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Looking for advice on how to pore fill and dye a light colored wood?

If I seal it, it can’t be dyed. If I dye it, I can’t sand it back after sealing and pore filling.

Never run into this before.

I look forward to suggestions.

Dave

You have to choose, and there's no going back. Just the way it is. Sorry I'm no more help than that.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

I very long time ago, I made myself a Strat with Alder. I dyed the top with black which penetrated into the grain lines. I fully sanded back and THEN I pore filled with epoxy. On top of that I used tinted nitro. The result was deep alder grain showing through a translucent red finish.

Pretty terrible low light photo, but you get the idea. Hope that helps.

If you dye it, then seal and porefill, should you not be able to carefully scrape if with a razor with the corners rounded?

With many finishes you can dye the wood then "self seal" - use the finish itself to seal the wood. It takes more finish to fill the grain and build the finish. If you Want to pore fill first - use a traditional filler that will take stain.

Well, I've done a few guitars, white oak light enough?
Pore fill with Stew Mac filler (you might have to dye the filler), sand off, dye, finish.

Haans,
That is essentially what I did on scrap today and it turned out great.
Experimented with crystallac (pore filler) dyed dark brn.
Sanded back, repeated.
Mixed amber and red transtint cut with DA.
Went over with brown transtint then sealed with shellac.

This is a piece of light colored Black Acacia that now looks like some of the nicest (non-flamed) Koa I have ever seen.
(Sure wish I could upload a photo straight from my ipad but files are too big)

As much as I hate ad driven software, if you use Tapatalk on your iPad to view this forum you can upload any size picture and Tapatalk will resize it for the forum.

Glad it worked out for you Dave...