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Hey all,

I've been enjoying the tinting/coloring/bursting aspect of two recent builds, and have grown more aware of color that others use, or don't use, on their guitars. What's your preference? Tinted mahogany necks and bursts, or leaving the wood au natural, letting it's natural beauty shine through? I admit I'm torn. I love both. How many folks use some form of color in your builds? I'm realizing that, even if I don't do a full sunburst, sometimes a little color on the heel or headstock can add a wonderful new dimension to my work. I'd be curious where other folks come down on this.

Ken

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Mountain Song Guitars www.mountainsongguitars.com

I don't have much experience, but I'm finishing two right now and I went through a similar thought process recently. One is an EIR dread on which I chose to darken the neck to approximate the color of the EIR, or at least get it much closer. The other is a sapele 000 on which the body and neck will both be au natural. The neck will end up a bit lighter than the body, but not too much. I personally don't care for the contrast of a light, natural mahogany neck against a dark body like EIR, wenge or African blackwood. The contrast is too stark for me, but that's just a personal preference.

You mentioned tinting the headstock and heel darker and fading to lighter toward the middle and I do love that look. I've just been too big a coward to try it yet, but I want too. Maybe on #3.

Regarding bursts, I was not a big fan in the past but have become one of late. I especially like the more subtle ones. Fred Tellier did one on a slope shoulder dread last year (I think) that I thought looked fantastic. I also like some of the "hand rubbed" bursts than some builders like Leo Posch and Kevin Kopp do. They look good enough to eat.

one good reason to tint(dark) is to try to cover up flaws, and i'm going to have to do just that on the classical neck i'm making.....

In general, I dislike tinting. Especially mahogany necks stained to match rosewood, it just really irks me for some reason... like it's trying to cover up the wood's true self. I have a strong feelings towards the aesthetics of guitars, and a great appreciation for matching woods by color/figure and tonal properties, along with inlays, to make a great looking and sounding instrument with more personality than your run of the mill Martin

Sunbursts, I'm more friendly toward. Especially when it's not a Gibson style fade to opaque black, but like a fade to amber or something that doesn't obscure the wood grain. Better yet if it's done using shellac as part of French polishing, rather than unnatural looking colored dyes. Example:

Back and neck are pure and clean mahogany goodness.


Shellac.net has black flakes now... and I bought some. I guess that means I'm going to be doing more along those lines. Should look great on redwood, I think. Tempting to do it on my coral snake build in the doc-u-build section, although it looks great "naked" as well. I guess it'll be a spur of the moment decision when I get to the polishing phase on it.

I personally don't like the look of unstained mahogany. It looks cold and drab to me. I always add some dark red/brown stain to my silex pore filler and it really warms the wood up. I do something similar to other open pored woods. I also like to apply a light amber dye to my lacquer to pre-age spruce. I don't know why so many current builders use nothing but clear finishes.

Barry... here is some unstained mahogany.. under a nitro finish... real Swietenia macrophylla.




That was two years ago. I need to get some new photos of how much richer this has become.

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Chris Oliver
Infinity Luthiers
...in the shop.

live every minute...

That's interesting, Barry. I'm just the opposite...I don't know why anyone would want to do anything but allow spruce to age naturally. I like the look of untinted European spruce and really dislike a pumpkin top.

I generally have reservations going in, wondering why I'm covering up beautiful wood, but I've always been glad I did, and feel the result is an improvement:
Besides, my bursts are transluscent, so the grain still comes through. I feel I'm honoring the material, rather than disregarding it.

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Mountain Song Guitars www.mountainsongguitars.com

Chris, holy crap! Certainly no need to alter that! You also bring up a good point, that many woods will darken and sweeten naturally with time.

Charlie, depending on one's client base, a milky white spruce top may hurt or harm -- here in NC, no bluegrasser worth his tebacky would be caught dead with anything but a well-aged, rich amber-topped dread in his hands. Of course that doesn't apply in the fingerstyle world, so there you go.

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Mountain Song Guitars www.mountainsongguitars.com

That's what I'M talkin' about! Very nice looking neck, Ken! I really do like that look. Did you spray the shading? If so, did you add it to the lacquer or just alcohol or water? I need to give that a try.

That explains it...I am neither a bluegrasser nor a fingerpicker (yet), and I'm not worth my tebacky either.

On acoustics I very much tend towards letting the natural looks shine through, although some 'old timey' styled instruments can actually look really nice with a tastefully done burst. Not my personal style however. I like a bit of color in my electrics from time to time, but generally translucent.

I'm of the same opinion of Mattia Valente. I do all my acoustics natural and have dyed some of my electrics. In fact I've made a blue guitar once as well as mahogany colored oak and vintage amber. I do like the looks of a nice sunburst, I just have never tried it and probably never will since finishing is just not my thing and I almost exclusively use French Polish now.

Yeah, I don't like pumpkin colored guitars either. That is not what I do. My amber tint is so light that no one knows it was tinted until I tell them. However, if you hold it up to clear coated spruce, you can definitely see the shading, and most people like it. Interesting thing about the analine dye is that it fades over time at about the same rate as the lacquer darkens. Hard to know when one lets up as the other is coming on.

Most archtops tend to be spruce on maple, so I use colour in many of my finishes. Used well, it's really an opportunity to take the final result "up a notch" (...although the reverse is certainly true ) and to give it a presonality. (After all, this is art... right??)
Having said that, if I was building with some of the stunning B&S woods available to flattop builders, I might use colour a lot less.

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Dave
Milton, ON

I was not aware of that...good to know.

I have to agree with Todd. A little color goes a loooong way on acoustics and ick is the usual outcome, to my tastes at least. This is a similar topic to inlay. Less is usually more.

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No one appreciates the very special genius of your conversation as the dog does.
Christopher Morley

I have to agree with Todd. A little color goes a loooong way on acoustics and ick is the usual outcome, to my tastes at least. This is a similar topic to inlay. Less is usually more.

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No one appreciates the very special genius of your conversation as the dog does.
Christopher Morley

This is what I am talking about. Sorry about the poor quality cell phone photo.

Very nice, Barry! Is that Sitka?

Yes, with intense bear claw. I believe it came from Alaska Specialty Spruce.

If you're building to a market, then finish them the way the market wants them. If you're building for yourself, it's a personal choice. I'm a correspondent and fan of Dave Stewart, who has already chimed in here. Check out the archtops on his website. It's still a matter of personal choice, but you can see that Dave makes his choices work very well.

I build a lot of things out of black walnut, cherry and maple. I usually apply a little color to all of them--never anything too flashy and never opaque--just enough to cancel grays or warm them up.

If I built with exotics as beautiful as some of the examples seen on this site, I'd probably leave them uncolored.