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Hey guys,

I'm on my 5th build, an 0-14 with red spruce/Honduran mahagony. The top is very stiff with a great tap tone, but a lot of variation in color. So I want to try a sunburst top. I want to go from blk, to tobacco brown to red mahogany. I had a couple questions:

Apply sunburst after finishing sanding,filling,and leveling? Or after sanding? To explain more, I have been applying a super thin epoxy coat to the top sine I use it to fill any gaps in top purfling and rosette.

Any tips on taping binding?

Any other tips would be greatly appreciated.

By the way, I'm using an I pad. Does anyone know how to reduce pics for posting?

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I do bursts with transtint, either direct on the wood (the base amber coat, occasionally add a touch of brown if it's too 'vibrant') or tinted lacquer.

I never use red 'straight up', only to adjust the other colors. That traditional vintage sunburst look with a red transitional zone is usually tobacco brown overspray combining with the amber base layer, resulting in a reddish area (that traditional Fender look). I also prefer doing the edges in brown/burnt sienna with a little black added (to avoid bluish tints, no straight black required) and then finishing with tobacco brown over the top to get the transition spot on.

Practice on scrap is a great idea, and the tip my local finishing guru had was to buy an airbrush for control. Haven't done that (yet), but I'm certainly considering it.

I have not done sunbursts on an acoustic guitar so far... I don't find them to be necessary as they're mostly seen on less expensive guitars that uses lower grade wood. However I sunburst Fender guitars all the time.

I like to seal the wood first, but for wood such as Alder if possible I will rub yellow right into the wood. This causes the wood to look 3D when it is finished. After that I spray the burst freehand without templates. Some may choose templates but I find them to be very limiting and they would often create ugly looking burst. Try to spray from the inside out to minimize darker colors in the center. Spray the lighter colors first. For example if you are spraying a 3 tone sunburst, first spray the amber center, followed by the red intermediate, then the black. As a beginner it will help to first spray the amber, then spray clear over that, spray the red, then clear over that too. That way if you are unsatisfied with your burst you can start over without starting from scratch by sanding off the layer after it dries. Beware that if you are redoing tobacco or cherryburst, you must sand every trace of the color off, because you cannot touch up translucent finishes without it looking off. The black on the outer edge of a standard sunburst on the other hand is more forgiving and you can sand back to whatever you desire, then spray right over that to cover the hard edge.

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Hi Todd,
Is the "fine line lacquer-safe (1/8" and 1/4") 3M tape" a specialty tape?
Dose it have a trade name or number?
My first masking try on lacquer was with blue painters tape. It was a disaster.
Thanks,
Dan

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I do some things much the same as Todd and others a bit different. Before I give out my schedule I would like to talk about reduction of coatings for spray.

It seems that a lot of people add thinners to their coatings to spray them simply because it's what you do, strictly a formula that has been handed down. But why? They slow the dry times, increase chances of sags and pops, increase the number of coats required and there by increase your exposure to very nasty chemicals, a lot of the stuff in lacquer thinner is readily absorbed through the skin. And then there is the issue of adding extra pollutants to the air. Thinners should only be added to your ready to spray mixes if needed because your equipment or spray environment demand it. IE, if you are using an old siphon cup gun, you will need to thin the coating so it will siphon. I would ask that you please go and buy at least a cheap HVLP gun and retire your siphon set up to the Smithsonian. If it is environmental need then a retarder would make much more sense than a thinner, usually. Basically if the coating will atomize and has sufficient flow before flashing it needs nothing added, most modern lacquers are designed to be used right out of the can, with modern equipment. In fact adding thinner can put you in violation of certain laws in large parts of the country.

Before we leave this topic, lets also consider the shaders we create with our lacquers. First you can only add so much colorant to the coating before it will become a problem in the final matrix. Check you colorant mfg.'s recommendations but usually 15% is the max. That would be 15% of the original material, not necessarily the RTS. Adding thinner at this point will simply make the color lighter and require more coats to obtain the same shade. In the end film build will be about the same whether or not any thinner was added to the spray mix but overall dry times to buffing will be increased. So I generally do not add any. I also do not use the trans tint that most use for creating my shaders. While they may have improved they did not have the best record for color fastness. I instead use Behlin's Solar-lux. I use it as a stain when I need a stain and as a toner when I need one. I like single products that suit many needs without any complications.

One last point I should mention before I post my schedule. I am currently using industrial high build nitro. It's the same as used by some of the major guitar mfg.'s. Don't ask who because I am not at liberty to say, these things are guarded as closely as state secrets. So my schedule will look much shorter than most anything you have seen. Generally I am netting 1 dry mill per coat after completely dried so I am only putting down 5-6 coats total. I must squeeze all the shading and toning into that window so my coating weight does not become obscene. My sealer is also a matching high build product engineered to work with my top coat.

So without farther ado, here is my schedule.

1; I shoot out two coats of my sealer. One right after the other allowing about 20 minutes to flash in between. One hour later this is level sanded with 320 grit, dry. Leveling the sealer is key to any even looking toner, whether it is a complete shade or a burst. If it is not dead level the toner will look spotty, kind of freckled. This is cleaned with naptha.

2; Tape off the top bindings and purfs. Tape off the rosette if desired. I use 3M tape from the auto body supplier I deal with. I also paper off the sides and back to guard against over spray. I have at times simply scraped back ABS binding and saved the taping, but I need to maintain the sealer on wood bindings so we will assume tape.

