply the stain on this job I need rag, my scrap (to get my recipe right) and the mixed stain and Latex or Vinyl gloves. The stain is a shit of a stuff to remove from your skin, it ain't called stain for nothing! *Note*Some people would advocate wetting the surface of the wood first just with clean warm water to raise any grain 'hairs', I would do this if I was applying a burst or colour to the wood and not carrying out the grain enhancment stage first, it's not necessary in my opinion, if you wish to do this step then please don't let me stop you. Tailor things to what suits you best but you are going to be sanding anyway, may as well save some elbow grease!
First we'll try a 2:1 mix of Amber against the Tobacco, twenty drops (the bottles come with a blank spout that you can cut the end off, I don't! I pierce the end with a 1.5mm drillbit to give me repeat results with all colours, one drop of one colour will be the same amount as one from another) of Amber and ten of Tobacco into about 100mls of warm water and with a clean rag I just simply wipe it onto my surface, no particular direction i.e you dont have to wipe with the grain, infact circular motions are better for blending & stopping from getting dark lines of stain forming on the surface. If you do get dark lines of stain on the surface you can counteract this easily but more on that later...
One application of the 2:1 mix Hmmm it's OK but still not quite what I'm after, I can sure see the quilt but it isn't quite prominent enough for what I want (ignore the straight lines running with the grain, that's just from the 80 grit in the thickness sander), remember that we will be applying the Vintage Amber and Tobacco brown later over the top of this so things could get lost if they are too subtle.
Lets up the mix by adding another ten drops of the Tobacco to the brew so now we have a 1:1 ratio. Much better, this should show the quilt under the other colours without being too "in your face"
![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif)
The next step in the process is wait until this dries and then sand it all off back to 'bare' wood, for this I use some 240 grit, this will also sand off any of those grain hairs that have been raised by the water.
A bit of a note on the amount of stain (and water) we want to put on the surface of our nicely dried wood (especially if we are doing this to a thin, dry bit of spruce on an acoustic). We just want enough stain in our rag to be wet in the rag, we aren't looking at 'soaking' the wood's surface such that stain is running off it! A wet/soaked surface doesn't equate to more penetration or amount of stain in the wood. Plus you risk ruining your nicely dried and stable timber that you've tried so hard to keep at a stable RH level during the whole build.
Here we can see a side by side of what it, the stained surface (on the left), will look like under finish as opposed to the untreated grain (on the right). Ok, looks about right from what I'm after, time to apply it to my expensive water stained top.
Because I've done two coats (one at 2:1 & another at 1:1) on my practice piece, If I applied one application on my top with my current mix it wouldn't come out dark enough and if I did two (as I've effectively done on my scrap), it would be too dark so I need to weaken this a bit.
I like to have a colour a little on the weak side so that I can come "up" to the final colour I'm after by doing more applications rather than applying just one coat and overdoing it! So I added another 25mls, not much but enough that I can do my top in more than one application. It's easier to bring it up to the colour you want rather than take it back to the colour (which would involve applying more water to our wood, which we want to keep to a minimum if we can!).
So I've applied 2 coats to the top, at this stage these need to be sometime apart otherwise you don't really add to the depth of colour, you are just moving the colour around on the top. You could apply one, let it dry completely, then another, I do it before the first is completely dry, this is just a personal method for working. The stain is applied using circular motions with the rag, this avoids getting streaks of darker stain and evens out the application. This shows the top before the second application has begun to dry.
This now should be left to dry completely which can vary depending on your environment, I personally, leave it overnight just "to be sure". Once you are happy that the previous applications have dried out fully it's time to sand off what you just spent time applying!
Using 240grit, I sand with the grain until it looks like I've removed all the stain from the surface of the wood. I want the Maple to look evenly white across the surface, here you can see a slightly darker patch (circled), this needs further sanding or it will mix with subsequent applications & I'll end up with an uneven colour in my Amber base coat. Job done and ready for the colour coats to go on
![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif)
A quick note about the use of plastic bindings! If you scrape your bindings you will end up with a smooth surface that won't "take" any stain and any bleeding of stain onto the bindings can be easily removed by a light scraping or wiping with clean water afterwards. If you've sanded the bindings, you've introduced numerous scratches that stain just loves to sit in and so you have to scrape a fair bit of binding to remove the stain lines ( I found this little tip out the hard way when I first started using stain!
![Embarassed :oops:](./images/smilies/icon_redface.gif)
I've mixed up a batch that is about 25 drops to a 100mls of water, this can be tweaked to suit (as I did) and while the application is still wet it gives you a good indication of what it will look like under finish so you can adjust as you go if need be. I apply one coat by usuing a new piece of rag and again a circular motion, blending in any streaks or dark lines as I go, what we are after is an eveness of colour. It wasn't quite the depth of colour I wanted so I added another 10 drops to the brew and let the first application partially dry off. This only takes a matter of minutes for the surface to appear 'dry'. This is a good gauge of how wet you are getting the surface, if it takes an age then you are applying too much stain & therefore water!
Another application and I have the look I'm after I let this dry off overnight now as I'm ready to start applying the tobacco around the edge. For the tobacco stage I'll also have a jar with clean water and rag beside me which I use for blending in and watering down any colour I feel is too strong.
The first three applications of my tobacco I used the tobacco/amber mix previously used at the grain enhancing stage, this gives me a colour that is slightly darker than than the vintage amber but blends in well with it where I want the 'fade' or blend to start, in otherwords it's not too much of a contrast, I want that further out near the edge!
