Sunburst with shellac

[Gianluca Caccavo]

Hi Community

I am building a 59 Burst and I want to finish the whole guitar with shellac except headstock will be nitro cellulose

First I water dyed the entire guitar and then I applied a few coats of blonde shellac. The next step is to polish the top because I want to have a smooth surface before I apply the next color of shellac.

If I'd use the orange one mixed with the blonde to get a more yellowish color and then make the patina with ruby shellac and then seal it again with the blonde one.

would that look like a tea burst ? or just like a faded cherry burst?
Has anyone ever done a sunburst with shellac?


I glad to hear your opinions and experiences

 

[atj]

If I were you I'd take a scrap piece of maple and experiment with that and see where that leads you.

 

[TheX]

If I were you I'd take a scrap piece of maple and experiment with that and see where that leads you.

Always sound advice. I love shellac, but a lot of people seem to dislike it.

 

[Gianluca Caccavo]

applying shellac takes a lot of time and most people are looking for a cheap fast way sadly

 

[njk]

It may be possible but very very difficult, I think it looks great as is by the way. The problem with using shellac, as soon as you hit your colour with a top coat you will reactivate what's underneath, that will include your colour. Make your color much weaker than you think and build slowly.

 

[marijnsloth]

I have no experience with shellac, so can't help you with that. Sure look pretty though!

But I do have a question. Are you planning to use an alternative way of covering the cavities in the back?

 

[atj]

I don't wanna be a kill joy but FWIW I put a coat of shellac on the first guitar I ever built because I find any suppliers of nitro where I was living at the time. Later I decided to strip the shellac of the guitar and put nitro on it, it sounded much much better. It kind of came to life. I don't know if I'm just crazy but that was my experience, since then I think shellac is probably better suited for antique furniture then guitars. Just my 2 cents.

 

[D'tar]

shellac burst w/ thin nitro top coats.

 

[emoney]

I can't tell you anything about shellac, but it would stand to reason that if you want to achieve
an "Iced Tea Burst", then somewhere in the mix will need to be at least a smidgeon of brown.
Yellow and red make orange....yellow and orange make red. Iced tea has brown in it.

That's a good question, above, by the way about your control cavities. Have you thought about
cutting a ledge for the covers to sit on or is there another route?

 

[Gianluca Caccavo]

alright folks thanks for your adds

I didn't make a sunburst because I was not able to achieve it with shellac so I made a butterscotch like finish and here it is finished playable and I'm so proud of my first build

Please let me know your opinion on it

 

[LtDave32]

Nice job!

 

[badly drawn les]

I tried shellac on my 'burst, for the brown edge around yellow aniline centre. Didn't look great on samples & difficult to spray, gun kept clogging up.

 

[Gianluca Caccavo]

I tried shellac on my 'burst, for the brown edge around yellow aniline centre. Didn't look great on samples & difficult to spray, gun kept clogging up.

I tried to spray shellac as well and you have to mix it very very light about 3/4 alcohol to get a good result

 

[njk]

Looks great, like a very faded burst

 

[Baylin]

My first two builds I used shellac with some interesting if unexpected results because I didn't allow for the colour of the shellac. It is a pain stakingly long process yet well worth it. I love the feel of shellac when it's finished.

 

[houston]

Very nice! But still wondering how you did the back covers? And I'm curious, why lacquer the headstock?

 

[Gianluca Caccavo]

Very nice! But still wondering how you did the back covers? And I'm curious, why lacquer the headstock?

because I used holly wood on the headstock I don't like this ugly fiber material

 

[Bill Hicklin]

French polish (shellac) burst:

 

[Gianluca Caccavo]

French polish (shellac) burst:

amazing!! did you use stew mac liquid color stains?

 

[Bill Hicklin]

amazing!! did you use stew mac liquid color stains?

Behlen/Mohawk powdered dye stain, IIRC Vandyke Brown. The yellow is the deep-amber shellac itself.

The nice thing about French polish is that the dark goes on in just a very delicate shading, and you can build it up as much or as little as you want.

Here's another, in the central medallion: