# Les Paul "Faded" Finish



## THRobinson (Jun 29, 2014)

While back when L&M had Gibson month, I saw a Honeyburst Faded I wanted but, saw the price tag and pee'd a little. Still... nice guitar.

Had a faded finish, not satin exactly, but rather looked like they sprayed it lightly with a sanding sealer coat of poly... satin and textured and barely covered everything. Felt nice though, even on the neck where I thought the texture would bother me. 

I'm not a very good player so $2700 was too much for me, but I do like making and fixing/modding so was thinking of grabbing an Epi or LP copy and making it into what I wanted. 

I came across an Agile Al-3000 that I plan on buying. I have a pair of AL-2000's that I love playing, and an AL-3000 is an upgrade from those. Plus bonus, I dislike the colour. 

Plan is, buy it, strip to bare wood, and go from there. 

So looking for a bit of advise before I even touch the finish on it.... mainly because if won't work, then Pelham Blue it is. 

Agile's have a full cap, not veneer, so should be able to strip it down and remove the colour without going through a veneer. Once down to wood... what's next? I've seen posts where people say stain the wood, seen some that say if you stain direct to wood it's hard to keep it even and not blotchy, seal first then stain. Some mentioned seal it up, sand it and airbrush the burst on, etc... 

I'm after this colour/finish.

Then I guess next question... what to finish with?

Part of me wants to oil it... not sure how that works in terms of sealer or staining though. Until now I've only ever done solid colour finishes with car paints. I do like how the oil finishes look, I hear they feel good for the neck as well.

Part of me wants that faded satin/textured finish on that Les Paul. 

Any advice on how to do those finishes? Maybe the 'how' will determine which way I go. 

Again... just in research mode now, looking for some feedback and maybe links for how-to's etc... I kinda like to have a plan sorted out before going into these projects.


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## knight_yyz (Mar 14, 2015)

You stain the guitar and sand. Dark stays in the grain. Then light color on top gives the curly maple look. For fading.... Leave it in the sun. 
Lots of videos on how to get the curly maple / tiger stripe to pop


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## THRobinson (Jun 29, 2014)

Mm... I think you misunderstood what the 'faded' look is on the Les Paul. It's not the colour, it's the finish itself.... instead of a thick polished layer of nitro/poly, it's a super thin (barely there) dusting of clear coat. Actually has a texture to it. 

Vid wise... saw a few good ones, but again, different people different methods. Few said stain direct, some said seal/sand then stain else may be blotchy.

Seller's being a bit stingy with details. I swear, some people when selling stuff just have no sales/social skills.  Though not what I thought it was. I thought an AL-3xxx series given the headstock inlay, but shape of headstock and inlay is from the original line-up of Agile guitars. Didn't know Agile's were that old. Specs are a bit tricky to source... really only want to do all this work if it's a 1/4" maple cap, not a 1/16" veneer. Again, not getting great responses... so gonna be hard to know if grover tuners or Korean junk. 

Still cheaper than a kit guitar since regardless how well it turns out, I'd have to buy all new hardware.


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## knight_yyz (Mar 14, 2015)

If the cap is maple you don't have to worry about blotching. Die it black, sand it then stain your favorite color. If it is ash you can use shoe polish to blacken the grain.


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## THRobinson (Jun 29, 2014)

Ash, I'll have to remember... still working on the workshop, but have a slab of live edge Ash waiting to get cut up. Grain too nice to paint over with a solid colour.


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## ezcomes (Jul 28, 2008)

just check the guitar first...only the guitars with an M at the end of the model have the full 3/4" cap; the rest are all veneers


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## knight_yyz (Mar 14, 2015)

With ash if you shoe polish the entire guitar you can wipe off the excess with your favorite Danish or Watco oil. It removes the excess and seals the stuff in the grain. I'll look for the video


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## THRobinson (Jun 29, 2014)

Ya I may pass based on the replies I'm getting... doesn't know age, doesn't know model, pickups were swapped but doesn't know to what... 

Will keep looking for a suitable donor though.

Bit disappointed though, my two AL-2000's when I got them, was told maple caps in one of the forums. After a bit of research I'm thinking 1/16" only.

One's pretty good, the other I don't care how thick it is, looks and plays great. Tried a few Agile's and it's really a hit/miss for consistency of those.


