Creating a Gibson-ish Antique Cherry Finish on a Solid Body Guitar

I was asked to finish an SG- style solid body with an antique cherry, or vintage cherry, lacquer. This ended up requiring multiple steps to get the result I was looking for. First there was grain filling with dark filler, followed by a few sprays with cherry red lacquer, next was a light coat of antiqued lacquer and finally, multiple clear coats. The results was a gorgeous finish that was very close to the reference color I had been using.

[@Stringsmith]

I have the antique cherry SG, popularized by Angus Young in the 80s.
You absolutely nailed it. Looks great and thanks for sharing.

[@zimnickiguitars311]

@@Stringsmith thank you very much!

[@markboreen3359]

That's a gorgeous looking guitar. Many thanks for posting, I really enjoyed this.

[@zimnickiguitars311]

@markboreen3359 thank you so much!

[@jonahguitarguy]

It's a beauty!

[@zimnickiguitars311]

Thank you!

[@guitarsofold100]

Thank you for this I did some reading on the application ! They suggest sealing the timber with shellac to prevent blotchy patches
Violin makers use gelatin to achieve the seal barrier ....

[@zimnickiguitars311]

@guitarsofold100 yes, some people do seal with shellac. The method I used worked well for me. Thanks for watching.

[@kenmckay194]

It looks great Gary.

[@zimnickiguitars311]

Thanks very much, Ken!

[@simpleone1989]

Beautiful! I guess even within Gibson there can be variations in tints of cherry red.

[@zimnickiguitars311]

Yes, there probably are some subtle variations, especially50 yearsago when mechanization and quality control weren't quite as advanced. Thanks for watching.

[@klinej54]

3:22 "No doubt about it, I'm going to need another hat".

[@zimnickiguitars311]

I knew you'd get it!

[@2dazetake]

I finished a guitar with food coloring, I used blue and a little green and was surprised how good it works, maybe you could use red and do an SG with it,wow that filler is dark, hopefully the grain shows thru, you did a great job on that SG, didn't expect it to lighten up.

[@zimnickiguitars311]

Thanks for watching, I'm glad you liked it.

[@malcolmhouse9547]

Looks great to me 👌

[@zimnickiguitars311]

Thanks

[@jordimateubartroli951]

You can make a swimming pool of that routing!

[@harpethguitar]

😍 Beautiful 😍

[@zimnickiguitars311]

Thank you!

[@oliviermilani3949]

Wow it looks GREAT! I have water based grain filler. Will the result be similar? I mean, will it stain the wood aswell like yours? On my project I want to have a darker cherry. Darker than just the laquer (i will use heritage cherry laquer in spray can). What do you think?

[@zimnickiguitars311]

I don't have any experience with water based Fillers, so I really cannot sat what the result will be, sorry.