johnsilver

I was able to attempt the sunburst today. I mixed up some Colortone Medium Brown dye in lacquer (with some thinner and retarder - its so darn humid in Houston) to make a toner. I taped off all the binding (took a while) using latex pinstripers tape and masked the fretboard, then sprayed the neck and sides with toner to darken them a bit and make the color left by the pore filler a little more even. Then I tried the burst on the back, then on the front. I played around with it for a while, but then convinced myself to put up the spray gun lest I fiddle to the point of disaster. I used my small jamb gun set to a round pattern to apply the brown on the edges first. After they darkened, I opened up the pattern a bit to a fan and extended the burst a bit toward the middle of the guitar. That left a dark edge and a lighter blend into the amber. The lighter area appears reddish, but it is medium brown over amber. I then put a coat of clear lacquer to set the color. The pics below are after the lacquer and after I removed all the tape off the binding. I still need to clean up a bit after removing the tape. I'll to that tomorrow, then begin to build up the clear coats. I'm happy (and more than a little relieved). The front burst with 1 clear coat A side view showing the burst, the binding and the sides with toner The back burst A shot of one of the sanded through areas - coverage looks good

I made some progress yesterday but not as much as I'd like. It was raining here all day and the humidity was high. I was fighting blushing problems in the finish. I did get a sealer coat on the whole guitar and let it sit overnight Friday. Yesterday, I scuff sanded and then applied a coat of amber toner to the front and back to even out the color. After that sat a bit, I put a coat of clear nitro on the front and back. Results below. I was going to do the burst today but won't be able to - have to make a quick trip to Louisiana and back. Guess I'll have to wait until next weekend. front after amber toner and 1 clear coat I'm happy with the color and the 3D - pic doesn't show much but you get the idea

Mikhail, thanks. When I tried to match the top, I struggled a bit with where to align everything since it wasn't exact all the way along the top (guess it never is). Anyway, I'm pleased to hear you think it came out ok. BTW, that wood was a find at my local hardwood supplier. They usually have some curly maple boards but very limited, not really very good and never more than 4/4. I was digging through the stack and found a board with nice figure that was 6/4. The guy didn't believe me they had a 6/4 board. In any case, I bought the whole board for maybe $40 and they resawed it for me for $10. I was able to make the top, the back, enough to use as finish sample pieces, and maybe some left over for a neck laminate.

Try this If that isn't it exactly, there are plenty of other diagrams on the Seymour Duncan site. You could always contact the manufacturer of your pups as well.

Well, its been a while. I continued to practice bursts and got closer. The pic below is close but still a bit too wide in the burst area. I have a better feel for it though so I'm proceeding on the guitar. So far this weekend, I made a back cavity cover from scrap maple and sanded the entire guitar to finish grit (220 for me). I dyed the top and back the amber color and sanded it back and dyed it again. After it dried, I sprayed the entire guitar (not fretboard of course) with a wash coat of vinyl sealer. After that dried overnight, I masked off the top, back, binding and headplate then applied walnut brown oil based pore filler. Messy stuff. It'll have to dry so I won't do any more until next weekend. That means I have tomorrow off. Here is the progress. Happy Labor Day holiday. Burst getting closer Top dyed and with a sealer coat Pore filler applied

Mike, I love that guitar. I'm struggling with this question for a build in progress. Its a quilt top but my son decided he wants a "natural" finish. For my two cents, I think all that maple needs grain enhancement before final finishing to bring out the figure. If you wanted a mostly natural finish, perhaps a VERY diluted dye, perhaps amber, sanded back to maple color and then followed by finishing with sealer and then clear. You could even test using a wash coat of shellac as a sealer then clear after that. In any case, its a hot axe and will be great whatever you decide.

I can attest to this effect. On my current project, I used CA to glue in the MOP. For any gaps, I packed in ebony dust and then wicked in some CA. It works great. However, when I sanded my board up through the grits, I noticed the gaps filled with CA and dust began to shine more, or at least differently, than the rest of the board. Ultimately, I went back down in grit and blended them back in. The board still looks great and is very smooth, but I couldn't sand up as high as I had intended. Maybe I'll try epoxy next time.

I checked here but didn't find Marley. Still, a cool site.

Hey Dayvo. That's nice, and you're not too far away. I'll be interested in your choice of finish. I really like it the color it is and think it would look great with a clear finish, but whatever floats your boat. A nice translucent color like you're thinking, but whatever shows off that lacewood. Gotta love those Pauls...

