Black stain recommendations (not a bass)

[MrDinsdale]

Firstly sorry for posting a guitar 😬

 

tl;dr - I want to give this maghogany body a matt black stain finish, any recommendations for black stains?

 

Context

I'm currently working on finishing up a budget Tele kit I got online, couldn't justify the time or money building from scratch unless it was a new bass. Just finished routing patching up the cavities for a dual humbucker setup and getting everything drilled out.

 

 

For the finish I was originally going to go for a black body and ebony veneer on the headstock. Or potentially some really figured burly veneer I found for the headstock and layering it up to make a pickguard along these lines:

I need to decide on a stain to use to get the body black, I've seen a few mentions of using Fiebing leather dye but very few pictures of the final finished thing. I know stewmac have some good stains but the shipping costs and times are going to be more hefty than I'd like!

 

Does anyone have any advice on what to go for?

 

Cheers!

[benh]

I've used the Crimson spirit based black stain and found it pretty good, I used it on poplar and sanded it back slightly to give a dark grey. However when first applied it was indeed deep black. May even have half a bottle around I'd be happy to post to you to try if you'd like.

[RhysP]

Northwest Guitars do a good range of paints & stains.

https://www.northwestguitars.co.uk/northwest-guitars-paint-shop/

 

[MrDinsdale]

42 minutes ago, RhysP said:

Northwest Guitars do a good range of paints & stains.

https://www.northwestguitars.co.uk/northwest-guitars-paint-shop/

 

Sadly all glossy finishes unfortunately 😭

[MrDinsdale]

1 hour ago, benh said:

I've used the Crimson spirit based black stain and found it pretty good, I used it on poplar and sanded it back slightly to give a dark grey. However when first applied it was indeed deep black. May even have half a bottle around I'd be happy to post to you to try if you'd like.

Nice! I was looking at these earlier but good to hear confirmation from someone who's used them. Tbh I might just commit and order it direct from crimson but really appreciate the offer!

[Fishman]

I've tried the Crimson stain and a couple of others, but they were all a fair bit less than solid black, with some show-through – the only one that is truly black that I've found is Fiebings Leather Dye

One day I will finish this build – I'm about to re-apply the leather dye:

 

[MrDinsdale]

@Fishmaninteresting! I'm going for a bit of a "none more black" vibe the so less of that natural redness of the mahogany peeping through the better! Thankfully (as far as colouring goes) it's the palest mahogany I've ever seen, probably due to the extremely reasonable price I got the kit for so hopefully it should take the colour reasonably well 🤣

[MrDinsdale]

Ps nice work on the stingray, looking great!

[Fishman]

1 hour ago, MrDinsdale said:

Ps nice work on the stingray, looking great!

Thanks! Just about to revisit the build and finish it – I'm not playing right now so have been playing it unplugged, without pups etc – currently tweaking a template for a new scratch plate, to be laser cut from acrylic – there's a thread in the Repairs and Technical section, which I might move to the SR4 build – try the Fiebings, you won't be disappointed!

[uk_lefty]

I used crimson guitars cherry red and their guitar seal to get a matt finish on an ash bass body. It's so easy even I could do a reasonably good job of it. Just follow their YouTube videos.

[NancyJohnson]

Fiebings Leather dye.  (It stains anything...)

[MrDinsdale]

Progress is slooooooow but very close now. Ended up using the Fiebings Leather dye and came out great although it's taken some knocks before being finished.