I’m often asked to demo spraying a sunburst so here it is. My starting point is a GuitarBuild body. It’s two piece swamp ash and very light at 3lb 4oz (<1.5kg). My first step was to sand the body well to eliminate any scratches then grain fill thoroughly. There is more on grain filling in …

50s 2 tone strat replica

Tony is another regular customer who has produced some superb guitars painted using my nitrocellulose lacquer. I think he has excelled himself with this superb tribute to an early Fender Stratocaster using neck and body from Musikraft. Take a look at Tony’s post on TDPRI where he shows how be sprayed the sunburst and aged the …

Finished lemondrop refinish

The owner of the Vintage Lemondrop guitar that I upgraded some time back asked me to refinish the top. Thinking that the finish would be thin and strip easily, I agreed. I discovered however that the finish is thick, tough and difficult to remove. I stripped the top over a couple of weeks and probably …

Finish Repair A customer had had an accident with his Ernie Ball Musicman Stingray 5-string bass. He had dropped it and knocked a large piece of the finish off the lower edge of the guitar. I filled the damage with matching lacquer so that the damage was no longer noticeable. Sunburst Gibson L6-S finish repair …

A re-creation of Fender’s 3 colour sunburst over alder. This uses my Clear Amber, Clear Red and Black aerosols, with a Clear Satin top coat.

The body was received in stripped condition and the colours for the 3-tone sunburst were matched to what remained in the pickup cavity. The central yellow area, being semi-opaque is correct for the mid-sixties when Fender under CBS management were saving money by cutting out steps in the finishing process.

The images and text below show you how easy it is to get a great sunburst effect using my nitrocellulose lacquer aerosols. The guitar here is a SAGA HT-10 kit. The first step is to mask off the top and the “faux binding” then to spray the back. Once dry, carefully scrape the edge of …