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Okay, it's not an acoustic, but it was a kit ;) Below are photos of the Bull Dog Les Paul kit I recently completed. I finally got the pick guard and back plates installed a week ago. I am still waiting on a backordered '59 Les Paul truss rod cover--actually been waiting about two months.

I talked about the finish process elsewhere, but I'll run through it briefly here. The base yellow, red, and wine were applied by hand using Transtint dyes in water. I then shot a couple of coats of clear and followed up with deeper reds and almost black wine tints in EM1000. After shooting the color coats, I added some amber tint to some EM6000 and shot two coats then finished up with a bunch of clear coats.

The back and neck were pore filled with red tinted pore o pac then stained with red mahogany stain amped up with more red.

As you can see, the pickups are Seymour Duncan. The neck is a Jazz with a Pearly Gates in the bridge. I wired it to vintage spec rather than the modern Gibson style. The vintage wiring completely delinks the volume controls once one knob is just a touch off full. And to really rock the house, I put on volume knobs that go up to 11!

This was a really fun diversion. Not that acoustics aren't fun, but I do love to play electrics. I think there might be a scratch built blue burst Tele in my future some time!









Thanks for looking!

Ken

HOT DOG!
Ken, is your middle name Gibson?
Excellent once again.
HOT DOG!

Kevin

Wow!

Another beauty Ken. Love the 'burst. Can you share some more details on how you did it?

how many r's in purrrdddy?

That is really really nice. Dang.

tippie53 wrote:how many r's in purrrdddy?

Not enough! MAN! Ken that's truly awesome. Yes, please give great details on doing that sunburst. Someone else did one recently, I think John Parchem, and I'm falling in love with the idea of an LP kit build, wanting a sunburst just like that. What kit company? Get it from John?
Wow again!
Bob

Ken C wrote: And to really rock the house, I put on volume knobs that go up to 11!

A reference to my favourite movie of all time.... Here's the quote, pasted from IMDB:

Nigel Tufnel: The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and...
Marty DiBergi: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten?
Nigel Tufnel: Exactly.
Marty DiBergi: Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder?
Nigel Tufnel: Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?
Marty DiBergi: I don't know.
Nigel Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
Marty DiBergi: Put it up to eleven.
Nigel Tufnel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder.
Marty DiBergi: Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?
Nigel Tufnel: [pause] These go to eleven.

I need a set of those knobs.... where did you get them?? (or are you just messin' with us?)

Beautiful work.

That's a beauty!

Thanks Guys! I appreciate the feedback!

Bruce, the knobs that go to 11 are legit. Funny to read the blurb from Nigel again. I really need to get a hold of Spinal Tap and watch it again! You can get the knobs from AllParts. They have the hat knobs and speed knobs that go up to 11 so you can get more volume out of any guitar ;) Kind of novelty item, but the knobs are great quality and a fun addition.

Regarding the burst process, I started by spritzing the top with water to raise the grain. When it dried, I sanded. I then repeated the process again. I did this as I would be using Transtint dyes diluted in water, and I didn't want the grain raising as I dyed the top. James Condino demonstrates how to do a burst by hand on Fine Woodworking's website. I used a similar process to lay down a base coat of yellow, followed by red, then a deep wine mixed with red.

Once the hand tinting was done, I shot a couple of coats of Target's EM1000 sanding sealer. This is a fairly new product by Target Coatings. It is very clear and can be used as a color carrier. Because it is clear like water, mixing tints to tone is a bit more friendly as the mixture is easier to see. I first shot the two clear coats as I wanted something between my hand tinting and the sprayed color coats in case I screwed up with the spray gun and wanted to sand back. I mixed up some red with a touch of wine and black and shot the perimeter with the spray coming out so light it was practically dry when hitting the guitar. I then added more wine and black and shot even closer to the edge. Again I added more black and hit the very edge, being careful not to get these very dark colors too far in. I wanted the grain to be visible almost to the very edge. The colors went down great, and I didn't have to redo anything. Because these color coats were shot so light, the finish had a rough sandpapery type texture.

The colors were very bright. Looked cool, but I didn't want them that vibrant. My bindings were also white, which really seemed out of place. So I added some amber color to some EM6000 and shot two coats, tinting the whole guitar. This gave the bindings more of an aged look, so they better matched the cream pup rings and pickguard, and the amber also took the edge off the colors, giving them a warmer glow. I also like what the amber did to the red stained B&S. I think the red is a ringer for a 59 LP burst. Over the amber tinted EM6000, I shot another half dozen coats of clear before I leveled everything and started building up clear coats.

The end result is pretty close to what I was after. A couple of months ago I purchased Iwanade's Beauty of The Burst, which has photos of dozens of 1959 Les Paul guitars. I thumbed through that book almost nightly, looking at pictures and getting a reference of what I wanted to do. In the end, I decided I wanted to do a burst that may look like something that would have come out of the Gibson factory 50 years ago rather than approximate what a faded burst looks like today. I don't care much for the bursts that look like a tear drop template was laid over the guitar and the color sprayed around the perimeter. I wanted the color to follow the contours around the body.

Bob, the kit is from Bull Dog Bodies. I didn't buy it from them. I found it from a guy who had purchased it, did some work on it, then got bored with it and decided to sell. The price was right, so I purchased it just so I could do the burst. I have a '57R Goldtop and always wanted a sunburst. This gave me a chance to do one without investing a lot of time and money. I don't know how these kits come from the factory. This one was already bound and the fingerboard was inlaid and fretted. The maple top is a veneer, but is very nice. The back is three piece mahogany, which varied a lot in color, but I was able to even out with the stain. The neck was dead straight. I had a lot of clean up to do with the bindings, and I needed to fill a lot of pockets in the mahogany end grain and around the bindings. The neck tenon was too small for the mortise, so I had to build that out, and the headstock was sort of buggered up, so I had to recut the scallop about a 1/16" lower on the headstock. But it cleaned up nicely, and the end result is a really great playing and sounding guitar, all for about $450 and a little bit of time, actually much less than building an acoustic!

Ken