Headless Kit Build: Dye Coat One

After doing all the drilling and checking the alignment on the pieces for this kit, I began sanding with 150 grit and then applied a mixture of about 3 parts blue, 2 parts red Keda dyes (alcohol + water). I made the dye solution quite light and let it "soak" a bit on the basswood to try to get some variance in the lower/higher spots on the wood of the blue vs. red tones. There isn't much grain at all in basswood which is why people don't usually dye it. But I've found you can get something cool if you're both aggressive with application and into a more unusual look.

I decided to dye the maple neck as well which took the dye more evenly as just plan purple. The top is still a little to grey/blue, there are a few bad spots where the dye didn't take on the edges and there's a few splotches that follow the glue lines too closely. So I'm going to sand a bit off in a few places (unevenly) then go over with a more concentrated dye run today.