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I'm beginning planning my next build and am really wanting to get a sunburst like Larrivee mandolins have. They say it has a water stained burst. So, I'm wondering if anyone out there knows what brand/colors of stains they use, and how to get results like that.

Not sure what Larrivee uses, but I have recently sprayed a water-based sunburst using EM6000 and TransTint.
Worked extremely well.....

Did you tint the EM6000 with the transtint, or did you prestain with diluted transtint first and then clear coat with the EM6000? Do you have any pics of what you recently sprayed so I can see if it is what I'm trying to accomplish? Thanks for your reply Robbie.

Not Robbie, but you can do either, or both. Tinting the lacquer is probably easier, but eventually hides the grain. Colouring bare wood lets the grain come out.....this is the latter.

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Dave
Milton, ON

Dave, that is beautiful. That was kinda the reason that I asked because I've used tinted and I noticed that it covered the grain more than I was wanting. The larrivee mandolins, at least the representative photo they have on the website, you can see the grain, and the silking in the top, crystal clear even though it has a burst. The mandolin I just finished had silking before the finish, and now with the tinting, no more silk.

Dave, how do you make sure that the stain does not become "blotchy"? Are you doing a preliminary coat of something followed by stain? Or are you just staining the wood a little bit at a time?

That's a beautiful finish & I appreciate any advise you can give on the matter. I haven't played around with this sort of thing yet, but hope to eventually.

Thanks,
Trev

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