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Ok, so I did my first sunburst on the weekend.

The sunburst worked out great. I used water base analine dyes. I taped off the binding with painter's tape. And of course, I got bleeding of the dye onto the binding.

Just wondering if there is a good way to avoid this.

It did occur to me this morning (after the fact of course) that I could shellac the bindings, apply the dye and then remove the shellac with lacquer thinner.

Would that work?

Any other ideas?

Thanks
Neil

I've never done a burst, so take my advice for what it's worth, but I'd cover the binding with shellac and then just sand them back. It takes but a few strokes of high grit to remove shellac. I wouldn't trust thinner near my newly applied burst. You could probably even keep the shellac on there (if it's 100% dewaxed) and you could apply your favorite finish over it.

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I'd like to be able to prove, just for once, that money wouldn't make me happy...

It is normal to have to scrape bindings after staining or spraying colored finish. Single edge razor blades work well, you hold them in such a way that your fingers or thumb act as a guide to avoid scraping too deep into the part that is supposed to be colored.

It is tricky buisiness the first few time you do it, and it takes some practice to do a neat job. If you go much slower than you think you should, you might avoid driving yourself crazy from scraping through the color where you shouldnt.

Masking tape never seems to mask everything perfectly when staining or spraying color coats.

If you are using curly maple bindings, or some other light color wood bindings/purfs, they can soak up a lot of stain, making it a real drag to clean them up without thinning them or making them lumpy. So sealing them first is a good idea.

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Jordan Aceto
Ithaca, NY

Apologies for the crummy pictures, but see how my middle finger is bearing against the side or top, that is what controls how deeply i scrape.

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Jordan Aceto
Ithaca, NY

Before you spray the color coat, spray one coat of clear on the tape. This seals the tape edge and then the color coat can't bleed under.

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Dean

Jordan, My scraping technique is to pinch the razor blade between my thumb and idex finger, holding the digits vertically over the top (or back) of the razor blade. This gives me two points of contact for the side and the blade is held very securely.

I scrape with the end of a narrow card scraper. Since the scraper is only about an inch and a half tall, and since it has a burr rather than a razor edge, I can wrap my index finger around it, with the thumb in front, and use the index finger simultaneously for a depth guide.

OP: are you using a water based finish? Water based anilines do not bleed badly under nitro lacquer.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

I don't know how well it would work on wood, but instead of masking tape, you may try fine line tape by 3M. It it used when laying down stripes on cars. The color still may wick under however and you'd be back to carefully scraping.

Darrin

Those razor blades dull pretty fast. I have a scraper which is a chunk of an old plane iron, which I sharpen like other plane irons, and it stays sharp much longer. I also wrapped a few rounds of masking tape on it for comfort, and I hold it pretty much as Barry describes (I think). I've seen pictures of binding scrapers that had a cutout that would fit exactly over the binding, allowing you to scrape both its top and side surface at the same time, or so they said. I'm not sure how well that works in practice, for one thing I know my bindings are never exactly uniform in dimension after levelling and sanding.

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

Did the razor blade thing last night. Worked like a charm.

Thanks all

Neil