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I want to build something, might turn into more than 1 if I like it.

I'm considering something along the lines of a Gibson Jumbo (the 1934 version not the 17" waist variety). I really an intrigued with the tone of these for flatpicking is the main reason I'd like to try one.

My main question is this. I am in absolutely no position to do any spray finish but I have some experience with the repairs using shellac/french polish. Does anyone have experience in doing sunbursts with this method? I know some mandolin builders do it, just haven't seen it so much on a guitar. Picture for reference.



I'm not trying to do an orangey sunburst, thinking more along the lines of a darker red. My main unknown is how to blend the black and the other colors without making it look "painted" if that makes sense.

Second, Bolt on or dovetail for a first build?

Third, any recommendations on a slope shouldered mold?

Fourth, am I going to regret this?

Any other advice that you can offer is welcome.

I am a repair guy at heart not really a builder. I am not interested in doing things perfect with stuff like measurements/exactness. I really enjoy doing things by feel. Kind of excited to try something new.

I have done rubbed in FP bursts, lotta work! Only way I could get the color even and transitioned nicely was via sanding. Finish wound up thick for what I consider a good FP and I think the dyes used altered the hardness a fair bit.

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Brian

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

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

In the shop, we talk about Gibson wide-waisted and narrow-waisted jumbos to avoid confusion...or at least more confusion than Gibson created by applying the same moniker to two different families of guitars.

Re: the mold. Are you sufficiently equipped to handle mold construction, which is to say, have a router and something to use as a table (a 12" x 18" sheet of flat 3/4" ply or 1/2" phenolic, etc.), a band saw or jigsaw, and either a spindle sander or drill press with sanding drum? If so, making up your own mold is a good warm-up project, and you'll get a better mold than can be purchased, as well as exactly the body shape you desire.

If going with a ready-made mold, you might consider the following questions:

- Is the mold both stiff and light weight?
- Can the mold be easily disassembled for storage or to extract a body after the top and back are glued on the rim?
- Can a side be easily clamped to the mold to retain shape after bending? Adding reinforcement for a sound port or repair? Adding side braces?
- Can the mold be mounted vertically in a vise and clamped at any point on the mold to permit access for installation of side tapes and linings, for work on the neck and tail blocks, and for the sanding and scraping work done during pre-closure clean-up?
- Can the neck and tail blocks be clamped directly to the mold without interference from clamps or other closure mechanism?
- (If using radius dishes) Is the mold thick enough to ensure square sides and end blocks, while thin enough to allow radius dish use on the back without shifting the mold towards top or back (usually, three 18mm plies, or about 2-1/8" total thickness for most 4"-5" flattops)?
- Can the occupied mold be easily and safely hung on wall or from overhead during construction of the rim?
- Can the body be closed while in the mold (preferably with spreaders installed)?
- Does the mold shape match the plans or drawings you intend to use for outside shape?

I don't know of any commercially available molds where the answer to all of these questions is a 'yes'...which is why making your own mold may be worth the effort.

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For the times they are a changin'

- Bob Dylan

ignore

Having only done a little French polish work (most of our touch-up work is in lacquer or polyester/polyurethane), could the burst be done wet-in-wet with waterbased dyes, then sealed and top-coated with shellac or French polished?

I did found a few videos which seem to be applicable with regard to hand-applied bursts:

https://youtu.be/u49jCIRNnmk?t=717

https://youtu.be/OjlIAq17aVc?t=2

https://youtu.be/zkVQZmApubQ?t=399

Thanks for the questions - def interesting to research this sort of thing!

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For the times they are a changin'

- Bob Dylan

Must I? Well...OK.

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For the times they are a changin'

- Bob Dylan

I’ll take the last 2 question.
Am
I going to regret this? Absolutely not. Building an instrument is a great feeling, and even if it turns out something less than you wanted in the beginning it is still a great process.

Dovetai Vs bolt on.
Imo bolt on.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

OK, I'll be a wet blanket (just a little bit):

There are folks who decide they want to build a guitar. So, they go about learning how to do it. We all built a first guitar at some point. There are lots of resources for learning it these days. I encourage it; this is a great hobby.

But there are other folks who decide that, for their first guitar, they are going to build their dream guitar. This, to me, is a lot harder, and in a lot of ways, it is unrealistic. What, you are going to hit a home run the first time you pick up a baseball bat? Probably not.

I think you would do yourself a favor by trying to keep your first guitar as easy as you can, and also manage your own expectations on the final result. That would rule out the sunburst, unless you are OK just having it be hard and potentially not look good at all.

You are talking about building a style of guitar that is not part of any building text that I know of. So, you are inherently going to have to adjust the instructions you get from any building book to accommodate the particular style guitar you are building. That sometimes (maybe frequently) trips up first time builders. So, you inherently have some stuff that will be a bit hard. Leave it at that. That's enough difficulty to handle on your first guitar. Just use a natural finish; use a bolt-on neck joint; don't get fancy. You can get fancy on guitars #2 to 100.

Sorry to be a bit of a dream-killer, but that's my advice.

I highly recommend buying a kit to start!

12 guitars ago I bought a kit from John Hall. I had it customized a touch (Eric Clapton 000) and asked the poor man a million questions over the course of the build which he patiently answered every one.

