Thank you for your support of my channel. I subscribed to yours, and look forward to excellent content. You have a beautiful property, and I can see that I will get some great ideas from you. You are starting your channel way ahead of how I started mine. Your production value is WAY better than mine. I wish you all the luck in the future.

Nice reminder, thumbs up 👍

Thanks Paul, I really appreciate your support.

First, the COVID thing changed the dynamics of my real job. Now, wood is just too expensive to merit doing much. I'll get back to it when things get close to normal.

Yes! Very useful for certain situations. I like to use it on spalted wood to harden up the parts that may be a little soft.

Generally I'll use 220, since that is what I use as my final grit before applying finish.

@@FranklinWoodWorks2016 many thanks!

I tend to use tinted epoxies so the imperfections are accented. Sometimes I'll use a black or brown to tone it down a little, but my preference is the accent. I didn't add any color to the filler, just bought it in ebony. Timbermate makes colors to match almost any wood, so I keep dark brown, ebony, and birch colors on hand. Suits most of my needs.

I've debated between Zpoxy and dark rosewood grain filler for the mahogany I have. I chose the contrast over the depth.

What brand do you use? I’m only now learning about grain fillers. I don’t know if I was just lucky, but my first few projects, I didn’t get any pores. But since working with Wenge, black Limba and African Mahagony it’s been a major issue. I’m not sure if I’ve just started to make more mistakes, or if some wood is just more prone to it than others. Like with Gabbon Ebony, maybe I just wasn’t seeing it. Thanks a lot for any replies ahead of time.

It does make sense. Unfortunately though, the filler is doing its job by getting into ever pore it can, even the parts that appear "flat." I think sanding sealer might work, but you may need to thin it first. Depending on the brand, I assume you could use denatured alcohol to do the thinning.

Use some shellac first or use a clear water based filler, that's what I use works good.

You're not going to like my answer. It depends. What kind of wood is it? What level of smoothness do you want to achieve? Let's say the treads are oak. Since you want them light colored, I wouldn't use a contrasting grain filler, I'd use one that more closely matches the color of the wood. Oak, even with a nice finish, will usually allow you to still feel the grain. Many folks like that, and for stair treads it can be a good idea. Even small surface irregularities can give you more traction. Grain filler will make it really smooth, great for touching with hands, but not really practical for feet. All though it depends on what you want the end product to feel/look like, I'd probably not use grain filler.

@@FranklinWoodWorks2016 Loved your answer! Thank you for your detailed response. Going to skip it for this project but will try it down the road. Thanks!!

I do that sometimes too, but usually only to hide my mistakes, not hide a flaw in the wood. For structural issues like cracks, I'll either use the glue trick or throw some tinted epoxy in it.

Let's talk about that. If you used oil based grain filler, then water based stain, the stain could raise the grain of the wood, causing you to have to sand it again, causing you to have to apply more stain. This could give you an uneven color, or may cause it to be darker than you want. For this reason, if you start with oil based filler, I'd stick with oil based everything. BUT, and this is a huge BUT, you can experiment with a scrap piece of wood first to decide if it will work. Theoretically, if you allow each step to fully cure it shouldn't be a problem as far as things blending together, but there is still the grain raising problem. Ideally, after you grain fill with either water or oil based grain filler that is fully cured, use an alcohol based dye instead of stain (TransTint mixed with denatured alcohol - very short cure time), and then the finish of your choice, although I'd recommend danish oil or something similar. You can also use pretty much any spray finish you want, but no shellac. It's alcohol based too, and may cause the dye to do funky things.

@@FranklinWoodWorks2016 Thank you for the detailed step by step explanation. The amount of possibilities one has in coloring and finishing a guitar is pretty overwhelming to me. I'm still looking for the best way to get the result i desire ( which is the accented wood grain with some sort of glossy transparent green on top, wether it be dye or stain or whatever). I'llcheck out the alcohol based dyes. Thanks a lot

Could I suggest you watch my video "building a six string bass / color me crazy." That video and the remaing videos in the series shows my problems and accidental successes in the finishing process I used.

Yes you can. My go-to finish is always oil of some type.

My go to finish of several coats of danish oil, let cure for a couple of days, then one final step: wet sand with 1000 grit using danish oil thinned with mineral spirits 1:1 ratio. Glass.