Today I took one of the scrap pieces of maple and cut it out in the shape of a 1/2 LP. I went through the finishing procedure I am testing at the moment. It was a useful lesson in both the finish procedure and bursting technique using a jamb gun. I learned a lot. Overall, I'm pleased with the learning effort but need to practice more technique. The dark area intended for the edge got a bit too big for my liking so I'll try to cut it down next time. Also, I didn't get the shading even all the way around. The good thing about this scrap is that I can use both sides for tests, then sand it back and use it again. Overall, its progress and I believe I'll be able to hide the sandthroughs effectively. The finish looks very vintage to me. More like what I've seen on acoustics or hollow bodies. Maybe it will be better when I narrow down the dark edge to about 1" or 1 1/2". I'm thinking about whether I like it. Thoughts? And please ignore the orange peel - this is just a test for color. burst on test piece test piece sitting next to guitar I'm off for some boiled shrimp.....

I like it. The best part is - there is a strap on it, and a cord plugged in it, and a pick near it. That means its a guitar......

So far, this one has cost me $42,153. That's $40 dollars of wood and $42,113 from Stewmac. Just kidding. Chunkiebuddy, thanks for the encouragement, and you're spot on about the investment for the future. Guitarmole, thanks for the comment about the fretboard. I was hesitant about gold MOP, but I must admit that I'm very happy with it. BTW, the neck is hardly flawless, but that's the objective for when I grow up. I'm just hoping my guitar playing son won't notice the deficiencies, or at least, won't tell me. IPA or Death, wish I could help but I've never actually seen an LP Supreme except in pictures on Gibson's website. So, I can't help. Anyway, good luck on your LP! Wylde et al, I haven't yet given up on the possibility I can "hide" the sandthroughs. If all else fails, it will either be a solid color (gold top and bottom ) or solid black. Speaking of sandthroughs, I spent several hours today mixing and trying alternatives for dye. I made up a blending board of yellow dye and amber dye to see where in that spectrum I want to try the base color. I'm now thinking something like a 1 to 1 ratio of yellow to amber instead of straight amber. I then tested some colors to use in the burst. I decided I liked the Colortone Medium Brown. It makes a nice blend with amber and seems to darken up nicely and maybe enough to cover the sandthroughs. I still need to do some more testing. Anyway, here are a couple of pics of my tests. Please ignore the deficiencies in my test bursts. The blending between the amber and brown is too abrupt and there is overspray, etc and lots of other problems. I realized very clearly how much I'll need to practice technique once I've settled on the colors. That's the next step. Med Brown on 1:1, 2:1, 4:1 yellow to amber dye Med Brown on straight Amber Anyway, my new touch up gun arrived (yes, from a company that shall remain nameless). So, I'll get it fired up tomorrow along with my airbrush and play around. I'm having a nice glass of red wine, and listening to Gregg Allman solo CD. Both very good.......

Blundstones or Redbacks? Edit: Sorry Robert, didn't mean to hijack a serious thread. I hope this gets sorted out to your satisfaction.

Congratulations man. I like the look of the dark body, maple fretboard and cream P90s. Matches up real sweet visually. What's your next project?

SGs are special! Nice clean work on the lams, and that's nice straight mahogany. How thick is the body - photos play tricks sometimes but that looks thick for an SG. A mahogany neck would be traditional, but Robert's idea of a mahogany/maple lam neck to match the body sounds cool. You mentioned a pickguard. Seems that would cover up or detract from the laminations. Rosewood fretboard?

I put two quick coats of vinyl sealer on the maple previously dyed with amber so I could see what it looks like. The maple is a piece of the same board I have on the front and back of the LP so the base wood color should be pretty consistent. I mixed some Colortone Honey Amber dye in water (1/4 oz dye to 3 oz water as a test concentration). The maple was already sanded to 220 grit. I wiped on the dye and let it dry. The water raised the grain a bit. I sanded it back until most of the color was removed off the top and only remained in the grain. I then wiped on the dye again and let it dry. The next day, I applied two coats of vinyl sealer an hour apart. I used a Preval sprayer for the sealer, so it (or I) didn't get a very good application but it served to seal the dye, show me the color and show me whether the grain was enhanced. So far, I really like the color. This is basically what I was aiming for as a complete finish before I sanded through the maple. So, if I hadn't sanded through, I'd be motoring now instead of trying to figure out a complementary burst. Test piece with dye and sealer sitting outside in the sun Test piece next to the guitar - sitting inside with flash Next steps are to test some burst colors as shader coats over the sealer and see what I like. I'll also be practicing burst spraying techniques since I haven't done that before. I ordered the small touch up spray gun from Stewmac (darn them). It should arrive on Thursday. So, over the weekend if all goes right, I'll test some colors and practice technique. I have the Stewmac bursting video (double darn them - good thing my youngest just graduated from college) so I'll be watching that. So far, the motto of this guitar is "if you want to play, you have to pay".

