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Almost ready to start my sunburst experiment but could use some advice. The guitar is curly maple with maple bindings and BWB purling on the sides - herringbone on the front. I want to protect the bindings and engraft from the dye. Topcoat will probably be endurovar after I seal the burst with something I have yet to figure out. My thoughts were the varnish itself or maybe z-poxy? I dont know if the dye will wash off the sealed wood or whether Ill need to scrape it. Any thoughts?

My thoughts would be to glue up some scraps of exactly the same wood and binding and experiment - don't risk your guitar. My experience is two fold - plastic binding is simple and scrapes perfectly, wood and fiber want to soak up any dye that gets close to them. I've done a number of mahogany necks with maple or fiber trim, no matter what I try its hard to keep the stain from leaching into the other wood.

I'm even doing one right now where I'll route the binding channels, do the staining and shoot a coat of sealer (vinyl if I decide to do nitro, shellac if I decide to do KTM) and then install the binding with its light fiber lines.

Masking can be effective with color in your top coats - you can get 1/4 inch masking tape at auto paint suppliers - but it sounds like you've decided to apply stain directly to the wood. It is possible that if you glued your binding and purfling with CA that will form a barrier but in my experience it will want to bleed across the joint.

I would be inclined to mask only the binding. Unless maybe you want to take the time to shellac the purling. Even with the highest grade of pinstripe type tape, you will likely get bleed with dye. If you just leave the binding natural you will have a black line to scrape up to. And it will look great!

And no need for zpoxy with Maple.

If I assume correctly, you have fiber purfling. Fortunately, you say you added the BWB to the side of the maple bindings and you have a herringbone on top. This means you have a black stripe next to the ribs and top. You will have to seal the areas off that you don't want dyed. I used to do it freehand with a 3/8" flat brush, but I had a lot of experience doing it. If you think you can do it without tape, go ahead. After that, you can dye the instrument, then scrape off the varnish on the maple, herringbone and butt wedge. I did this all the time.



If you feel you cannot do this, you will have to mask off the ribs, top and end wedge, brush on 3 coats of varnish, and when dry, peel off the tape. Make sure you have it covered well. Then you will have to make sure no varnish has gone under the tape. If some has bled, you will have to scrape it off before dyeing. Fortunately, either way, you have that little black line to take up the slack, error-wise.
Hope this helps...