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Approaching winter has made it difficult for me to do nitro finishes on a couple guitars for a number of reasons.

I am going skip the lacquer and use Tru Oil for the first time instead.

In the past I have been burying a headstock decal under the finish and flat sanding it smooth. Can the same effect be done with tru oil? Perhaps I could shoot nitro on only the face of the headstock while masking off the rest? What do you think?

Also, I plan to use stewmac colortone stain and work it into the bare wood before applying Tru Oil. What works well to mix it with? Alcohol? Water? Naptha? Acetone?

Also, for anyone who has applied colortone transparent dye to bare wood under tru oil with either water or alcohol - did you have to mask off binding or did the color not adhere to binding?

I have never used colortone dyes but heres what I think; If you are using plastic binding then the dye shouldnt plastic so theres no nead to tape it off. If your using wood biding, then yes, tape it off. If for some strange reason the colortone dye DID affect the plastic. you can just take a razor and scrape off a minutely thin layer of the plastic from the binding the restore it to the original color. Just run a few tests before working on your instrument, that should clear up alot of questions -Alex

as for the headstock decal, I would definately lay down some lacquer on the headstock as you described to avoid having the decal being raised above the wood. you might also be able to apply some extra coats of sealer on the headstock instead, and the sand them back down flat once there is enough. Yet another option would be to squeegee some epoxy over the headstock like in this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYHxMg7n9cI Ive used the epoxy method to seal burl veneer in the past and it works quite well. If you decide to take the epoxy approach, I recommend ordering some z-poxy. I used some epoxy that I got from a local hobby store (I believe Loctite brand) and I found it to be to thick/pastey for this application. I hear that z-poxy is thinner and easier to work across the surface of the guitar and will give you a better result for sealing (I love the Loctite epxt for all other applications, its just to thick and pastey for sealing wood). Hope this helps! -Alex

I did a decal on a Tru-Oil'd headstock and had no issues. I laid down a coat or two of TO before the decal and buried it over the course of 5 days or so. 4-5 coats a day with very light scuffing in between.

Anyone ever added stain directly to the first coat of tru oil?

I dont think that would work. Wood stain works by absorbing into the grain of the wood and drying within the fibers of the wood, unlike paint which just sits on top of the wood. Once you apply the first coat, the wood will be partially sealed and it wouldnt take stain

Yes, I have. It was for a translucent black over curly maple, and it wasn't the first coat of finish, the wood was throughly sealed with shellac. If the wood isn't sealed, some areas soak up more Oil (and color) and the appearance is blotchy.

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So you put tru oil over shellac? Can the describe a bit about your process? How many coats of shellac? How did you apply it? Was it easy to apply a uniform coat of the transparent black tru oil by wiping it on with a cloth?

Same guitar that got the decal. A couple coats of TO, then analine dye airbrushed on, then more TO.

http://www.tdpri.com/forum/2012-tdpri-t ... ted-5.html