Two of my sons have had Line 6 Flextone II heads and cabs for years. They like the flexibility, the ability to play at both low and high volume, and they use them to record directly to their computers. I know you are looking at a combo. Right now, Line 6 has a big sale for some reason on the Spider series amps, including a 120W and 150W, both well in your price range so a foot controller can be added in and still be well below your target. Guitar Center has all the models, so you can have ample chance to try them out.

Soundat11, thanks. I looked at the Gary Moore lemon burst - very nice color. I think I will make a blending board with straight lemon on one end and straight amber on the other with different blends of the two in between, then pick which I like best for the base color on the body. I'm putting a coat of sealer on the amber test piece now to see how it looks, but I may want to go a bit lighter and the lemon should do that. Thanks for the tip!!

Well, I don't know. In the pic, his hand is around the 5th fret and the fretboard is just under 2" wide at that point. From that you can get an idea of the length of his fingers. They must be similar to yours. Darn aliens. OK, OK - I'll try a few things before blackening the head plate. I'll wet it with mineral spirits to get an idea of what it would look like with nitro on it, and then go from there. Its a slightly lighter piece of ebony than the fretboard and there is a small grey streak. I wasn't going to spray it with black lacquer or anything like that. What I was going to use was a little of the fretboard dye sold by Stewmac, and let it dry completely before sealing and finishing. I still think I will use the dye. This afternoon, I played around a little with dye (Colortone, TransTint) and made a color board from scrap maple to see which colors I may want to use in the burst. I liked the amber as a base color so I made a test piece with it by dying with amber (in water as I said so it also acted to raise the grain), sanding back the color and the raised grain in the process, then dying again with amber. I'll let it dry overnight or so and then spray a coat of vinyl sealer to see what it looks like with a little sealer on it. If I like it, I'll play around with burst colors. I really can't decide or don't like the colors so I ordered a Red Mahogany dye this afternoon and I'll see how it fits in. I'll need something dark near the edges to hide the sandthrough. Oh well, that's probably enough for this weekend. Elvin Bishop is heating up and so is my grill..... Colorboard - yellow, amber, golden brown, medium brown, medium brown with red, dark walnut, dark walnut with black Amber test piece

Well, some limited progress to report. Yesterday, I spent several hours seeking out and correcting small imperfections and then sanding the whole guitar through the grits up to 180. Still have several grits to go. I'm not sure if I'll stop at 320 or 400. Anyway, for fun I put the tuners, bridge and tailpiece and a pre-slotted nut on and strung it up. I wanted to confirm alignment, check out approximate bridge and tailpiece height, etc. The string alignment was very good (thank goodness since I'm not sure what I would do now if it wasn't). The test nut was a little high but I could tell that my bridge would be able to be set pretty low so I wouldn't have to raise it too high on the studs. I will need to raise the tailpiece a bit so the strings will clear the back edge of the bridge. The guitar tuned fine and intonation was close without adjustment. Of course, I will still have the full set up including a bone nut to do after applying the finish. This was just a dry run. Some pics: Strung up for test fit. Gold Grover tuners - still need to blacken the head plate Number 3 son tuning it up for the first time A little bling with the gold MOP. Check out the length of his alien fingers. Well, I'm off to the workshop go test dye on scrap maple. Guess I'll have to shut off Lynyrd Skynyrd now.

+1. I use a small hair dryer to soften binding and it works fine. I mostly use celluloid nitrate binding.

Here is an update. Not a lot of progress - busy at work and some travel. I shaped the neck a little more. Its slightly asymetrical to the bass side - not much. Feels pretty comfortable, but what do I know? I checked the neck / body alignment on the center line one last time using a small laser level. I saw that in some thread on this forum and it works great. Thanks to whomever. I also checked the neck angle one last time to ensure I had good height along the fretboard and with the bridge. Looks like I will have to raise the bridge a bit when it is strung up, but not much so I am ok. I glued the neck and body together yesterday. Today, I smoothed the neck body join and shaped the heel a bit further. The alignment is good and the heel / body join feels ok, at least for a Paul. Here are some pics. Not the greatest quality. Gluing the neck and body. The joint was a good fit so I needed minimal pressure. Intersection of lots of binding - needs some clean up Other side of join Neck / body join and heel I have a lot of sanding to do now that the whole thing has come together. I also need to deal with some small imperfections here and there, such as small gaps near the binding. But, now I need to get real serious about the finish. I took some maple scraps, pretty big pieces actually, and sanded them smooth. I'm going to play around with the amber, brown, red mahogany Colortone until I find something I like. I'm also playing around with an idea to mask the sandthroughs on the top so I won't have to make the edge of the burst opaque. Don't know if it will work or not but thats what the scrap is for. Listening to some Guitar Shorty now. Killer.

Exactly. I planed the neck blank flat on the face (both faces since I was making two necks from the blank). I checked it was flat with a precision straight edge and square to the sides with a square. After I achieved the proper alignment, then I marked out and cut the necks.