I use water based annaline dyes to stain the wood.
next I apply several coats of a good poly/tung penetrating sealer followed
by multiple coats of a water based sanding sealer.
for a hand rubbed finish I use Behlen's Master Gel ( 5 - 8 coats rubbed on &
polished off) followed by 3 coats of wax (Butcher's bowling alley wax or a
good clear car wax)

I suspect that you never used a penetrating sealer. That step REALLY makes
the figure pop!

You can see some examples @ www.spectorbass.com &/or www.spectorguitar.com
anything that says 'oil finish' & 'made in USA' was done by yours truely

-- jepp
if it sounds good...IT IS GOOD!

Andrew Barss wrote:





... Tinting one or more coats of lacquer is how this is normally done. No
stain or dye is applied to the wood, since stains and dyes tend to
diminish the lustre of the figure in the wood.

I learned this the hard way. I built a bass guitar body with a really
nicely quilted maple top layer about 1/4" thick. Before finishing, I
applied a Woodburst medium-brown stain to the wood, and lost most of the
lustre of the quilting in the process. You can still see the quilt
figure, but it doesn't capture the light the way it should. I was very
disappointed by the result.