Gotcha. I've looked at a lot of high-end finishes on instruments but never realized they were dealing with lacquer. Pretty familiar with the look WRT grain visibility.

Test panels will obviously be mandatory since you can't sand it off and dye instead if you're applying it over the FG.

The masking with dyes is interesting.

Darn it, too many options. :)

: The abalone that I get comes pre-sprayed from www.aquabluemaui.com
: I inlay it with the color already on. Naturally you can't sand
: it, so it's very tricky to inlay but I prefer to inlay rather
: than overlay. Sometimes I do sand a little too much on the fill
: coat and end up sanding through the color. I have found that the
: colors I use most actually match perfectly to a set of
: indellible markers I have. I touch it up with indellible marker.
: That's wehre I was saying I got the bleeding issue. Once I got
: more careful and dabbed the epoxy on over the touched up areas
: first, then went back with the epoxy coat I avoided the
: bleeding.

: However, for guitars if you spray it with colored lacquer you can
: still see the grain very well unless you keep spraying multiple
: layers or if you use a very dark color like deep purple or
: black. In that case you'll see the grain but not real well. You
: may want to chek on epoxy adhesion to nitrocellulose lacquer,
: but if there's no adhesion issue I would spray it on top of the
: glass after the first layer cures, but before the fill coat.
: That way it's protected under a coat of epoxy. One thing about
: lacquer, it's not real durable. Just my thoughts. Others might
: disagree.

: That link I sent you for Warmoth is where I used to get guitar
: parts. Now I have the tools to make my own bodies and have been
: more into acoustics, so I haven't been to their site in a while,
: but at one time they had a forum for guitar builders. No
: different from a guitar guy coming here to ask a question about
: a finish or a certain wood, I'm sure those guys would give you
: input on masking off before dying wood. It's very common in
: electric guitar building to use dyes, and I know often people
: get creative masking off flames and what-not.