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## THRobinson (Jun 29, 2014)

knight_yyz said:


> With ash if you shoe posh the entire guitar you can wipe off the e, cess with your favorite Danish or Watco oil. It removes the excess and seals the stuff in the grain. I'll look for the video


I saw a video, sorta like what you're saying but a few extra steps.... they stained it solid black, then used an oil based pigment (silver) and used Danish oil to wipe it off with, leaving the guitar black and the stain silver. My nephew plays guitar, and I thought it would be cool when the shop is done, to build a pair of Telecasters since neither of us have one. Matching set with a bit of a heavy metal look to them.


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## knight_yyz (Mar 14, 2015)

I'm home now so I can answer a few things better now. 

Just in case... With maple or any wood really, how deep the stain/dye penetrates is dependent on hardness of wood and the finish sanding. 220 will soak up more dye than 800 grit. With maple if you sanded to 1000 grit and tried to dye it, it probably wouldn't work. LOL 
Some people use a sealer before for the same reason. Especially soft woods. Pine doesn't like stain or dye, it blotches up. Seal it then stain you get a much more even color. 

On to the shoe polish (patinating wax) on ash trick


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## knight_yyz (Mar 14, 2015)

also look up ceruse body blank if you like black on black


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## THRobinson (Jun 29, 2014)

Ceruse... that's it... knew it had a name.

Sadly with my back issues and winter here, the basement workshop cleanup and rebuild has been taking longer than hoped. Really eager to finish a few projects and get them outta my hair and start building guitars from scratch. Then I can play around more with finishes and stains. Again, until now, I've only used solid colour automotive finishes. Which came out great, but, if the wood has a nice grain and 1 single piece, I can't cover it up. 

Solid colour finishes are what I'll do with my scraps after I glue them together for blanks.


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## tomee2 (Feb 27, 2017)

I would suggest you buy a faded Gibson Studio. Thin satin nitro finish.


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## nnieman (Jun 19, 2013)

I got this finish with dye, shellac and a Canadian tire spray gun.
It still needs to be sanded smooth.

Nathan


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## THRobinson (Jun 29, 2014)

tomee2 said:


> I would suggest you buy a faded Gibson Studio. Thin satin nitro finish.


Kinda defeats the point of a building/mod forum if the answer is to just buy something already done. 

Plus, did they make a honeyburst faded studio with binding and trapezoids inlays? I think maybe with trapezoids a while back, but probably worth well over a grand.

If I'm looking at stripping a $200 guitar down to make one, $1000+ to buy one isn't an option.


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## tomee2 (Feb 27, 2017)

I thought you were looking to buy one new and then strip it down, which is maybe $450US plus shipping, at which point a used $700CAN faded Studio looks promising, to me at least. If you can get an Agile for $200 go for it.


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## THRobinson (Jun 29, 2014)

No, like I said I saw the faded Les Paul in the store, which was $2700CAD and no way I'm paying that for a guitar. 

Plan was to get a good donor, strip it down and make a faded finish.

Agile's are a good base, but for all that work I'd want a solid cap not veneer. Hard enough to go through all that poly finish without worrying about going through a 1/16" thick veneer. 

Found a semi-gutted Epiphone, 60's Tribute model which may be a good donor for the price. Just waiting to hear back. 

Faded studios are nice, but, if you saw the photo I linked to, I'm after a honeyburst with the trapezoid inlays and cream binding. I'm a very specific person for that stuff. 

I have a PRS kit guitar right now to work on as well. Debated maybe a similar kit for a Les Paul. Mine was a cheap eBay China kit, and had a few issues with getting it (long story) but the body itself is pretty nice and has a 6mm thick maple cap. I didn't want bookmatched tigerstripe or anything so, can easy see its a 2-piece, but, still, pretty decent solid build.

The neck... is where the trouble happened. First neck was obviously cracked in 2 places, glued THEN finsihed. They sent a 2nd neck, which didn't fit as well (go figure, set necks are usually made with the body to match) and they sent the wrong neck. I ordered the unfretted one because wanted to use Gold EVO frets. So... neck is nice, needs a hair shaved off the sides to fit the body, but now stuck doing a refret on a new neck. :S


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## Silvertone (Oct 13, 2018)

I'm not sure what you mean by "faded"? The picture in your first post is what I would call a highly flamed maple top with a mostly transparent finish. It may have had some yellow stain and amber clear coats but there is nothing faded from my understanding of the word. Generally faded means a burst, from opaque on the outside to non-existing in a gradient towards the inside of varying widths. IMO the fading would be how that burst finish fades over time with exposure to light.

