After letting the burst dry for a bit, i determined I wanted to do a bit more…

1. I wanted the perimeter a bit darker red.
2. I wanted to fix the dark spots near the controls

I sanded the dark spots a bit and took care of them pretty much. Then I sprayed more red. I got the edge looking like I wanted to, but I added a couple more “apprentice marks” that add character (as the wife calls it). I’m still happy with the results. Remember I’ve never painted a guitar before, let alone sprayed a burst.

The ugly spot is near the 3-way switch, and there are a couple dots here and there.

It looks less orange in person.

Today is the day to spray the burst. I was super nervous about it looking shitty. Spoiler, it came out pretty good.

The paint I bought is a cherry red sunburst finishing kit from stewmac.

I wanted to spray the top first, so I masked off the sides with blue tape.

Then I sprayed the top amber.

Next came the cherry red.

I tried the ber and red lacquer put on a piece of maple I had. It looks pretty cool!

I sprayed all the wood parts that will be painted with sanding sealer. This fills the grain up with a thick coat of stuff that can be sanded off level. This makes a good base to paint on and prevents a ton of lacquer from absorbing into the wood.

I found another gap in the headstock that needed to be filled with epoxy and sawdust.

The mahogany wood on the guitar body and guitar neck needs to be filled to smooth it out a bit (to make the painting easier).

I used a product made specifically for this and mahogany wood.

I also filled a chip in the ebony with some epoxy mixed with epoxy sanding dust.

I got some new knobs. They go to 11. They are 1 louder.

The ebony plate glued on nicely, there are some gaps that need to be filled though.

Now it’s time to add the “camel toe” shape to the headstock. I dew put a shape on a manilla folder and then transferred it to some blue tape.

I cut the shape out with my dovetail saw, chisels, and some rasps. A file, card scraper, and some sandpaper finished it up.

The guitar kit has a solid mahogany neck, but I wanted to have a ebony plate like the originals have. I needed to plane the headstock down a bit to make room for the 1/16″ ebony plate.

So I won an Amazon gift card and bought a guitar kit with it. The guitar kit is a clone of a Les Paul (based on the late 50’s model.

The kit comes with everything needed to build a guitar. The neck is nearly complete and only needs to have the headstock shaped. The body is complete. Only some final fitting, light sanding, finishing, assembly is required.

The body is mahogany (or something like it) with a tiger maple veneer on top.

I’m going to paint it a cherry red sunburst like the original one from 1958.

I’ve never done this before.