@@FranklinWoodWorks2016 how long do you leave between coats of danish. Looking to try this on my oak desk and grain fill with dark (maybe walnut color) filler. I was thinking of putting a layer of poly on top for extra protection?

@@SafMan89 In a perfect world, the first two coats of danish are about 30 minutes apart. Both of these coats are flood coats, wiping off the excess after about 20 minutes. This is just to get the wood to soak it up. Then 24 hours between subsequent coats as many times as you can stand. However, if you're going to do poly, I'd only do one additional coat after the flood coats. I'm in high humidity Georgia, so on that poly, I'd give it double the cure time before I put the table to use. If you're going to use oil based poly, on the last coat of poly, I'd thin it 50/50 with mineral spirits, and apply it using the French polish method. Plenty of videos on that method, and it does a fantastic job. And it's easy.

@@FranklinWoodWorks2016 thanks. I was considering water based poly as I was a bit worried about oil based poly excessively yellowing. I heard water based would be fine if I let the danish oil cure for a while longer?

@@SafMan89 I have tested this and found it to work. However, I let the Danish oil cure for about a month. However, to be honest, I wouldn't do it on something like a table. If it goes wrong, it can be too big to fix. But I can be overly cautious sometimes.

No. What kind of ink are you talking about?

@@FranklinWoodWorks2016 I've only read about using them, but India ink on ash or red oak is supposed to give an intense ebony like result. There is also some very colorful dyes like dharma acid dye that bring out the grain in a very unnatural but beautiful way. It seemed like something you would have played with.

I have used dyes extensively, but mainly just to change the color of the wood (i.e. guitar bodies) because I hate painting nice wood. I accidentally discovered the dye/grain thing when I dyed some zebrawood for a fretboard. I hated the result so I tried to sand the dye away. What I discovered, because the zebrawood was so porous, was that the dye really latched onto the grain. It was beautiful, although very unnatural looking.

My suggestion, having built a few guitars, is not to use spar urethane. It will be sticky when you sweat on it and be unpleasant to the touch. I would get it ready for finish, sanding to about 220. Following the directions on the can, I'd use Danish oil, flooding the wood with oil, then wipe off the excess after 10 minutes. Then do that again, and after wiping it down, let it sit for 24 hours. Then, with at least 500 grit wet or dry sandpaper, wet sand the entire body using Danish oil as the lubricant. This will create its own grain filler with the sanding dust and oil. Wipe off the excess and let cure for 24 hours. Repeat the same thing with 1000 grit paper and let cure for 48 hours. Finish off with a very thin coat of Danish oil, let cure for about 3 days and you're done. I know it seems like a long process, but you will have a glassy finish that will look and feel incredible. I did this with a padouk guitar, a very porous wood, and it is still fantastic after many years.

@@FranklinWoodWorks2016 Thanks! the only reason why I didn't want to do Poly, tung, nitro ect. is because of the crazy long cure time- sure I have other instruments to play, but I have very little patience for leaving a project to wait. But if I can be playing in a week, that is tolerable for me! The funny you should mention Padouk, the neck is a single piece of the stuff, from what I can tell, the very thin coat of odie's was enough to seal it, but I might just do the neck at the same time, it's set-neck and I would probably feel the extra layers on the body and none on the neck. Again, thanks for the info, time to find supplies and pull the bass apart (I just did a week ago to shield the cavities.)

I would really appreciate it if you would send me some pictures when you're finished.

@@FranklinWoodWorks2016 Sure, hopefully it actually turns out nice, finishing/luthier work is not my "hat".

@@FranklinWoodWorks2016 Well, I'm finished with my 4th coat (2 flood coats and 2 500 grit wet sand coats) and unfortunately there are no signs that the Danish oil is going to build up to a gloss or a semi-gloss- I think I filled the pores pretty well by wet sanding and pushing the slurry across the grain- I can still feel them but for the most part it's very smooth- but it looks raw aside of a slightly darker color tone. Now the paduk neck feels smoother and has some sheen to it. I think I have a incredibly lightweight and porous piece here as it feels and sands like Basswood almost like balsa, simply lightly dragging a finger nail across the wood will leave a line where the wood is compressed. I will keep at it, but considering putting de-waxed shellac on top for some extra protection.