Bleaching & Dyeing?

[moon]

Recently bought a neck-through piece of laminated maple/walnut with rosewood fretboard and a big slab of black walnut for the wings. Still at the planning stage as far as design goes and I'm very interested in the possibilities of aniline dyes.

I've got three or four designs on my shortlist. First, just by rubbing on some black dye round the edges I think I can get a really nice effect. Should be quite easy to do too:



I'd also need some walnut brown dye to do the headstock "sock". Incidentally, the illustration uses a photo of the actual piece of walnut waiting to be turned into a guitar.

If you have strong feelings about natural walnut finishes read no further because the rest would involve bleaching out the natural colour. I love these liquid blues:



...and greens:



Finally, I think the black - red/tobacco - yellow/amber colours in a sunburst are just gorgeous even if this rather scruffy drawing doesn't do them justice:



The last one would be the hardest given that I'd have three colours to blend and the burst has to cross walnut and maple sections. If the different woods show through faintly that would be OK just so long as it gels together somehow.

So, anyone ever tried to bleach walnut? AFAIK a two-part bleach (sodium hydroxide and hydrogen peroxide) is the one to use but I don't know how far I can get. For the burst, I could probably get away with a bit of brown left behind after bleaching but for a nice pure green or blue I'd need to start from a fairly light, off-white kind of tone.

I guess if I want some grain to show through in the final finish I'll need to start with a wash of black stain (then sand it down a bit) before applying any dyes?

Finally, has anyone ever tried bleaching rosewood? A coloured fretboard could be an interesting option to play around with.

[charles Tauber]

Woodworkers have used black walnut for centuries as a prized wood because of its color and grain. If your intention is to bleach out the color my suggestion would be to use a different wood that is a more neutral pallet on which to place your chosen colors. If at the same time you chose a wood that is closed pored, you also eliminate the filling step.

[moon]

As a (first-time) instrument-maker, I've got a fundamentally different aim to cabinet-making. First and foremost I want the guitar to be the best musical instrument I can make regardless of looks. I chose Black Walnut primarily because it seemed like this would make a viable "tonewood" combination with the Maple centre ie a solid, compact, hardwood body with materials which hopefully don't have a reputation for bringing out the worst in each other in terms of the final guitar sound. I don't have any experience guitar-building but still I have to try to make my best guess.

So you're right: I hardly thought about the look of Walnut at all when I bought the plank. It was primarily just a construction material. If the guitar sounds good, the tree will not have died in vain, whatever colour it ends up as

I do agree that walnut can look really nice. The first picture with the natural finish is actually my favourite, by a hair (and it's also the easiest to do). However, even that one involves a bit of dyeing and the more I pick up about working with dyes the better chance I've got of tackling even a simple job.

[Aubade Acoustics]

I have bleached quite a bit of walnut. I will lighten up quite a bit the more you bleach. I usually lighten it to about the color of Butternut which is about the same as Oak or a little lighter. It actually looks nice bleached and gets rid of the dark hues and evens the look out.

[Quickstep192]

I think by the time you bleach walnut enough to dye it blue, it's going to be pretty boring grain-wise. I think you'd have a much more dramatic effect using quilted maple. Look at the attached pic. I've seen these guitars in person and they're stunning.

[moon]

Some of these colour finishes really do look beautiful. I love the way they push the boundaries of what you can do with a piece of wood. If I ever make another guitar I'd love to experiment with some nice maple tops. For now I'm kind of on a budget and will have to stick with what I've got.

Do you think a black stain would have been used on that guitar to bring out the grain before adding the colour & finish?

I was hoping I could do something similar: rub over with some stain, wipe off, sand it down a bit, and hopefully restore the lines of grain get bleached out.

[B. Howard]

Bleached walnut looks really blah and it will never lighten up enough to allow any of the colored finishes you wanted. You simply can't dye darker woods bright colors, bleached or not, the brown of the walnut will alter the color and most will wind up being a muddy looking mess.

You may be able to rub in the burst you want but I would suggest spraying it as a toner in the actual finish rather than dye because you will have better control over the shading and also have the opportunity to undo it if it goes wrong.

The blue quilt top shown has no highlight stain, that is a blue shader sprayed over the quilted maple.

[Quickstep192]

"Do you think a black stain would have been used on that guitar to bring out the grain before adding the colour & finish?"

When I saw these finishes being done, what they did was to apply a dark color, let it dry and then sand back, removing some, but not all of the dark color, then follow with a lighter color. But, only rarely was the first color black. In this case, I'd guess they used a darker blue followed by a blue just a few shades lighter. I've been experimenting with it and discovered that there only needs to be a few shades difference to produce a fairly dramatic effect.

[moon]

I think I should keep it simple and stick with number one: the natural walnut burst.

I really appreciate all the comments. I guess ultimately it's up to me to do some experiments if I want to chase down a particular effect but a few words of advice really help to get started when you're new to this stuff.

[Quickstep192]

"I think I should keep it simple and stick with number one: the natural walnut burst."

I agree - The natural grain of the walnut will look awesome with your burst and bleaching the grain color out seems like a waste of good walnut and you probably won't achieve the blue or green you really want. Save the blue or green for next time. Better yet, do blue and green!


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