finish for bird's eye maple

Have you tried oil, I've been using Tried & True danish oil. It's great and easy to work with. After sanding to 400 grit use micro mesh finishing kit, you will get a glass finish. oil 6 to 8 coats and buff in between coats. Then a high grade wax like Reminton.

 

Is the fretboard or the neck birdseye maple? If it's the fretboard, you might consider using a hard finish just because maple will show wear and dirt more than other fretboard woods if it has a soft finish. Otherwise, I second jworrellbass' suggestion for the Danish oil. I also used Teak oil (which is also made by Watco) to finish a guitar recently and I was very happy with the results. The teak oil is designed to penetrate very dense, oily woods a little more easily than danish oil...it worked very well on the rock maple neck I put it on.

 

You will want to wipe with a wet cloth and then sand to 320. Apply a light oil or yellow dye for ~5 minutes and then wipe off. This will highlight the the figure and you can then go on to top coat with what ever you prefer.

Here is that process with some flame Maple:

 

Go to the paint section of Lowe's. You will find 320 and 400 of Norton Ceramic as well as 600 in wet/dry. Beyond 600 you will want to go to the auto section of Wal Mart up to 2000ish. After that, LMII or StewMac foe the MicroMark stuff up to ~20000.

You should also treat yourself to Norton's sanding block while you are there. It's about ~$5 and a great flat sanding pad.

 

Here is a pic from a new bass I'm working on. The wings are tiger maple. The more time you spend sanding and finishing the better it will look.

 

I don't know who Brubaker is. The design is inspired by a Fleishman bass. Does it look like I copied somebody? I check out Brubaker's web site, nice stuff. I didn't see anything like that.

 

Thanks, I've got to come up with $100 bucks to finish, it's not a preorder, I built it for speculation of sale.

 

Brubaker had a model called the Lexa that had the two curved contours on the top. Yours definitely has the Harry Fleishman Jayne bass (from back in the 80's for people unfamilar with Harry's work) vibe. I had one of his stick basses back then and came very close to getting a Jayne. I think some Ken Lawrences were also influenced by Harry's work.

Nice work.

 

Briwax (bree-wax) gives an excellent satin sheen but I've heard it can be tricky to work with. I have a can sitting here and haven't found the time (or gotten up the nerve I guess ) to try it out. Very durable stuff, at least IME with the bass I own that were finished with it (Elricks).

 

Waxes and lacquers sit on top. To get figures to pop you must get something that will seep in. The difference of depth in seepage between end grain and face grain exaggerates the figure. A dye or oil will go into the end grain pretty far.

After that, you can top it like any other wood.

 

I was going for the scroll bass look. Dropping the edge of the wings and tappering them. As far as the finish of any figured wood goes the more time you spent with step sanding and finishing the better it looks. It brings the grain alive. And a great big smile to your face when you show it off.

 

There is such thing as too much. Sanding Sugar Maple beyond 320 will begin to burnish the grain and dull the figure's accent. Many of the woodworkers around here will stop at 220 for figured woods.

 

Are you insane? Talk to any woodworker, you step sand, 220, 320, 400, 600, 1000, 1200, 1500, #0000 steel wool. Or 400 and then micro-mesh. I've worked with plenty of different woods and every one of them always looked best with finer and finer step sanding. In fact the pictures I put up of my bass the grain really popped at the final procees of micro-mesh, 8000 and 12000. If you burning wood you are doing something wrong. Sorry I called you insane. I spend almost as much time on my finish work as I do building them. I can build a bass in 40 hours and then another 30 just finishing and setting them up. The purpose of step sanding is to remove scratches from the previous sandpaper, the finer you go the better it looks.