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Removing sealer in order to stain wood? (Help please)

FMo

FMo

Guest
Mar 4, 2012
8
0
Denmark
#1
Hi all TB's
This will be my first thread, so hopefully you'll be able to help, and I won't ask to many silly questions.

So here goes. Long time dream is to assemble my own bass. I've got it all mapped out in my head, and all I need is experience, money and time ;)

So I figured I would work on the first part first. Experience. I bought a P-bass assembly kit from Thomann (I'm from Denmark, so I get around custums buying in Europe).
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So I was planning on staining the wood, since that's what I like right now. It's basswood, but when I read the instructions it said that the body was covered with a sealer. Quick search affirmed my suspession that this doesn't play well with staining wood (especially hand-staining). Since then I've watched videos, read threads and threads and threads.

I've been trying to sand off the sealer with #120, but I have no idea how to tell if the sealer is gone. I also can't find any threads covering this aspect. Can anyone help?

It seems that most people think it impossible to sand off sealer, but I'm gonna give it a try, before I change my mind and go solid color.

Hope you can help a new-bie, and thank you for your time.
All the best
-Frank
 
#3
I've done this a few times and always used a scraper to remove the finish, then sand it down working up through the grades to get it ready for refinish.

got one of these recently (the original one), cant say enough good things about it:

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#5
The problem with removing the sealer if there is something left behind and that will inhibit the ability of the stain or dye to be fully absorbed. I learned this the hard way. I was making a Tele guitar and I foolishly decided to use a coat of lacquer to determine if the dye pattern was the way I wanted. I was doing a black-sand-back blue burst. After spraying a couple of coats, I realized I didn't like how it looked and sanded it all off. When I went to re-dye the wood, it wouldn't absorb evenly. And it wasn't going in as deeply as it did on the first run. The lacquer had sealed the wood too deeply.

I managed to get it looking good but it just didn't have the same pop as it did on the first round.

As for taking off the sealer, I just used an RO sander. I got it all off fairly easily but as I mentioned above, there was those areas where the lacquer had sealed the wood but I couldn't see it.
 
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#6
Something I forgot to mention, Frank. If the sealer is shellac, you may be able to apply dye right over it. For woods that tend to blotch when dyed or stained, you apply a washcoat on the wood to prevent that from happening. A washcoat can be a 2# cut of dewaxed shellac or glue size, which is just standard wood glue watered down. You might try to contact the company who made the body and ask what kind of sealer they used. If it's shellac, you can't use an alcohol based stain or dye. If it's glue size, you can't use a water based stain or dye. But you should get good absorption through either as long as you use the right base for the dye or stain.
 
#7
Aislinn said:
Something I forgot to mention, Frank. If the sealer is shellac, you may be able to apply dye right over it. For woods that tend to blotch when dyed or stained, you apply a washcoat on the wood to prevent that from happening. A washcoat can be a 2# cut of dewaxed shellac or glue size, which is just standard wood glue watered down. You might try to contact the company who made the body and ask what kind of sealer they used. If it's shellac, you can't use an alcohol based stain or dye. If it's glue size, you can't use a water based stain or dye. But you should get good absorption through either as long as you use the right base for the dye or stain.
Click to expand...

Cool.. I'll try writing them. Thanks for the advice.
 
#8
So I got the reply back from Thomann, but it doesn't help me much does it.

Dear Mr. Mortenson,

thank you for your inquiery.

The (bass-)guitar kit have a basic primer ground.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen / Kind Regards
 
#9
Well thanks for the help... After sanding for several days, I tried a waterbased dye - and that didn't soak in evenly. Then I sanded again and tried a alcohol based dye, and it still didn't soak in evenly - so now I've given up the transparent look, and I'm going for a solid color. Also - I REALLY didn't like the color the dye gave, so I'll try again.
Thanks to all of you who gave advice.
I'll post a pic of my failure, as soon as I figure out how
 
#11
tb1.JPG
 
#12
Above is a pic of the stained result..
You can see the bare places where the stain didn't soak in. It was a lot more obvious on the sides. I didn't like the color either, which was called dark green. So I did a solid color with satin laquer instead.
 
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#13
Here is a pic of the final result with solid color.
Thanks to everyone for their help and ideas. This was my first 'build', so I learned alot, and made many mistakes. But it was all worth it. I'll do a setup soon, and if any of the euro-users want, I can make a review of the kit from Thomann (btw on the second pic, the bridge is NOT from the kit, I had a Gotoh 201 lying around).
 

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