If you are lucky, you will not enjoy the process and go build tables. If you are unlucky, you will become hopelessly hooked and start scratch builds and hangout way to much on this forum!! LOL.

Start slow and soon enough will expand your tools, jigs, and knowledge to make that dream guitar a reality.

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Guitar Building = Continuous Improvement Process

Here's one that helped me a lot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=4gzhgEXlkac

Ed

Yep, I'd chip in by recommending starting with a kit. John Hall does them, as do Stewmac and LMI.

Sunburst - I'd stay clear for your first guitar as it complicates life a lot - what sort of binding you use. I do hand rubbed sunbursts, but my first attempt didn't go to plan. Here it is -



It ended up almost the opposite that I planned. Have to say, it looks great. But, not what I planned.

After a few attempts, I got to this - which is exactly what I planned:



In short - one thing at a time. See if you actually enjoy making a kit. It is enjoyable if you have an aptitude for it, and not everyone does. The fantasy and the reality are two different things. A kit is a good way to start without having to spend quite as much money as starting from scratch.

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nigel

http://www.theluthierblog.com

My first was a kit. I wish I could have got one from John Hall, I'm not sure he was in business back then.
John has contributed a lot to us amateur builders. Hes easy to talk to and goes out of his way to pass on his Knowledge.

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Say what you do, Do what you say.

You're no dream killer. Let me clarify a bit as to what I want to do as well as my viewpoints.

I make my living doing repairs/rebuilds. There are multiple guys in the area who build guitars on which I often do repair work because they screwed something up and either don't know how to fix it or just didn't want to spend the time doing it. Thus I am planning on no inlay, might skip the rosette entirely. No headstock logo, no fingerboard dots etc... The one thing these guys ALWAYS screw up on is they try to do too much. I'm not keen to make those mistakes. Do I expect my first to be good? Absolutely not, I make furniture as a hobby, I've learned that the first pieces need to suck balls before you can really learn anything substantial.

I think your point about a natural finish is a good one. The sunburst can come later if I decide to do more than one. I have actually wanted to finish a guitar in pure garnet shellac just to see what it would look like.

This is not my dream guitar. My dream guitar is a Kopp Trail Boss, but I don't want to build that. One of the reasons I want to build a slope shoulder style guitar is because I can make mistakes and people aren't as keen on how they're "supposed" to be if that makes sense. I can fudge the design a bit and it's not going to bother anyone.

I like the idea of a kit, I see that John Hall has an Advanced Jumbo kit available, that might be just the ticket. Thanks for the advice so far gentlemen. This is one of the reasons I like this forum so much.

If/when you do get around to doing a sunburst guitar, it would likely be wise to figure out how to do it first on expendable wood instead of on the actual guitar you are building. Buy some cheap spruce top sets and go to town on those to find out what works before committing to doing it on the guitar.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

I've played around with applying sunbursts following the same videos Woodie G and Ruby50 provided links to above. It is actually quite simple to get a nice result on hardwood, as the videos demonstrate. It is a far trickier exercise on spruce. If you are okay with a kind of rustic looking top with an old-fashioned appearance, it is doable. However, as has been noted, you should practice on scrap -- a lot -- before taking the plunge.

Having tried this by diluting Transtint dyes in both alcohol and water, I prefer the results I achieved using water. I found that water allowed more time to blend the colors and smooth the transitions. I had poor results attempting to work with Transtint diluted in shellac, but I am not highly experienced with FP--your results may be better.

Watch the videos and you will see how the colors darken in an additive fashion; you build upon what is below, as opposed to going for it right from the start. Rubbing color onto the surfaces makes any imperfections in your sanding prep blatantly obvious, so get everything as smooth and even as possible before you begin. I seal the purflings with shellac first, then scrape them clean when I am finished adding color. At that point I seal everything in place by spraying a couple coats of wax-free rattle can shellac and then proceed with my usual finishing method of wiping on varnish.

Kits are fine and can save a lot of time. However, if you're capable of identifying and fixing the mistakes of others, you may find building from scratch to be more rewarding. I've made a couple of slope-shouldered dreads using J-45 plans from Mike Collins and the Gibson jumbo mold from John Hall. I don't know if these match the 1934 specs you seek, but both are of high quality and work well together.

The picture below is of a spruce-topped mandolin that I finished for a friend. That blotchiness is the rustic look you should expect on softwoods. I think it looks cool, but it's not for everyone.

George :-)

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George :-)

. I wouldn't skip too many steps in the guitar making process on a first instrument, I just wouldn't stress it if they didn't go 100% right.
Do you really want to be learning how to inlay a rosette or fretboard markers on your 4th or 5th instrument?
Even if you are not set up for spraying finishes you could go the rattle can route. Stew Mac offers rattle cans in colors to do bursts. Finishing is an entirely different skill set from building, so if you want to do a burst on your guitar - go for it. You will only learn by doing, and a first guitar is as good as any to make mistakes on. I would practice on scrap first, with whatever method you choose (you could lightly plane the soundboard and practice on that before sanding it down to clean it up and bring it to final thickness).
I did my first sunbursts to hide some staining on the edges caused by CA glue. They turned out O.K.

Thanks for the input gentlemen.