Staining my iv mandolin top

[brose]

Help! # #When I stained the top of my IV mandolin kit tonight, it turned out all blotchy and looking like it has racing stripes. # I sanded with 120, wet it to raise the wood, and then sanded with 220, wet it to raise the wood, and then sanded again with 320, hoping that this would help it to not turn out this way. # #Is there something I can do to even out the color?
Any help from you experienced builders would possibly calm the panic I am feeling right now. # #Next time, I'm leaving it natural!!!

First and maybe last-time builder,
brose

[MikeEdgerton]

Pre-stain wood conditioner

[Geoff B]

It is nearly unavoidable when dying by hand, in my experience. Just go back with the damp cloth and try to distribute the color evenly after it gets blotchy. I've found, again in my experience, when airbrushing the color goes on much more evenly.

I've heard of folks pre-sealing with dilute shellac, but have never tried myself. The blotchiness occurs from end-grain takes the dye more than the face grain (which is why curly maple can look as awesome as it does--controlled blotchiness!). The pre-sealers would block up the end grain, allowing less dye in and looking more like the face grain. That's the theory at least. Do you have a picture? Practice on scrap a little (always a good move) to see if you can even it out once it has reached the blotchiness level.

[Geoff B]

oh, and don't let the finish deter you from continuing building! It can be one of the most difficult parts!

[brose]

Thanks Geoff for the advice. I will try the damp cloth approach, otherwise I suppose I could go darker til the whole top is an even color.
Also, thanks Mike for the sealer advice, which I will definitely do next time, which I'm planning on starting another soon.
I don't know what I'd do without this message board, probably would never even have tried building at all, which because of what I know now, I would have really regretted. Thanks again.
brose

[Five]

Do not sand your wood so slick with fine grit papers. This has a burnishing effect and will cause the stain to not absorb on the slick spots. a very light wash coat will sometimes help the stain come out more even. You can also use what is called a padding stain on your lacquer coat to even out the color. Do this before your last clear coats so it is sealed and will not come off. I have also done a little blending over the sealer coat with the wipe or better yet a glaze. Be careful doing this as to much will muddy your finish. Check with someone who does furniture finishes for the above items. i hope this helps. Geoff advice on the damp rag will also work if you have not sealed the stain. I use a very lightly dampened alcohol cheese cloth for this. Do not use rubbing alcohol. You will need denatured alcohol or moonshine if you have it.

[sunburst]

Proper sanding will not burnish the wood no matter how fine your final grit, but anything finer than 220 or 320 is a waste of time and effort.
Once you've got blotches with a stain (dye) rubbed on the bare wood, they're pretty close to irreversible, so selectively darkening the lighter parts is about the best way to even out the appearance of your current project.
If, in the future, you stain by hand on bare wood (my preferred method, BTW) use multiple passes with dilute stains and watch for places that "take" the stain more than others. If you see a place turning into a dark blotch, avoid that part as you continue to darken the lighter parts.

Now for the step you skipped that got you to this point:
Any time you try a new finish procedure of any kind, practice on scrap first! That means, use a scrap of the same wood you'll be finishing, sand it out exactly as you plan to do on the instrument, and go through the entire finish process. Furthermore, for a mandolin top, you should use a scrap of carved spruce because the carved surface often contributes to the blotches because of the variation in how the grain presents at the surface of a carved piece of wood as opposed to a flat piece of wood.
One of the disadvantages of kit building is the lack of cut-off scrap pieces like you get when building from an earlier starting point (usually referred to as "from scratch").

[Five]

John I hate to disagree but you can sand with to fine a grade of paper which will cause the stain to lay up more on the harder sections of wood. I worked for a major finishing supplier developing and running finishing systems for the furniture industry here in NC (when they still made furniture in the US) and have seen this happen when the wood came from the white wood section to the finishing line. The stain will lay up and not dive into the wood making it harder to control the color. You are absolutely on target in recommending working on a scrap piece of the wood. We often ran what are called step panels for the finish which has each step of the system taped off to show what each step should look like. This is a must to run different pieces in different plants and maintain pieces which must match when a suite is set together. As for multiple light coats they make it easier to control the color as you stated. There are different steps which can be employed to even out the overall color. ie. sap stains which stain the light areas before the first overall stain is applied. working with leaving more or less wipe and glaze after the wash coat and sealer coats, highlighting the with sandpaper or steal wool. Padding stains between the lacquer coats. I know that much of this is not available to individual without access to a finishing lab stock with everything you could want or need but some of the techniques can be applied. I guess what I am trying to say is there are a lot of ways to even out your finish, however you must watch out because to much will give you a muddy finish. I am sorry I am getting old and tend to ramble.

[sunburst]

Five, I've seen wood damaged, burnished I suppose, from excessive power sanding, especially with too much pressure for long enough duration to heat the wood surface, but never from light hand sanding.
Finer grits do tend to make the wood surface behave more like a cut surface and less like a sanded surface, where the side grain parts just don't want to accept dyes as much as the end grain parts. It seems that the roughed up, torn fibers left by the sandpaper help stuff soak in.

Oh, and that reminds me of a "cheap and dirty" trick that I haven't used lately.
When there's a section of wood that doesn't take the stain well, you can "wet sand" the stain in. Sand the stain into the wood with a piece of waterproof sandpaper (400 grit works well).

[Five]

John, that is usually the case in plants as workers can sometimes get carried away with there orbital sanders.