The original bursts used aniline dyes which faded to different degrees. Some bursts completely disappeared and others changed to different colours giving us all the different colours for re-issues like iced tea, bourbon, lemon, tobacco etc etc. The originals were all cherry sunbursts, to my knowledge.

You would have to find a highly figured solid topped guitar to re-finish, which may be difficult as generally those would not be the cheap ones. good luck.

Cheers Peter.


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## THRobinson (Jun 29, 2014)

Not sure how else to describe it.

At L&M they had a Gibson Les Paul, one of those limited runs sold only through L&M and was called a Gibson Faded Honeyburst.

There was one similar (same finish, different stock pickups and maybe chambering) back in 2016 as well.

As I mentioned, instead of a thick heavy polished coat of nitro or poly like you see on other guitars, or a thick heavy coat of satin, this guitar looked and felt like they used a satin nitro and did 1 or 2 dusting sprays of it. Barely looked like it was enough to fully cover the guitar, and you could feel/see the small specs/drops of finish on the guitar. 

Some forums/reviews said they were better for tone because the finish was so much thinner the resonance of the wood wasn't muted by the finish.... blah blah blah... it may, but highly doubt anyone can hear the difference anyways. Every guitar is slightly different, so how could you tell?

Anyways, the textured satin finish looked and felt great, even on the neck. 

Sadly, I have a photo I took but not close-up enough to show it off. 

If I were to guess, I'd say it was a satin nitro first coat, fine spray and 'just' enough to cover. Then a 2nd coat of satin nitro with a medium/coarse spray dusted on as well. If I were to do it, since no spray booth setup (yet) I guess I'd have to use rattle cans and buy fine/coarse nozzles for it.


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## Silvertone (Oct 13, 2018)

I believe this is just a regular satin nitro finish. All of the vintage bursts had a very thin coat of lacquer for exactly that reason. Just enough to be able to flat sand to a nice flat finish. What they are calling faded is the fact that there is a burst and it is very faded. It may be artificially faded, meaning they used aniline dyes as well and then put on some of the hardware and left out in the sun / or under UV lights to fade to make it look like it is old.

I think you are over thinking the spraying of that finish. It's just satin. It could even not be satin nitro. It could be regular nitro finish and once level sanded they just did not buff it and left it as not a super shiny finish. You could easily reproduce doing what I just mentioned.

All of these finishes are level sanded. They have to put enough finish on the guitar to be level sanded or there would be pits and irregularities which would be very shiny.

Regards Peter.


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## THRobinson (Jun 29, 2014)

I gotta say, Gibson's naming is confusing... I agree 'faded' to me would mean the colour. 

That said, a faded SG G-400 is the same colour as a regular SG G-400, the only difference is the satin finish.

And, the satin finish on an SG or Studio Les Paul, was nothing at all like the textured satin finish of the Les Paul in my photo.

They need to do a better job with names/descriptions. 

Bummer though, checking Mohawk/Behlen, and the instrument lacquer only seems to come in Gloss, not Satin. I guess Poly wins again.


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## Silvertone (Oct 13, 2018)

THRobinson said:


> I gotta say, Gibson's naming is confusing... I agree 'faded' to me would mean the colour.
> 
> That said, a faded SG G-400 is the same colour as a regular SG G-400, the only difference is the satin finish.
> 
> ...


You can do a satin finish with the gloss. Just do not buff it. You could also hit it with steel wool to make it a satin finish. You could go old school as well and use something like Minwax wipe on poly satin finish. It would look great it is hand rubbed and dries very quickly. I did a Tru Oil finish on my last build and I wished I did wipe on poly.

It's all about the prep of the wood before finish regardless of the finish you use.

Cheers Peter.


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## THRobinson (Jun 29, 2014)

I've wanted to do an oil finish for a long time, but the guitars I've finished so far have all been stripped Squier's and such so, never grain worthy enough to warrant an oil finish, usually ugly and multiple planks of wood so, automotive finishes for those. 

I like the looks of the tung oils guitars I've seen done up... and can get a nice satin sheen, but not that texture. Almost like that flecktone paint but not as extreme.

Once I get the shop done and I'm back to working on guitars, I have plans to do a pair of telecasters with that ceruse effect and oil finished. As well as a Springer Halfbreed copy, and also likely oil or satin poly. Overall, I'm not a fan of glossy or chrome stuff. Not a fan of the shiny stuff.


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