Non-PBG RBX Style Bass Guitar Kit RBX-20 from DIY Guitars

[Alkay]

Pop the grain as wazkelly showed me on his bass's.



My brother wants this kind of look so I'll give it a go. I'm sure I can blend the colours...well hopefully haha.

He really liked this one:

[wazkelly]

G'day mate, been a bit busy lately and just catching up on some threads.

Presume that darkness is Timber mate? Make sure you wear a mask when sanding it back as the fine dust is not very nice up your nostrils.

Never done a burst but it would seem that lightest colours go down first and gradually bring the darker ones in from the outer edges. Nice example to emulate and hope it comes off for you.

[Simon Barden]

How do you plan to finish it? Stain, Dingo Tone, TruOil, poly, acrylic or nitro sprays?

It's a lot easier to spray a good sunburst than to do it with stains - though Gibson did use to use rubbed alcohol-based stains for doing their sunbursts back in the 1920s (though I'm sure their stainers got a lot of practice first before being allowed to do it on real guitars). Alcohol isn't absorbed as readily by wood as water is, so you are less likely to get darker patches where the grain is more open if you use an alcohol (metho) based stain. End grain soaks up the stain more than the lengthwise-grain, so it can be worth pre-soaking end-grain with water (or metho if an alcohol based stain) so that it doesn't soak up too much stain and appear significantly darker than the top (unless you want that effect).

[Alkay]

G'day mate, been a bit busy lately and just catching up on some threads.

Presume that darkness is Timber mate? Make sure you wear a mask when sanding it back as the fine dust is not very nice up your nostrils.

Never done a burst but it would seem that lightest colours go down first and gradually bring the darker ones in from the outer edges. Nice example to emulate and hope it comes off for you.

Hi Waz,

No worries, it's been a bit of a slow process for me so I haven't been on too often.

Originally it was a lighter oak colour timbermate that I filled all the pores and sanded it at 180. We then changed our minds and decided to pop the grain with black ink which I am about to sand back with 180, 240 and possibly 320 depending on the stain I will be using to make sure it takes to the wood grain. If its left over colour tone I know I can easily go to 400.

I'm waiting on my brother to decide on a colour but some sort of burst like pictured above maybe. I have ordered some Cosmetic Grade Natural Mica Powder Pigment Soap Candle Colorant Dye so I'm waiting for that to arrive. I saw DB recommend the stuff in one of his posts.

[Alkay]

How do you plan to finish it? Stain, Dingo Tone, TruOil, poly, acrylic or nitro sprays?

It's a lot easier to spray a good sunburst than to do it with stains - though Gibson did use to use rubbed alcohol-based stains for doing their sunbursts back in the 1920s (though I'm sure their stainers got a lot of practice first before being allowed to do it on real guitars). Alcohol isn't absorbed as readily by wood as water is, so you are less likely to get darker patches where the grain is more open if you use an alcohol (metho) based stain. End grain soaks up the stain more than the lengthwise-grain, so it can be worth pre-soaking end-grain with water (or metho if an alcohol based stain) so that it doesn't soak up too much stain and appear significantly darker than the top (unless you want that effect).

Hi Simon,

I'll be doing the finishing coat in poly but I'm waiting on my brother to decide on colour first. If I do a burst I'm quite confident I can do this by hand but I will test on some offcuts first. Might even try the airbrush as a test too. I have seen quite a few videos on doing bursts so they seem fairly straight forward.

I have some water based airbrush paint that says it can be applied to wood. How suitable it is for a guitar body I don't know? Maybe mix a bit of mineral turpentine with it?

Cheers,

Alkay.

[Simon Barden]

Airbrushing/spraying water based stain on is fine. You'll certainly get a more gradual sunburst finish than by hand-application. Just let the base stain dry off fully (say two days) before spraying the sunburst on so that the wood is dry enough again to absorb the water+stain well. The end-grain will still want to absorb more water and stain than the top/bottom and sides, so spraying does help to get a more even coating of stain here than by applying by hand in these areas.

Of course, if you are going for a black or very dark edge (like in the photo of the sunburst bass), then hand stain application should still work. But anything a bit lighter, and you may have trouble with with lighter and darker patches around the edges.

