Sunburst finish.

[Bruce McC]

Would appreciate advice or comments on doing a sunburst finish by hand rather
than with spray equipment. (I don't own or have access to spray equipment).
I am thinking about a sunburst finish on a all mahogany acoustic using either
Van Dyke crystals or Condy's crystals for the stain. Both are water soluble and
the intensity of the colour can be varied by diluting the solution, or so the theory goes.

[simso]

Difficult, but not impossible.

Seal the body with a coat or two of lacquer,

Mix the stains into the additional lacquer coats,

The difficulty will be - "not using a spray gun", if you can mix the right ratio of thinners to allow you to rub the lacquer onto the surface without it tacking off on you, you will get an okay result, obviously building your colours and "burst" up.

[Dominic]

Hey Bruce, you are welcome to use my spray gear and spray booth if you want.
Cheers
Dom

[Kim]

Hey Bruce, you are welcome to use my spray gear and spray booth if you want. Cheers Dom

Onya Dom, all class mate

Cheers

Kim

[MBP]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_JrN9_VTR8

Hope that helps.

[Nick]

Hi Bruce, one of my earlier Telecasters was 'hand' burst using water based stain & a rag

As you can see you don't get a definite line at the change of colour but on this particular guitar it really suited the look I was after. I really overdid did the wet, let dry then sand trick to make sure there wasn't going to be any chance of grain raising once I'd started laying on colour, think I did about 4 days worth of wet/dry/sand cycle, I really didn't want to have to sand grain nibs off once the colour went on! I laid the base colour down first by wiping an even coat of the yellow warmed up with a bit of amber mixed in, I then wiped the tobacco brown on around the edge, this did give a definite line where the rag had been but I wasn't to concerned at this stage. I did a couple more coats of the brown (letting it dry in between) to build up a good deep dark brown (almost black) because my next step was going to remove some of the brown. The next step I just soaked a rag in water and 'washed' the delineation line that was there, this had the effect of removing some of the brown but it also merged the brown into the yellow amber base. I basically kept ringing the colour out of the rag & kept wiping plain water over the stain until it had gotten to the burst I was looking for. I tried to stay away from my dark edge as much as possible, it gave a really nice graduated burst & being water based really showed the curly maple top off which is the beauty of stain in the wood rather than over it.
That's pretty much how I remember doing that one anyway, it was a few years ago I did that!

[rocket]

That's a classy piece of work there Nick.
Rod.

[auscab]

Hi Bruce,
I want to do a sunburst one day by hand, and seal the colours in between poly and FP or just FP.

With furniture I use Vandyke and oxide colours like yellow ocher or Brown oxide or Black oxide to get good strong water based colour low down in a polish job , and also in between coats of shellac,

And to send colours red or yellow in subtle directions ,or to make stronger colours or even stains I use these spirit stains in the pictures, they come as a powder , mixed in with just metho or different strengths of shellac, they can be made as weak or strong as you like.
One way of slowly and accurately applying these colours is with a french polishing rubber,
Another colour I did not take a photo of is spirit black, and we also have blues and greens some of those may be water based I would have to check.
I think they will work for a sunburst by hand, I just have not seen it done yet.if you need to see more just let me know.

I get them here,

http://www.gbrownantiques.com.au/

look down to page 69 of the hardware pdf
I'm sort of breaking a forum rule here because I do work in the same business, but at a different location ,2 doors up,
but I'm not financially connected to the hardware part.hope I'm not going to far here.

[auscab]

The colours I pictured are on glass over white paper.

the top is Auramine
then Bismark Brown
then Chrisodine

[graham mcdonald]

If you are going to do a hand applied sunburst it needs to go onto bare wood. Check out James Condino's sunburst video. It might be be on the Fine Woodworking website. It is a matter of wiping on diluted stains (like a few drops in 100ml of alcohol) and building up colour from the middle. The little bottles of Feast Watson stains are pretty close to the usual guitar colours, and of course can be mixed. Even if the sunburst is hand applied you might run into trouble once you start hand applying the clear top coats, as they might dissolve the dye and it can get very messy. A very light sprayed coat is best to seal in the colour coats before serious application of clear top coats

You can spray a sunburst with a standard sized spray gun, but a touch up gun or will give more control. As suggested, spray tinted, very thinned lacquer over a clear base/sealer coat until you have the colour you want and then go to clear coats. It is remarkably easy to stuff this up at almost any stage

cheers

[Bruce McC]

