mandolin sunburst staining

[Rodney Smith]

I've built a couple of mandolins but haven't been happy with the staining results, how is it done?

[Ned Knepp]

How do YOU do it?

[Pierre-Antoine Roiron]

For a black red yellow sunburst, I stain the wood with yellow, seal it with a clear coat, spray a red burst, seal it and then spray a black coat. Then it's time for clear coats. You can't achieve a sunburst with only staining. Tell us how do you make it, maybe someone could give you an advice.

[Rodney Smith]

thanks for your insite, the 1st mandolin I built was a yellow base stain, liquid pigment and alcohol, sealer followed by lacquer tint. It was ok but very 1 dimentional, no pop from the curly maple. The next mando I tried to stain the sunburst
with the same type of stain and it bled all the way through the wood also no pop from the maple. Is there a better stain base to use rather than alcohol?

[Russell Vance]

Hello Rodney,

What do you mean by liquid pigment? Anything that makes the finish opaque will tend shield the figure coming out - even in the burst components but especially in the base yellow wash coat. I use the same sort of schedule as Pierre (as most of us do) and use metal based dyes rather than analine/spirit based dyes (ease of use and colorfast). Don't forget the inter layer plain lacquer 'sealer coats'- they provide extra depth to the burst appearance and also allow for revision of overshoots when applying the layers. Depth of figure is also dependent on the initial grade of figure in the wood (just to state the obvious but it needs to be said).
Rusty.

[Rodney Smith]

thanks for the advise, the liquid pigment that I referred to is the color tone liquid stains from stew mac, sounds like there may be something better to use? What about the guys who don't use lacqer, the spirit varnishes?

[Ned Knepp]

Maybe it a dumb question but are you spraying the burst or trying to wipe it on? I've seen a couple of wiped on burst but they didn't work very well. It's just too hard to feather the edges by hand.

Ned

[Rodney Smith]

wiped it on, won't do that again

[Pierre-Antoine Roiron]

You'll have to spray the burst.
For the initial yellow staining, you can wipe. If you want to enhance the wood contrast, you can do it the "PRS way" : try an amber stain, sand it until there's almost nothing left and then stain with the yellow color. It kind of freezes the liveliness of the wood grain, but it gives a good contrast with "not outstanding" wood grades.
And as Russel says, don't forget some clear coats between the colors, it really deepens the whole thing (not sure if it's correct english).

[William F.Eden]

Start at Try an amber stain and go on from there as Pierre out lines it and you will have the best luck. Bill.''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

[Ned Knepp]

A lot of my finish work is touch up so I use an airbrush. It takes longer but it produces pretty good results and on an instrument the size of a mandolin refilling it isn't too much of a hassle. One thing that seems obvious but gets missed sometimes is to make sure you mix enough of the different colors to do the whole job.

I keep yellow, red, dark brown and black dye already made up for touch up work. I had bottles of them for years and still work just fine. They are all aniline/alcohol based so I can usually mix and match almost any color I've needed for touch up.

Ned

[David Houchens]

I've been doing hand rubbed sunbursts for years. I stain the wood itself. It takes a few to learn to blend the colors so theres no cutoff lines. I prefer them to the sprayed on burst. Just personal preference.

[Rodney Smith]

Hi David, can you tell me a little about the products and techniques that you use for the hand rubbed stain/finish?