Just be patient and spray light coats each time. It shouldn't take long for an airbrushed stain to dry enough to see the true depth of colour. I'd give it 15 minutes between applications.

If you've got a choice of needle/nozzle sizes for your airbrush, then I'd fit the largest one you can. You want a wide area spray, so that at the edges of the spray cone, there's only a small amount of droplets. That's going to help you get a nicely graduated burst. Too narrow a spray pattern and you're going to get harder edges.

I don't think turps would mix with a water based stain/paint, though a slower-drying carrying agent than water would be useful as you want to get the stain soaking into the wood a bit, without the droplets drying in mid-air and the stain just hitting the wood and sitting on the top where it's likely to be brushed off easily. You want to spray a bit further away from the wood to get a wider, more dispersed spray pattern, but the further away you are, the more time the air has to absorb the water droplets.

I'd test it all out first on scrap wood. Afterwards, you could even see what effect simply spraying water on the sunburst area has, as it might encourage the colours to blend further if slightly patchy - or it might do nothing.

[Alkay]

Airbrushing/spraying water based stain on is fine. You'll certainly get a more gradual sunburst finish than by hand-application. Just let the base stain dry off fully (say two days) before spraying the sunburst on so that the wood is dry enough again to absorb the water+stain well. The end-grain will still want to absorb more water and stain than the top/bottom and sides, so spraying does help to get a more even coating of stain here than by applying by hand in these areas.

Of course, if you are going for a black or very dark edge (like in the photo of the sunburst bass), then hand stain application should still work. But anything a bit lighter, and you may have trouble with with lighter and darker patches around the edges.

Just be patient and spray light coats each time. It shouldn't take long for an airbrushed stain to dry enough to see the true depth of colour. I'd give it 15 minutes between applications.

If you've got a choice of needle/nozzle sizes for your airbrush, then I'd fit the largest one you can. You want a wide area spray, so that at the edges of the spray cone, there's only a small amount of droplets. That's going to help you get a nicely graduated burst. Too narrow a spray pattern and you're going to get harder edges.

I don't think turps would mix with a water based stain/paint, though a slower-drying carrying agent than water would be useful as you want to get the stain soaking into the wood a bit, without the droplets drying in mid-air and the stain just hitting the wood and sitting on the top where it's likely to be brushed off easily. You want to spray a bit further away from the wood to get a wider, more dispersed spray pattern, but the further away you are, the more time the air has to absorb the water droplets.

I'd test it all out first on scrap wood. Afterwards, you could even see what effect simply spraying water on the sunburst area has, as it might encourage the colours to blend further if slightly patchy - or it might do nothing.

Hi Simon,

That's really good to hear. I will do some test runs on some scraps first with the airbrush. I know how to do the stencils(art background) so it should come up ok. The airbrush I have is really cheap but I haven't really tested it since I got it.

I'll give those water based airbrush paints a go.

Just a thought. Have you ever hear of anyone using food dye for colouring?

I think it might work as long as it's sealed with poly as soon as it's dryed but I might try a test run with that too.

Cheers,

Alkay.

[wazkelly]

Hi Alkay, had a look at food colouring but unconvinced as to how colour fast it might be, even under poly or TO plus the colours lacked the depth that you get with inks or proper stains plus it just wanted to bleed everywhere along the grain lines. Could be a right proper PIA if trying use it for doing a burst.

[Simon Barden]

Some of those food dyes can certainly stain your skin for a few days, but I've never tried them on anything apart from some cake icing. I think Waz is 100% right here, and look elsewhere.

[Alkay]

Some of those food dyes can certainly stain your skin for a few days, but I've never tried them on anything apart from some cake icing. I think Waz is 100% right here, and look elsewhere.

yeah he sounds like it's a bad idea. I'll go with the airbrush paint on some scrap wood for testing, Cheers.

I still have some colour tone left over and my brother likes the red and yellow so I'll do a burst test run on the airbrush and see if he is happy with it.

Just thought I would ask about the food dye. I bought a heap for practice on paper anyway. Thank you.

Cheers,

Alkay.