I have a maple burl top on a korina body (Warmoth gecko). Presently the body has a very light tung oil finish and no stain. I'm considering staining the burl top to bring out the grain a little more. The unstained burl overall is very light-colored but the grain has some nice patterning. If I use a stain on maple burl does the pattern tend to be accentuated, or does the lighter part of the wood tend to absorb more than the swirls thus downplaying the pattern?

oh yeah! definitly brings it out, look at the bass on the huff bases page. I'm gonna use burl maple on my bass aswell, the stain with colors looks amazing, I was thinking green with sploches of red here and there to make it look rustic. here's the site www.dhuffguitars.com (http://www.dhuffguitars.com) I know you'll want to stain it after this!:D

The more oil you add, the deeper the figure becomes, to a point. I've always thought that a stain tends not to accentuate figure. Not to say that it doesn't look cool, but the color tends to remove some of the clarity of the figure.

That said, endgrain takes stain faster. The wood will take the stain at different concentrations, depending on grain direction, which changes all over the place on burl. It creates an effect of its own.