#26 The Brown Burst — tyson hand-did

Sometimes builds just go as smooth as butter on biscuits. Sometimes they fight back. Sometimes they fight, kick and scratch just like a big white dog. This one fought me like two big white dogs.

This one began back in August of 2022 when Robert A. said, “I want an all mahogany guitar…” It has been a while since I built an all mahog. Over the next several weeks we sent emails back and forth getting the build all planned out. Robert had been thinking about this one for a while so he already knew what he was looking for. It all sounded great. Except for one line item: brown sunburst. We’ll come back to that…

This is how it all starts…. very un-guitarish

This one is my larger body style - like a modified dreadnought. Most of it is stuff that I have done before with a couple of “new” elements: 1) the upper hand bevel and 2) the abalone purfling. I have done the upper bevel before, but this one has more of an organic shape and feel. I have also used the abalone for rosettes in the past, but this one has it all the way around the top. Very blingy.

We decided to go with black hardware. These are Gotoh 510s - some of the best tuning machines on the market. They have a high gear ratio and are super smooth.

For the fretboard and the bridge I used Royal Blackwood - a new, sustainable replacement for Ebony. Luthier’s Mercantile says, “Royal Blackwood is created using a proprietary torrefaction process that renders natural hardwood pure black, retaining the wood's natural grain and workability.” I really dig this stuff.

As with most of my recent builds, I make all solid linings to increase the surface area along the sides that the top and back glue to. The process of ripping the 1.5mm strips from spanish cedar, bending them to the side form, laminating them in place, and finally gluing them in place takes about a whole day of work. But this is one of those “small” changes that makes a big difference in the volume and tone of the instrument.

You can see the solid linings here along with the bracing and support for the arm bevel.

The bracing on this one is standard ladder bracing on the back and my basic “radial” bracing on the top. Since the top on this one is mahogany and a bit stiffer than normal, I could brace it a little more lightly. Also, I seal the interior of the guitar with shellac add a little extra barrier against the humidity.

Now let’s talk about that burst…. As you can see in the pics above, Mahogany is a nice light brown wood. You would think that making a brown burst finish would be easy, right? Well so did I. But then I discovered that when I applied my shellac for the top finish - which is amber - the dyes would turn too red.

Color theory to the rescue… I knew that is something is too red you can add green to make it more brown. So I laid down a wash of black that had a slight green undertone and eventually everything worked together.

A coat of black applied and sanded back to fill the grain. You can also see the inner workings of my adjustable action neck joint.

Now that all sounds easy-peasy. What I will not detail here is the process of putting down the dye and then removing it 8 times before I figured out what I was doing. Success is the result of traveling the path of failure. In the end, I was very pleased with the way it all came together. And so was Robert and that is all that really matters.

We also installed a K&K Pure Mini pickup that I didn’t get pics of.

As I said at the beginning, this one fought me at every turn - most of it due to my stupid, careless mistakes. In the end #26 turned out to be a real nice, unique addition to the family.

Just look at the bad boy… Now he gonna fight, kick and scratch like a big brown dog.