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Turbo,
This is not an easy subject for me to explain on the web. So many people on this forum do such a great job of putting into words what they do and how they do it that I feel that this wont measure up but I will try.
If you want to stain the guitar then do that first. You might want a light stain on the mahogany before you do a burst or you might not. I like to stain mahogany lightly with a mix of 2 parts light walnut stain and 1 part mahogany stain mixed together with some reducer until I think it is light enough. I did an electric that was almost exactly like you have described and when I stained it then put on a black burst it looked real old-school and cool. I think the black on light mahogany might look strange.
If I were you I would go ahead and fill the guitar with epoxy or whatever you want to use then seal the guitar before you start on the burst. I would spray the black on the sides. I normally mix the color into sealer instead of topcoat. If you want to fade the top and back into a burst then I would tape the top and back off and spray the sides on day one. Just cut some newspaper to the shape of your guitar and tape it onto the top and back. Take your time and make sure your tape edge is perfectly on the corner of the guitar. After you put on your color, I would go ahead and spray your normal day one schedule over the color (3-4 coats) on the sides. If you have binding you should tape them off or get ready to scrape them. I tape off bindings and such with 3M FineLine tape, it comes in a few different widths. I use the 1/4 and 1/8 normally. On day two, I would sand the sides to start making the finish flat, but dont go through. Then I would tape off the sides and spray the burst on the top and back, again taping off the bindings if you have them. If your sides are all the way black, then you might not have to tape off the sides when you spray the top and back because the overspray wont hurt the color on the sides.
On an electric I think your sunburst shape is dependant on the shape of your guitar. You can go a couple of ways but the easiest is probably to follow the outline of the guitar. If you have a cutaway on the guitar then I normally just sort of leave it out like there was not a cutaway and just make the pattern the same on both sides. I normally do a three color sunburst, but you seem to just want to do a one (or two if you stain the mahogany) color burst. The key to the burst, I think, is the fade from bare wood to color. I try to spray my black color so that it is only completely black for about 1/8 to 1/4 of an inch around the edge and fading to clear for about 2 inches or so. Get a small spraygun, like a touchup gun (I use a badger) to do the burst.
The fade is achieved through a combination of feathering the trigger and varying the distance of the gun to the guitar. This is a hard thing to describe on the internet. I dont use the full trigger pull on my gun while I do a burst. I use light coats, and go around the edge of the guitar several times making light passes until it builds up to the color and fade that I want. You want to spray inside out, so that the overspray is going off the edge of the guitar. While I am spraying, I dont put the whole spray on the guitar. Imagine that half of the pattern of spray from the gun is going off the edge of the guitar and only half is hitting the guitar.
The black I use is a mix of the StewMac black pigment in a tube that I thin down with some reducer and then add to my sealer. The mix is about 30 mL of the black pigment (get the one that is soluble in waterbased finish) and about 80 mL alcohol to thin it down and add it to about 500 mL of sealer. This is probaly way too much for one burst so you can break it down for your use (15 ml black, 40 ml alcohol, 250 ml sealer?). Make enough so that you dont have to remake it, sometimes when you remake the color it comes out different for no good reason.
Let me know if I can explain any of this more clearly, I am not that good at this, andif this helps at all. Remember that it is just finish, if you mess up you can always sand it off. I am sorry I am so rambling.
HomeboyHomeboy39024.0074768519
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