3; I apply my base toner. Sometimes this is all the top will get as far as color. I call it vintage amber. It is made by adding Lemon yellow and Med. Red Mahogany Solar-lux to my lacquer. It is about 2 parts yellow, 1 part red to get the tone right. I make a quart at a time and really do not measure quantities. Sorry guys, I learned to do all this by eye and that's the way I do. It probabally has close to the max amount of color in it that I can get away with. It is designed as a single coat, no criss cross pattern, I shoot one even coat.

4; My burst shaders are made the same way as the vintage amber I just shot. In the case of the one pictured it was the max amount of Hickory Solar-lux. I used to do these with an airbrush, but since getting my new gun am shooting them with it. I generally need to shoot two coats to get this to look nice. The first is shot from the center out toward the tape and forms the base for the darker part of the burst. I have may pattern set really tight for this About 2-3 inches wide at 6-8 inches out. I am spraying at about a 45 degree angle toward the top. After hat has flashed I run the second spraying from the rims toward the center at about 45 degrees. I open my pattern back up to about 4 inches at this point. I may need to adjust my fluid needle just a bit as well. I will then immediately spay back toward the outside where needed to even out the shade only as needed, generally with the fluid cut back a bit farther for better control. I don't like spraying my toners in dry at this stage as others do for the reason it can lead to film failure if it is too dry and doesn't bite the underlying lacquer enough. Over spraying with a wet coat to tie it in can lead to the toner bleeding. So I do it the way I do to avoid these situations. This is left to dry for 2-3 hrs.

5; The tape is very carefully pulled, always pulling back and down from the burst. Failure to do that can lead to peeling the lacquer right off of the top as it is still quite soft. There will be a pronounced edge to the shader where it met the tape. I take a razor blade with a hook turned on it and use it the opposite way one normally does with the hook away from the surface and burnish the ridge and the edge of the toner down fairly hard. I then wet sand the top with 400 grit on a cork block using naptha as my wetting agent. This removes any dry spray that may have settled in, helps eliminate the tape ridge farther and can be used to even out the way the toner fades if necessary. This is wiped clean with more naptha.

6; I then spray out my 4 coats of clear with appropriate dry time in between. After the last of these coats has dried for about an hour I tighten up my gun pattern as far as it will go and run one wet coat around the edge to give some build where the tape was on the bindings. This is so I can level sand and buff without fear of burning through to my toners.

It should be noted the times listed here are generally my minimums and sometimes things can sit quite a bit between stages depending on my schedule and environmental conditions in the booth.The one pictured here was sprayed a week or so ago and is not completely buffed out yet.

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

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Thanks to all for the tips. I think the bet advice so far is to practice first on some scrap:)

Sean

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You should chose your method for creating a sunburst according to the look you are after, because it matters a great deal.

I much prefer the look of a 'burst rubbed directly onto the bare wood, over ones that are sprayed over a sealer. The former are more risky, as you pretty much have to get them right the first time, the latter can be controlled and fixed more easily. I seldom do sunbursts on my guitars, but my mandos usually get one. I usually employ a combination of techniques, with the base colors rubbed, and the darkest colors around the perimeter of the instrument sprayed. These days I use Trans Tint dyes (or the "Colortone" ones sold by Stewmac) diluted in alcohol, and for a traditional brownish sunburst I use vintage amber, medium brown, a touch of reddish brown, and tobacco brown.

Here's one from last year



Here's a video of John Hamlett doing a hand rubbed 'burst

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=4gzhgEXlkac

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I found the order of the color application in this video interesting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJNnAw-rXng

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Arnt, that burst is stunning. Here's one I did with LMI aniline dyes in shellac, under EM6000.

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I used automotive pinstriping tape from the auto parts store to mask the purfling on my electric, much tighter curves than on an acoustic and I had zero bleed through. I actually worked from dark to light on mine and it worked out great.

The best tip I heard was positioning the gun around the center of the guitar and spraying towards the opposite edge from you, that way the overspray goes past the guitar instead of landing right in the middle.

I used transtint dyes mixed into 90% lac thinner and 10% lacquer just to give it some bite. This was on top of several coats of lacquer that had been level sanded. I did get a little too wet with my first coat of lacquer and got the slightest ripple from where the lacquer crawled (too much lacquer that got pushed by the air coming out of the gun). Next time I would probably do a mist coat for the first lacquer after I sprayed the color. The idea is it would help lock it in place so the subsequent wet coats aren't going to cause a run. Really, if you're just careful and don't rush it should be fine.

I would do a few samples to make sure you like the color combination and to get a feeling for how to blend them. It's also a good idea to have your light source, for lack of a better term (the lightest part of the burst as if a light was shining through the finish) placed before you get too far. This will help you know how far to take your darker colors in from the edge and from each other.

This is a great little vid on hand-rubbed sunbursts, water based for this, although alcohol/thinner will also work:

http://www.finewoodworking.com/how-to/v ... inish.aspx

I think Chris Verhoeven's also done a staining video, some of the techniques from that will also transfer well.

Great info already given by others. Here is a slide show showing the stages of a burst.

http://www.burkettguitars.com/photos/sunburst/

I have only rubbed some shellac on. Is it too late to try the rubbed on method? I also love that look. Exactly what I'm looking for.

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Thanks so much for that link. Great video!

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change isn't synonymous with improvement
instagram.com/bucketguitars/

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change isn't synonymous with improvement
instagram.com/bucketguitars/

That is also a rubbed on finish?

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change isn't synonymous with improvement
instagram.com/bucketguitars/