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Hi! I come from sso.org and this is my first post here.
I have bought a PRS style kit(mahogany body) and I would like to finish the body like this:



So what would be the steps?
1. Applying black stain(rubbing)
2. Applying primal(airbrushing) and sanding
Now it's the problem:
3.what to apply with airbrush, dye?translucent paint?
4.Applying clearcoat and then sanding?

Every single word that you write here can help me a lot.
Thank you.

I would apply black dye stain and sand back at about 220 to darken the grain. Apply sealer and level sand. Spray the burst with a shaded lacquer. Then apply clear coats and level and buff as normal. That is based on the quilted example as the two pictured appear they may have been finished a little differently.

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Brian

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

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

Thanks for answering. Do I have to mix the colour of the burst with the shading lacquer?
What type of paint do I have to use with the airbrush? Dye? Translucent paint? Transtint?

Use dye in the lacquer, it will then be the "shading" component. Trans tint type aniline dye.

First advice - practice on scrap. Second advice, practice a lot.

Second, you say it is a mahogany body - I'm assuming that it has a figured maple cap like the one in the picture. I'm also assuming that you don't have any more figured maple to practice on (I always save the cutoff pieces for just this reason). You might want to go to a wood working shop or call LMI or one of the tonewood suppliers, or possibly where you bought your kit and get something similar.

There are two ways to do a 'burst - often a combination. The thing that gives flamed or figured wood their character is that the wood cells lay at different angles within the figure and will absorb stain differently. Therefore to pop the figure you apply stain directly to the wood - some of the wood will be more colored and it will bring out the figure. That would be the black - you will have to experiment with the darkness of the stain. I use StewMac's stains - they can be diluted in alcohol and either wiped on or sprayed. Sand back as needed and seal.

Shaded bursts where the color changes as it goes from center to edge are usually done by mixing some color into the lacquer - now it is "tinting" rather than "staining". I use the same SM stain as before, but now add it to my final finish. A cool trick is to mix some very light - say one drop of stain in 8 oz of lacquer and spray the entire top. Now add one more drop (to the decreasing amount of lacquer) and spray the center going almost to the edge. Now another drop and more in the center - as you move in the color will get darker but will still be transparent enough to let the wood show thru. Finally you spray a dozen or so coats of clear to give the deep wet look, color sand and polish in the usual fashion.

This mighy help - it is an old thread about a LP that I wanted to do in a vintage '57 burst. I sprayed a couple of coats of amber directly onto the top to stain the figure, then applied coats of lacquer with increasingly more brown to make top darker at the edge. There is just enough color in the lacquer so that you can still see the grain. The finishing steps start on page 7 and 8, then jumps to 10

http://www.harmonycentral.com/t5/Electr ... 721/page/7

One other thing - I use an airbrush on very small instruments like mandolins, but for guitars I like a small HPLV touchup gun - an auto body shop calls them a "jamb gun". Did I mention practice.....

Thanks to all of you for answering. You're helping me a lot.
Now it's all very clear. Only one last question.
The white colour in the last photo, how do you achieve that ?
White dye? Lacquer? Both of them?

The way that the natural maple color extends into the blue makes me think this is a double stain job; i.e. stain with black and sand back, then stain blue and sand back again..

Trev

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http://www.PeakeGuitars.com

You learned me well Chris.
Luckily I found this great video before my first dye attempt.
Thanks!
Dan

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