Wudtone black magic woman finish, any experience?

TTBZ

Sorry for slightly spamming this forum with build threads I want a satin black finish for my telemaster, the black strat with this finish on the wudtone website looks awesome and pretty much what I want. Deep and rich, I'd hate if it turned out all grey and washed out looking.

Has anyone used this kit/similar and how did it turn out? Any tips and advice for getting that kinda finish? And do I need the grain filler? It'll be on an alder body, the builder says it won't be prepped for paint and may require some light sanding before using finishing products - from what I've read so far some fine sanding with 240 grit is alright for wudtone finishes?

Or is there anything better for a similar price that's as easy to put on? I considered just getting a normal tin of wood stain but will that give me as good a result?

SteveRobinson

Black stain (such as Fiebings leather dye or a spirit based wood stain) directly onto fine sanded wood (320 grit) then a light satin lacquer or Tru-oil will get what I think you want.

You won't need grain filler for alder but with a very light finish you can expect some of the wood texture to show. Building up more lacquer or Tru-oil will eventually full the grain.

GSPBASSES

 

    There are now several alternatives to gunstock oil, true oil and Danish oil to finishing guitar bodies and necks. Over the last few months there has been a lot talked about Crimson Guitars tools for building guitars and setting up guitars, and how reasonably priced they are compared to bringing in the equivalent tools from America. I had a look on their website and found they sell a complete alternative system for hand finishing guitars, with some outstanding colours and a new type of oil finish. I presume it’s an oil finish doesn’t actually say. I’ve now purchased four of his colours and a bottle of his finishing oil. I haven’t used the finishing oil yet, I have used some of his colours and they are outstanding. First of all you get an awful lot of colour for your money compared to anything else I’ve ever purchased, the colours of vivid and very strong. First thing I noticed was that when you apply this colour it soaks straight into the wood unlike some other wood finishes that just seem to sit on the surface and can be very blotchy. It gives a very even colour on all types of grain surfaces, keeping a very constant colour whether it’s on the flat of the wood or the end grain. It also dries really fast. The first picture is of a Swamp Ash super jazz body that I’m making the present time. There is only one coat of colour on this (Amber). As you can see, although it’s translucent, it’s a very strong colour with no blotching or streaking. You don’t have to rob this hard into the wood just a small amount of colour on a rag and wipe it over, it only took a couple of minutes to achieve what you can see in the picture.

I left the colour to dry overnight then applied an oil finish to it, this is not Crimson Guitars oil finish but an oil finish from Morrell’s call Eze Oil, I’ve been using for a couple of years now.

Eze Oil is very different from any of the oils I have use in the past, in that it dries almost instantly, plus the first couple of coats soak well into the wood. This means you can apply five or six coats in a morning no problem at all. The next day I de-nib it with very fine wire wool using lemon oil as a lubricant, this gives you a nice satin finish. If you want a gloss finish you can apply one more coat maybe two, leave this to dry overnight and that’s the neck finished. The same technique can be applied to finishing bodies. A word of caution when applying Eze Oil use as little as possible making sure there are no runs or streaks, as it sets like concrete overnight.

As I said earlier I been using Eze Oil for about two years now, it is without doubt in my opinion the easiest quickest and toughest oil finish I’ve ever used.  

The above photo is a T/C made from Alder with 6 coats of Eze Oil (no colour).

A "F" hole T/C again no colour just 6 coats of Eze Oil.

Two T/C necks with 6 coats of Eze Oil rubbed down with very fine  wire wool using lemon oil as a lubricant. I would say you can start to assemble your guitar within 3 to 4 days after you've applied the first coat of Eze Oil. 

Jalapeno

@GSPBASSES  - got a link ? I can only see Tung Oil etc from websites .....

WezV

GSP kindly sent me a  bottle of EZE-oil to try

It is great and I have since done 2 vibrant coloured finished with directly applied spirit stain and EZE-oil top coats.

I still do the full wetsanded tru-oil and wax patina stuff for my natural oil finishes, but never managed to get more than a light tint with that for obvious reasons.

The EZE-oil is definitely less labour intensive

TTBZ

Does the EZE Oil come in coloured varieties? As I said I want a deep satin black finish, not after a proper natural finish like the above guitars.

WezV

TTBZ said:

Does the EZE Oil come in coloured varieties? As I said I want a deep satin black finish, not after a proper natural finish like the above guitars.

no, but it goes over a stain quite well

here are the coloured ones I have tried it on- both direct stains to wood followed by EZE-oil

TTBZ

They look great do you reckon that'd be a better option than a wudtone kit then?

WezV

I'm happy to discuss other finishes. My experiences with wudtone are well documented elsewhere so I wont repeat them here

TTBZ

Haha well that sounds ominous. A quick Google shows that there have been a few people having problems with the wudtone. So for the kind of finish I want you'd recommend staining and eze-oiling? What kind of stain so you use, do you have any links to a good resource to explain prepping/staining/oiling an alder body for the best result?

