Refinish to Sunburst [Archive] - Next Level Guitar Forum

OctoberKIng

February 23rd, 2007, 07:28 AM

Here's a question I've been a pondering lately; How tough would it be to refinish a dreadnaught to a sunburst finish? Being a lefty there's not alot of options out there. Man I've always loved the look of sunburst flat top. So I was kicking around the idea of finding an Epiphone AJ 18S on eBay for cheap and giving it a go. Has anyone had any experience in doing such? I'd like the hear about it.

Thanks

tx95pony50

February 24th, 2007, 09:49 PM

the prob you're gonna run into is that a sunburst draditionaly is a stain- starting with a light okre or yellow maple wash, then adding tabbaco or rose-cherry to black as the stain approaches the sides of the axe- adding more and more stain-usually through a three color fade- ending with the darkest and most saturated color at the edge joint- a pretty simple process-somewhat icreasingly time consuming as details are attended too (grain clarity, color depth, transitional fade, etc), Ah- but here's the rub (pardon the pun), stain can only be applied succesfully to an UNFINISHED surface-you see- it is the sealer. once completed the surface is sanded THEN it is finished with a "clear". in order to stain-one must start with bare wood. To get to bare wood-one must remove all finish PAST the sealer-see to do that to an existing finish you'd have to run the axe through a mill-plane! Don't even try to remove that much material by hand-the blocking would make the surface look like poop.
Solution?- Yes Horatio-there is.
mask the axe then sand away the top coat,-then break-out your trusty airbrush and paint that pig. Practice with a blank first to get the look and the fade the way you want-then go to town. Most industrial bonzai strength coats are so synthetically non-reactive they'll take paint as long as the surface is prepped. when done-two cote poly-then block -then 2 coat poly-then enjoy.
P.S.-if this sounds like fun-you might be a loony-just a thought. ;)