Thanks to everyone who has posted a response.
Dom-thanks for your kind offer, but for the time being I'll stick with hand finishing.
Nick/Rob B/Graham-thanks for your pertinent comments and advice.
Chopper-your phone is off!
I plan to purchase some suitable 3 ply (meranti or similar) and play around
with different stains and shellac before I touch the guitar, which is still only half finished.
When all else fails I could end up with an ebonised finish using BJ

[Dominic]

No worries Bruce, perhaps I can persuade you to borrow a good book by SM on finishing, it has all the recipes for different kinds of sunbursts, even hand applied dyed wood sunbursts which are the most beautiful. It shows hand colouring and suggests this is the preferred methods for duplicating Gibson sunbursts from the 1920's. You are welcome to grab and read about it before you throw yourself into this task. Its very detailed and I think it might be a great help. I also have the SM colours that go with the recipes if you want to snaffle a bit.
I'm home on hols now so I am around most of the time.

Be good to catch up over holidays anyway to chew the fat, talk about the fools on the hill. I saw my good friend Mr Clancy last night, you guys have not met have you? Perhaps we could all catch up some time, we are all pretty close around Nth Belco.

Anyway, have fun doing the burst and drop in and grab the book if you want.

Cheers
Dom

[auscab]

I plan to purchase some suitable 3 ply (meranti or similar) and play around
with different stains and shellac before I touch the guitar, which is still only half finished.
When all else fails I could end up with an ebonised finish using BJ

That's a good way to do it.
Are you going to try for the dark back and sides look, with sunburst on top ?

[auscab]

No worries Bruce, perhaps I can persuade you to borrow a good book by SM on finishing, it has all the recipes for different kinds of sunbursts, even hand applied dyed wood sunbursts which are the most beautiful. It shows hand colouring and suggests this is the preferred methods for duplicating Gibson sunbursts from the 1920's.
Dom

Hey Dom ,
what's the name of the book your recommending ?
I just had a look at SM and there is a couple to choose from.
Your making it sound good there with that vintage mention,
and I could do with a present to myself after getting through the last mad week
of the Christmas rush.

[Bruce McC]

Yes Rob, that is what I will be aiming for.
Darkened back and sides with a subtle sunburst finish
on the top. If all goes according to plan, the guitar will
be very plain, with no binding, top or back. So there
will be an issue with the exposed end grain absorbing
more colour.

[Dominic]

Hey Bruce, this is the one http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Books,_plan ... -Step.html $29 makes it a good investment.
Cheers
Dom

[Dekka]

I had an experimental crack at a blended finish on a Bunya top using a small sea sponge and food colourings. After the poly went on it doesn't look too bad.

[auscab]

Hey Bruce, this is the one http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Books,_plan ... -Step.html $29 makes it a good investment.
Cheers
Dom

[Bruce McC]

Dominic wrote:
No worries Bruce, perhaps I can persuade you to borrow a good book by SM on finishing, it has all the recipes for different kinds of sunbursts, even hand applied dyed wood sunbursts which are the most beautiful. It shows hand colouring and suggests this is the preferred methods for duplicating Gibson sunbursts from the 1920's.
Dom

Hey Bruce, this is the one http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Books,_plan ... -Step.html $29 makes it a good investment.
Cheers
Dom

Why invest $29 when you have said previously that I could borrow it?
Best wishes to you for Christmas and the New Year, will catch up soon.

[needsmorecowbel]

....

[auscab]

Yeah ,it's cool , I saw all that that was written before. I was looking at Dom's reply thinking
"its really easy to take things the wrong way and say the wrong thing back in a response"
I did it big time to Martin once
I blame the computer though, we think it's a flash way of communicating now, but in twenty or fifty years they are going to think we were nuts putting up with it.
cheers


Dekka .
food colouring !! looks great too .
Thats a thought a lickable guitar. what next ?

[Bruce McC]

Hi Rob,

Yes, you are right. Often when one takes time to reflect one realises that what
seemed funny at the time to you isn't funny to anyone else.
Dom is a very helpful and generous guy, I hope he has a sense of
humour???? I'll soon find out, we are supposed to be catching up with Clancy who is
back in town for Christmas.