First application and I take it toward the centre leaving the traditional 'patch' of amber in the centre. This first application I'll take it in to about 2/3rds the width of the top. It's a very subtle application but will help with the transition from the Amber to Tobacco, don't be tempted to overdo the application at this stage! we can play around with it further down the line if we want I let this dry off for ten or so minutes before going at it again with another application of the same mix of stain. The second application I'm focussing on building up the depth of colour, I stay away from the 'inner' edge by an inch (25.4mm) or so as I just want the flash of darker colour in this region. I'll repeat the process for the third coat moving outwards even more, what we want is a progression of this shading without any obvious changes in shade. If you do get a bit of a line between each application just use the clean water to blend it out, don't use the stain rag to do this as it will add more colour. Dip a clean rag in the water and squeeze out any excess, we want it damp enough as to not 'drag' on the surface but not so damp that it leaves glistening pools on the wood!
Time to let all this dry out again and mix up some 'pure' tobacco for the edge. I mixed up a batch similar to the Amber i.e 25 drops to 100mls of water, I can always add to it if it's too weak or dilute it if it's too strong.
Ok, with my now dry body (
![Shocked :shock:](./images/smilies/icon_eek.gif)
First coat applied using a straight wipe this time as we want to focuss on getting the right width of dark around the edge, this will leave a hard line as you can see, but this will be blended in in the next step. The next step is one of the beauties of using water based stains, you can either blend while it's still wet or let it dry. Even if it was left overnight one wipe with a wet rag and it will 'reactivate' it and it will become workable again (you may end up with a hard line right at the edge of the dry stain but a good rub with the damp rag will dilute this line out). I prefer to do it while it's still wet but it's a personal choice or maybe time restrictions interfere.
The rag I use for the clean water I will rinse out if I used it in the previous applications so it's clean once again and squeeze it out so it's not too wet then using a small circular motion, I'll rub around the line between my tobacco/amber and pure tobacco applications. Blending in the darker edge in with the not so darker tobacco/amber mix. Don't let the rag get too dry during this stage we want it about as wet as if we are applying stain otherwise the blending doesn't work out so well.
Keep going until you are happy with the merge, again it's a personal preference. Still a little 'light' right out by the binding, I plan on going fairly dark with the sides and back so I want the immediate edge on the top to be as close in colour as possible. So I just keep adding more applications until I have the colour I want. I let the last couple of applications dry off overnight in between as doing it wet will just 'shift' the colour about and won't actually darken it. So now we are pretty close to what I'm after, I did one more application after this photo was taken and kept it fairly narrow just to darken that edge a little more.
Ok, I forgot to mention that because I'm using a maple headstock I burst this at the same time in order to get things all looking the same. Once I'm happy with my burst I spray a couple of good coats of clear over it. 1) It "locks" in the burst and 2) it allows me to give it a light sanding and get any extrenuous nibs of the grain that may have been raised during our bursting.
Now we to move onto the back & sides. First I need to pore fill, for this I use a neutral water based pore filler. For this job I will be colouring the filler once it's on the wood and sanded ready for staining, there is nothing to stop you adding stain to the filler prior to filling though, should you want to.
For the pore fill I will be using the "colortone" water based filler but from everything I've researched about it, it is identical to locally (Australian) made "Timbermate" wood filler (I'm even wondering if Stewmac get it from Timbermate's manufacturers and sell it under their own colortone label?).
Anywho, which ever brand you use, it will need thinning with approx 10% water to get it to the consistency of bottled cream (not whipped!) I just quickly masked the majority of the binding with the paper masking tape just reduce cleanup at the end! Filler applied and left to dry, I guess this is what they mean by wood "in the white?"
![Wink :wink:](./images/smilies/icon_wink.gif)
I want a nice dark tobacco colour for this so I up the ratio of my Tobacco stain by adding another 25 drops to the mix.
Even though,as I said, it's easy to remove stain from plastic bindings I'm all for making life a little easy for myself & still mask the bindings just to reduce the amount of cleaning up I'll need to carry out. I usually like to use 3M's 471 blue vinyl tape on the bindings. This comes in several different widths starting at 1/8th and goes up from there. It's flexible enough to wrap around the tightest of bends and adheres well to the binding, it'll even stick to the curves on the front face too.
![Image](http://www.bearair.com/images/8Fineline.jpg)
But for this one I got hold of some 218 fineline Vinyl tape that I thought I would try, according to the shop where I got it, it's supposedly the same stuff all bar the colour. Plus you got twice as much on a roll. I didn't like it!
![Shocked :shock:](./images/smilies/icon_eek.gif)
![Embarassed :oops:](./images/smilies/icon_redface.gif)
There were a couple of problems I ran into, but they both highlight the ease of using water based stain! One was that after it had all dried off & I'd removed the masking tape, I noticed a small area on the neck that I'd missed
![Rolling Eyes :roll:](./images/smilies/icon_rolleyes.gif)
That is pretty much it for the staining now except I felt, even though the binding is already a creamy colour, against the darkness of the brown it showed up as being quite stark and almost white. I decanted a small amount of my Vintage Amber and mixed more water with it so that I ended up with a really weak mix and whiped the bindings with that, just to 'age' it up a bit and take some of the whiteness out of it. All ready for spraying the top coats. (the top looks 'dull' because I've already sanded it back ready for top coats) So that is basically how I execute a tobacco burst. Next step will be to spray the topcoats, I won't show that because I think most of us know or can find out how to carry that step out.
Hope somebody gets something useful out of this tute
![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif)