Refinishing old parlor guitar neck

[John McDonald]

Hey everybody..was hoping to get some ideas for refinishing the neck on this old parlor.It previously had a very thick and bad looking refinish. I'm not sure what kind of wood the neck is, but I suspect its poplar.

Up until now, I have only refinished a couple of mahogany necks that I left natural color and finished in tru-oil. The tru-oil was very easy to use and I was pretty satisfied with the results of both projects.

This time around, I'd like to finally take the plunge into the world of shellac and french polish. I believe I have all the info I need about mixing and using shellac but I can't find any good info about staining the neck. This neck has had a few repairs over the years that I would like to hide with a nice dark mahogany stain. I included a picture of a neck whose stain I would like to try to emulate.

I'd really like to know if anyone here has any favorite brands of stain to achieve a similar look and also could share the process in which you would go about doing it.

Thanks in advance...

John

[William F.Eden]

I don't know how to get the color you are looking for in Freanch polish, but I did one over for a customer last year in nitro and it looked like this if that is any good to you John.    BILL............

[John McDonald]

Thanks Bill. Thats a great looking finish, but I'm really wanting to experiment with a hand applied stain and finish for this project. I'm not quite ready to try out the rattle can nitro and I don't have any spray equipment to try the real deal like yours. One of these days....

[Greg Mirken]

That's a tough one to learn French polish on, John. I've never tried to hide defects with French polish, but FF did a nice job on a mandocello of ours. Getting a hand-applied stain to look even on all those curved surfaces and varying grain directions is going to be a nightmare. I think a tinted finish would do a better masking job- think about how a Guild mahogany body looks compared to a D-18, for example. I don't think a sunburst effect is appropriate, either.

Hopefully Frank will chime in.

[John McDonald]

So....maybe I should of left it alone in the first place. Oh well, I'm committed to it now. I shouldn't have mentioned "hiding the defects" as any real concern. Check out the picture attached and you will see that this poor old guit has seem some hard times and some rough repairs. Sounds great though...

I'm not sure if I asked my original question very well because I know so little about the subject of stains, dyes, and finishes. I was thinking that I would wipe on multiple coats of a dark gel stain. I had read that gel stain would be good since it isn't supposed to penetrate into the wood too much. After I have the color looking the way I want it, I was thinking I would then finish it with the french polish on top of the stain to give it shine and protection. Or...maybe instead I should just add some dark brown tint to the french polish itself and build the color up as I apply the finish?

[Kerry Krishna]

 John, high quality lacquer rattle cans are actually quite easy/satisfying to use. I have had to do it a few times and it has always been a great choice. Just so you know.  

[Eric Steven Johansen]

John, First off I think you probably have a lightly colored Spanish Cedar neck there. My process is to sand to 320, after raising any dents with water and a hot spatula of course, then I apply diluted water base aniline dyes to achieve the desired color. A red brown will get what you're after here. Every other coat I lightly re-sand with 320, carefully so as to maintain even color, I then begin my polish with Garnet shellac to get a more amber appearance and finish with pure blonde. French polish is the correct finish on this one. Take your time and enjoy, you'll like the results for sure.

[Steve Bettesworth]

I’ve  used a variety of stain over the years  trying to match colour not just on guitars but with furniture and wooden floors. Spirit stain comes ready mixed and is good for an even colour but I don’t find it useful for matching as it is pretty unadaptable. I’ve started using Van Dyke crystals which are water soluble and give a rage of browns depending upon the ratio of crystals to water. Colours can be toned using yellows, reds etc. On large areas you can get a more even coverage and they take shellac better than a spirit stain. I get mine from http://www.wood-finishes-direct.com/product/vandyke-crystals but I imagine that they can be bought worldwide.

[Ned Knepp]

  Eric's approach is one that I've used before and had pretty good results. One difference is that I used alcohol based stains and had to be very careful starting the shellac build because it also uses alcohol as a solvent.

 Another approach that can help get the shading how you want it is to tint the shellac. That's why I have used alcohol for my stains. It's possible to color some shellac with the stain so you can build color as well as finish. It's not a quick process because you aren't going to get the color you want in a couple of coats and staining the wood first proves to be much faster but it has saved me a few times when I was trying to rebuild a  sunburst or a graduated tint neck. 

  Whatever you do, don't try to hurry it up. I like the process of French Polish but it's easy to get into too big a hurry. I agree with Marc that a neck probably isn't the best place to start learning how to do it but you will be OK if you take your time. You might consider making up some shellac to practice on a flat panel first so you can learn how to handle the pad and how to "feel" the finish as you work it. It will have the added benefit of producing a seasoned pad to use in your neck. Just don't let it dry out.  It almost feels like magic to me when I do it but on a neck, I always want to go to fast. On larger areas of wood it easy to allow the finish a chance to flash off but on something as small as the neck you may need to keep it slow so you don't pull the finish too much.

[Eric Steven Johansen]

I started out using the alcohol based stains for the same reason you do Ned, so I could mix them with my shellac, but changed to waterbase for my first applications because of the shellac/stain interaction. I still tint my shellac sometimes with alcohol based aniline but only to tweak the color if needed. I really like the waterbased stains because you can recoat with different colors and the previous coats hold without streaking.

[Ned Knepp]

  I have thought of this but never seem to get around to purchasing water based dyes. My "volume" (tongue in cheek) of work means that a little bit of stain last a long time. I have a charcoal colored bottle of stain that was mixed at least 15 years ago and I'm still using it. Writing this reminds me that I do need to get some yellow so maybe I'll order some water based stains and try them.  

  The think I like about using tint in the shellac is that I can strip it off if I don't like how it's going. Sanding stain out of wood isn't my idea of a good time and I'm just not that good at getting it right the first go around.  I usually seal with a brush coat of shellac before I stain however I end up finishing the instrument. 

[John McDonald]

Thanks so much guys. I'll start experimenting with Eric's method since I already have some water based aniline dyes from lmi in the shop in yellow, red, amber, and brown.

I have a spare poplar neck that I pulled off of an old silvertone that is already sanded to bare wood to play around with. I suppose it will take the dyes similarly to the spanish cedar neck. I will definitely take Ned's advice on getting the feel for french polishing on a flat surfaced piece of scrape. 

Thanks again everyone. I'm sure I'll be back with some more pictures and some more questions as I go along on this one.