# Help me bring out the grain!!



## RDK (Jan 31, 2011)

What is the best way to bring out the wood grain in Baltic birch plywood. I build speaker enclosures. Usually I coat them with a hard coating but I have recently been asked to do a custom look to accent a guitar. I'd like to give it a whirl. Any advice? 

Here is a picture of the wood on the guitar.


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## Steve Neul (Sep 2, 2011)

To bring out the grain you will need a little stain. If you are wanting to stay close to the natural color you can thin the stain so that it doesn't add much color but being birch you should use a wood conditioner first to keep the stain from making it blotchy. Then it can be coated with polyurethane to give it long term protection. Before putting anything on the guitar you should make some samples with some scrap wood first to make sure you have the appearance you like.


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## cabinetman (Jul 5, 2007)

Try a sample of your Birch sanded to 180x-220x without a conditioner to see how even a finish you get. You may not get any blotching. You could try a 50/50 mix of BLO (boiled linseed oil) and naptha as a start before you topcoat. That would create some enhancement.










 







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## ed_h (Dec 1, 2010)

Birch often doesn't have very dramatic grain, so there may not be much there to enhance.


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## WillemJM (Aug 18, 2011)

Have you tried Target Coatings?

As a matter of interest, I asked the same question to Homestead Finishing Products recently on the phone and they interpreted "grain" as the pores in the wood and "figure" as what I wanted to bring out.


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