[Bill Snyder]

Brose, I do not see where you said what kind of "stain" you are using. That makes a difference on application.
Reggie, I know that John does not need me to take up for his expertise when it comes to finishing instruments but I am going to anyway. Take a look through some of the Post a Picture threads of John's work. He knows about what he speaks. He worked for years finishing instruments for a fairly large instrument builder.
As far as using to fined grit paper, I believe Michael Lewis is a proponent of using papers up to 400 or 600 grit BEFORE you stain. I can't imagine anyone complaining about his end results. Of course the stains used by luthiers are not generally the same type of products used by furniture manufacturers.

[brose]

Thanks again for the great advice. I applied water soluble dark brown dye. I may try the wet sanding stain approach, because the way it looks now, I'd be embarassed to take it out of its case.
Next time I will do a lot of things different...
brose

[leathermarshmallow]

Hey...never be embarrassed about your work. Of course it will not look as good as those who have done it for years, but be proud! You put lots of time into it.

I finished an IV kit that is UGLY. But the sound is fantastic! I just chalked it up to learning and move on. I have just completed a second kit. Much nicer looking, but doesn't sound quite as good as the first one. (I guess I was lucky).

I soon will start on a flat top oval hole mandolin. And then I think I will try one from scratch (or near scratch). I hope to someday have a nice high quality mandolin that sounds good that I built. I just have to get past the learning curve somehow!
Greg

[Five]

I agree with you both. It different methods are required for different stains. Most stains used for furniture and a lot of mass produced instruments are alcohol based stains made to dive into the wood. Oil base stains are a different matter and require different techniques . John does very nice work. He has developed systems that work for him. I am not disagreeing with him. When John states over sanding I think is the key here. You can get different effects from sand papers just by how much it is broken down or by how hard you sand. It is more learning what you are looking for and how to get it. I have finished many pieces of furniture and was responsible for about seven different finishes running on one line some days with about two to four hundred pieces per day for many years. I have had to do one wipe wiping stains and 15 to 18 step systems. Like John said, test panels. Never do you run a finish in a plant without a step panel and new panels are constantly ran during production. John has very good advice. As for the sand paper thing I think I'll just leave it alone.

[Five]

John will you be at Galax this year?

[brose]

Thanks for all the information and your very kind words.

Becky(brose) in IA

[Five]

Good luck Becky. I hope it works out.
Reggie

[sunburst]

There's no quarrel here between Five and me. I'm sure he knows what he is talking about, and that I could learn a lot from him and from the experience he has had. We're from different backgrounds, his more industrial, mine more small-shop, and the methods of finishing and methods of communication can be different in those settings.

As for Galax, I hope I make it. My pickup truck (my tow vehicle for the camper) is in the shop in need of a very expensive exhaust system, more than the value of the truck, and if the parts come in in time, and if the rest of the works goes well, and if I can get the camper ready in time, I'll be there. If things don't work out and I can't make it, it will break a streak of 25 consecutive years at Galax!

[Five]

John, good luck with the truck. It sounds like it should be mine, always something thats in need of fixing. Hope to get to meet you in Galax. John, I started out in a violin shop and doing repair work before becoming working in the furniture industry. I was thinking that frenching color on the light spots is also an option if she has already applied her top coat. I have used that method on market samples that needed help successfully in the past with good results and sealed it in with a light top coat for protection. Anyway good luck with the truck, I now have to ojt as a washing machine repairman and hope it turns out better than some finishes I have done.

[Sean Greer]

This has nothing to do with the topic at hand, just some comments on John's work.

John, your work is stunning. I just spent 20 minutes perusing the eye candy on your web site and all I can say is "Wow!". I can't wait to run across one of your instruments in the wild in order to give it a test drive, but for now I'll dream about a clone of the Irishman's with a hop vine inlay replacing the clover. Gorgeous!

[timv]

Just want to add my thanks for the comments and suggestions offered in this thread. I'm currently getting up to speed on my IV kit build and I've been concerned about hand-staining myself. This gives me a lot more to go on. I spent a while this evening cutting a spruce board into test pieces, and I'd wondered about whether I should carve on them some to make it a fair test. Guess so...

Good luck with the rest of the build, Becky. And please consider posting a picture or two when you have the finish on it. Think of it this way: At the very worst, you'll keep others like me from setting our expectations too high. (...after so much time spent looking at the work of Sunburst and his peers.) But I'll bet it turns out looking good when you're done with it.

[Bill Snyder]

I know that I have made comments about the difference in finishing furniture and instruments but you can get some encouragement from others work.
I have worked in residential construction the last 16+ years. Most of it on high-end custom homes. I recall one home where the painters came in and stained the cabinets. These were nice custom cabinets and Doyle was an excellent painter but after he put stain on them they looked VERY blotchy and frankly terrible. Doyle came back and touched up the stain and put some lacquer on and touched up the color a bit more and by the time they had put their last coat of lacquer on them they looked like fine furniture.
Point being that even though your first one may not look as good as you want he probably is not the lost cause you think it is. With a bit of blending and then the application of clear coat it will look better.

[Jim Rowland]

I've worked backwards of you,Bill. My only experience in finishing was on instruments until a couple of years ago. My wife and I were rehabbing one of the bathrooms and had selected a sink console that was just what we wanted..except for the color. She was doing a lot of agonizing over the dilemma,so I told her to buy it and we would get the coloring we wanted in the garage. We set the thing up on some standards,stood back and studied it,decided what we wanted and where the colors would blend from dark to lighter,what the base color would be etc. We finished up with a few coats of clear after sanding judiciously. It turned out great. I'm still amazed that we could do it ourselves,and sometimes stop just to stare at it.
Jim