Official Luthiers Forum!

Hello all

For the past 2.5 years, my Dad and I have tag-teamed all the guitars we've done, however after our latest (The Ziricote/Sitka dread, posted earlier on the forum), I feel ready to tackle my first solo construction. My question to you all is this: What is the best way to spray a sunburst?

To fill you in on the details, we are using an HVLP spray system. I sprayed the last guitar myself and feel very comfortable using the spray equipment. We use a polyacrylic finish over a shellac/pumice fill, the polycrylic can take dyes and colorants straight-on without any extra thinner or anything (according to the helpful gentleman at Woodcraft).

My goal is to spray this guitar (an OM, made from sapele/Engelmann) with a top and possible neck sunburst. I would like to do a wine-red center that fades out to (I haven't decided) black or dark brown.

This process is a long way off, as I have yet to actually start construction - however I should have the resources to make any purchases necissary in the near future. Any tips, suggestions, or warnings on sunburst spraying would be helpful. It seems like it should be an easy task, but I don't want to just start spraying and get frustrated about not knowing at all what I'm doing.

Thanks!!!

_________________
Jake

~Make a joyful noise unto the Lord~

I sprayed several Fender style sunbursts. I am going to assume that your guitar has bindings on it...

You will want to mask off those bindings and rosettes after spraying on the sealer coat. Use pinstriping tape found at auto stores for this for a clean line. It is VERY labor intensive. I would suggest going to www.reranch.com on information on how to spray sunbursts.

You will want Stewmac Vintage Amber (it is the best match for the middle part of the burst... yellow works but you might want to amber it up a little with a little bit of red), brown, red, and black dyes for this, in alcohol soluble (water based dyes works for water based paint) dyes.

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Oh and if aerosols are available you may go for that (saves on cleaning black out of a spray gun... a LOT of trouble), but bear in mind that a spray can is not going to spray nearly as fine as a spray gun so take that into account. A mini HVLP gun can spray a very fine mist if you adjust it just right, and I use them exclusively for bursts now (I actually threw the mini HVLP gun away because it was cheap and was leaking all over the place... drives me nuts, I need a decent one that doesn't get eaten up by paints). Maybe use aerosols for black (doesn't matter as much since it gets covered) or what I found out is that brown actually turns black if you spray a heavy enough coat so you can just spray brown and red (if you want 3 tone) then amber... then spraying heavier as you go towards the edge. You want to point the gun outside as you spray by the way to avoid spraying too wide of a band.

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

always work from light to dark when doing a burst. or any multicolor fade.

mk

_________________
I'm outside looking in, just farther from the window than most.

The Stew Mac / Erlewine guitar finishing book explains how to do 20 kinds of bursts. I learned more about finishing from that book than anywhere else. Highly recommended! Mikey

_________________
The Biggest Little City, Nevada
www.hammondguitars.com
I love building guitars!

hmm... in the past I often just did dark to light since I thought that if I made a mistake in doing black I could always correct it then I went onto red then yellow. However you could still pick up a yellow tint in the black if you looked at it in the right light... Then I did yellow then black then red... But then again I figured that the yellow tint wouldn't matter since lacquer will yellow eventually... but to each his own.

I'd do lots of practice doing bursts too they're harder than you think!

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com