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Help...... I want to create a Gibson Style Sunburst on a 1953 ES125. I was lucky enough to get a luthiers special at the GAL event and now I need to restore it. It needs a headstock repair and a refinish. I would really love to get this back to looking original. Has anyone found a really good tutorial on how to create the Gibson Style ES burst? Is it a hand wiped burst or sprayed with tinted lacquer?

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It is tinted lacquer and it is quite an art to get it right. Best of luck!

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Jeff Jewitt shows in his course about doing sunburst that the Gibson vintage burst has a pigment outer instead of dye. The darkest color being a mix of brown and black pigment with the center being a dye mix of amber and brown.

If you don’t have his video course already I highly recommend it.

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I have done a number of Gibson Bursts on Gibsons and non-Gibsons.

The thing to know is that Even Gibson didn't have a "standard" for doing bursts so almost every one you look at is done differently including colors. They didn't have a set standard for most of what they did so there's that...

I restored a Gibson CF 100 a few years back and posted the resto in the repair secton.

Here is the link on the page where I start the burst (its a few posts down from the top.



https://luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10137&t=46629&p=629843#p629843



This should give you a pretty good idea of how its done. And probably the most important part about applying it over 2 or 3 coats of clear.

Hope this helps,

Cheers,
Bob

Great info guys. Doing a sunburst and having it turn out nice is a little daunting. I'm just now figuring my finish game out after a few years of trial and error and that's with clear lacquer. I'll prob get Jeff Dewitt's finish video but it might be worth it to actually pay him to teach me in person.

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Brad are you referring to the finish class on Robbie's Online courses?

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There is a class specific to burst - https://obrienguitars.com/courses/sunburst

It’s really good, I used it to do a lot of experiments over the winter and plan to burst the 00 I’m working on now.

Here is a thread with some of my experiments including the Gibson. I basically did a top for each of Jeff’s recipes to try to understand it fully.

viewtopic.php?t=55396

Let me know how I can help!

Brad


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David no one does bursts as well as vintage Gibson and it's my absolute favorite look for a guitar. Characteristically the vintage ones had at times very small blond patches shaped like a big pick with more black areas. It's a great look!

Sunbursts are a challenge and a lot of fun to do. It’s all off the gun. Practice on some wood. Tinted lacquer. Avoid the rattle cans. They drip and spit. Good gun. Patience. I use Mohawk lacquer and stewmac color tone dyes

This was done freehand, with a good gun. (Owner sat on it, total restore)

Nice looking sunburst Mike. I just put an oder of 10 1A tops to practice on.

Mike which colors did you go with? That looks like a pretty decent match up to the Gibson colors.

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Nice job Mike!

That’s a tobacco burst. Back and sides and neck are black. I may have burst the neck (tobacco brown and black). But top is vintage amber, then tobacco brown, then black. I taped the sides of the binding, scraped the top of the binding.

I also know a good decal guy.

Mike thanks for the info. please email me your decal guy. Ive used Uncle Nerky but am always open to new resources.

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One of the best descriptions I've seen of the traditional (Loar era) hand applied Gibson burst is in Roger Siminoff's book on building bluegrass mandolins. I followed it when I built mine

Just thought I'd show a couple of sunbursts I have done. They were sprayed on with transtint in EM6000...

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Look who's buying the Roger Siminoff book lol

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Steve nice looking sunbursts

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David, you need to remember that there are two ways of doing the Gibson style sunburst. The Siminoff/Loar method is hand applied stains directly onto the wood, James Condino did a seminar at one of the GAL conferences some years go about the technique.

The second method is tinted finishes sprayed onto the instrument, which is how modern finishers do it.

Freeman thanks for the info. I think I'll try both methods.

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Nice work. I follow Siminoff's stuff.

Well... he is one of those ebay guys. For some reason on several projects, he decided to contact me directly. So I now deal with as such. But, he asked that I not give out his info (because of ebay rules). I will locate his ebay address and you can take it from there. Develop a relationship like I did. But I have to respect his wishes. Or I could get them for u. He is THAT good.

Mike