Baritone Guitar Build Part 6 - Sanding, more sanding, sanding again and applying stain

When you make a musical instrument it's not sufficient to just sand to 220 apply some finish and call it done.
I chose a nice water based red dye to use from ToneTech for the mahogany rear of the body. The neck was left natural mahogany to contrast.
After masking off the front embuya and the binding with some blue tape I set to work.

You have to go through several stages after your initial sanding:

• pore/grain filling
• sanding
• more pore/grain filling to miss the bits you didn't quite do before
• more sanding
• applying wood stain
• more sanding
• apply some more wood stain to replace the parts that you rubbed through
• more sanding
• sealing with a water based sealer
• more sanding
• apply some more wood stain to replace the parts that you rubbed through
• more sanding

I think you can see where I am going here!

Anyway after several bouts of sanding and staining I ended up with a nice deep red body and the grain structure is clearly visible. I applied some shellac under the waterbased sealer layer so as not to disturb the stain layer(s). Why didn't I just leave it at Shellac? Well the sealer layer sets rock hard and is a good medium to apply the gloss top coat layers afterwards. The shellac stopped the water based sealer from interacting with the dye causing wash-out :) .

Cover plates stained

Rear of body stained

Next time the neck and body are finished.