Edit - just seen the crimson guitars stuff that gsp recommends, is that a good bet?

Sarge

Can I add my tuppence worth?
I've had great results from powder dyes, I got mine from Keda Dyes http://www.kedadyeinc.com/
these go a long way and can be mixed with warm water or alcohol, best of both worlds

WezV

i like chesnut spirit stains, but whatever you choose to use, test on scrap

TTony

Colour me interested.

( )

I've bought a few of the Crimson tools recently, and they've all done the job that they were supposed to, so with the recommendation from @GSPBasses I'm going to have a go with their colouring oils.

[edit]

I can't find any traces of Morrells EZE oil online anywhere though?  Any hints @wezv??

GSPBASSES

There is a slight problem with Eze Oil, it does not show up on Morrells website. However if you got a Morrells shop in your area there's no problem you just going buy it. You can contact Morrell and they might take an order over the phone and send you the Eze Oil. But 

some branches don't do mail order and they will tell you to contact their local distributor. I will look back through my records to see where I bought it online, but it was expensive because of the excessive postage the company charged me, the  Eze Oil is very cheap I think the last time I ordered it, it was £15 +VAT but the postage was about £9. So it is easier and cheaper if you could just walk into a Morrells and buy over-the-counter. Maybe one about trade people on here might like to buy in bulk and decanter it into say 150ml bottles to sell.

The photo below is of some of the Crimson Guitar colours, I only gave this block a quick wipe with each colour, most likely could have done with a second coat particularly on the green. I should point out that the block of wood was not been sanded so it was only rough finished.

TTony

Thanks Grahame - turns out that there's a Morrells branch in Ipswich, which is close enough.

For a "quick wipe", those are pretty impressive results.

Jalapeno

Thanks for the tips - now do you oil (if at all) maple fretboards ?

RedRabbit

Going back to the original question, I was pretty disappointed with the black magic woman kit.  It's very easy to use and the quality of finish is great but it didn't come out anything like the strat on the Wudtone website

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5256888/2015-05-31 08.55.31.jpg

Now, I will admit to having had the kit in my possession for over 12 months before using it and I have no idea if these things "go off" but, if memory serves, there was a use before date on it somewhere.

I've had much better results with wood dyes and tru oil.

sweepy

For black, I got pretty good results with Ronseal wood dye, tester pots are under £1 and would do 2 guitars and Tru-Oil from my local Gunsmiths at £8 a bottle, which would also do 2 guitars

TTony

RedRabbit said:

@redrabbit - that looks like the sort of "anaemic" result that I've had from Wudtone in the past, so you're not alone.

There'll be a thread here somewhere, if I can find it, documenting my efforts.

How much of the black bottle did you have left over?

You *can* get good results with it (I have done), but the variability of results is what's pushing me towards giving the Crimson / GSPBasses approach a try-out.  

GSPBASSES

 

Yes I do use Eze Oil on Maple fingerboards. I did this for the first time about two years ago, the fingerboards are not showing any sign of wearing through the oil finish. Unlike another wipe on finished I used a few years back that was showing signs of wearing through in about three months, and then completely through in places after about six months. The great thing about Eze Oil the first 2 -3 coats soak completely into the maple, and does not sit on the surface, so I would imagine even when it did start to wear it would take a very long time before you got through to the wood. I apply the oil to Maple fingerboards slightly different to how I do the bodies, on the first day I put on 5 to 6 coats, I leave this overnight then give the fingerboard light rubdown with wire wool using lemon oil as a lubricant. I then apply another 2 to 3 coats leave this for another 24 hours then give this a light rubdown with wire wool and lemon oil. This will give you a very nice satin finish, or it will polish up with something like G 10, but if you want a natural gloss then after the rub down give it one more coat of Eze Oil and this will give you a very glossy finish.

TTony

TTony said:

There'll be a thread here somewhere, if I can find it, documenting my efforts. 

Can't find the thread, so here's a quick summary ...

Effort #1 looked like this;

That's the sort of anaemic result that yours reminded me of.

After a bit (quite a bit) of work, ^^ that, became this;

Nothing to do with the number of coats applied (as you might think), but more to do with the pressure I applied to really "push" the finish into the wood.

Once I'd got the anaemic version, it wasn't fixable.  I had to remove the finish and start over.  I *thoroughly* removed the finish:

That's part way through me taking off c0.5mm of the body thickness, front and back.  That exposed properly bare and untreated wood in preparation for the second attempt.  Second time around it worked much better (as the photos show), but once I'd got the anaemic stage, I couldn't recover it by just adding more coats - it had to all be stripped off and start again.