Matching color of LP with maple neck and mahogany body?

[Lzwb]

I have a Gibson LPJ that I am refinishing. I stripped off all of the lacquer with acetone + some sanding yesterday.

The body is mahogany w/ a maple cap, and the neck is maple. I am unsure of how to match the color of the neck to the mahogany back of the les paul.

Here is a picture of the guitar after stripping the lacquer and cleaning it with mineral spirits :

Here is the color I want to achieve - pretty much the "natural" color back that comes on a lot of the historic reissues/standards.

How would I go about achieving that color, on both the maple neck and mahogany back?

I already have Reranch tinted clear, and that may get close to the color on the mahogany, but on the maple it will just look like my maple tele neck that I used RR tinted clear on.

Are there any stains that I could use to get the colors matched, or at least very close? I know its possible to some extent considering before I stripped the paint, despite being an ugly color, the neck and back were the same shade

 

[Bobby Mahogany]

wrong forum, gonna repost on the custom shop

If someone is gonna know about matching tints,
isn't it someone from the Luthier's Corner?

 

[Lzwb]

If someone is gonna know about matching tints,
isn't it someone from the Luthier's Corner?

Didn’t know if it belonged in here or the custom shop forum

 

[Bobby Mahogany]

Didn’t know if it belonged in here or the custom shop forum

Q: Related to guitars, who does stain wood and match finishes?
A: Luthier's.

 

[Josh Young]

Typical advice on this forum is to test finish on scraps, but the typical poster on this forum will have scraps left over from building the guitar. This isn't the case for you. Most people on this forum (myself included) control the finish colour by tinting the lacquer, rather than applying stain directly to the wood. I'm not sure what finishing equipment or supplies you have at your disposal, but if I were in your position, I would probably mask off the neck and spray the body to your liking, then I would add a drop or two of brown dye to the same lacquer you used for the body and spray a coat or two on the neck. Assess how close you are and add more/different colour dye to the lacquer (if necessary) and spray another coat as needed, then clear coat over everything, let cure sand and buff as usual. This is obviously easier if you have spray equipment and the right dyes available to tint lacquer. Colortone dye from Stewmac is what I generally use, but there are many dyes that are compatible with lacquer. A Preval spray unit would allow you to mix and spray custom colours of lacquer.

You can of course achieve a match by staining the maple and then spraying clear over it, but you have more control over tinted lacquer. If you go the stain route, I would suggest starting a little lighter than you think you need, and then applying additional coats, or coats of darker stains as necessary. This will likely be more difficult to achieve a perfect match, but may well suffice.

Good luck!!

 

[Lzwb]

I went to Home Depot and got a can of minwax gun stock 231 stain, and the guitar came out great

Here it is after 3 coats. Gonna see how it looks tomorrow and possibly do another coat or two

Gonna spray a coat or two of tinted lacquer before spraying the regular clear coat

Came out a lot better than i expected

 

[Bobby Mahogany]

Looks good from here.