Building a PRS Style Guitar! - This One Had Me a Little Nervous!! 

Build time!! That dye was really fun to work with and I think turned out pretty good! Enjoy :)

Being a seasoned woodworker, I was cringing as I watched the staining process. I watch all your videos so the only thing I will say is PLEASE watch a few videos on staining and finishing. The finished product will go from just OK to WOW. Thanks for letting us see the build.

I built this kit about 2 years ago. I wanted the quilted one but had to settle for the flamed maple. Turned out really well and I ended up putting seymour duncan p-rails in it.

Small tip: before gluing up, check if the neck angle is right. Install the bridge. Place the neck on the body and place a ruler touching all the frets. The ruler should be just above the bridge (when it is in its minimal height). If the ruler is not above the bridge, you'll have really high action, and there won't be much you can do about it.

Nothing wrong with using a brush but you'll get better results using strips of cotton cloth folded into little pads to apply the stain. This applies especially to the figured wood on the top. If you're doing a burst, apply the colour you want to be in the center across the whole top first. Apply the outer colour second and work your way in towards the center colour. Use a circular motion to apply the stain and blend it into the center colour edge. If the overall colour is a bit dark you can lightly sand it back a bit. This will make the grain pop. Takes a bit of practice but the results will be worth it.

You still need to sand it back and probably another round of color. Smooth with steel wool. You also can't leave the body bare dyed wood. At a minimum you should use a rub on poly to seal it up. Watch Big D Guitars here on RU-vid to see how to properly dye and finish a bare body.

Something that works great for me, is an old tube sock instead of a brush. much smoother finish without the brush marks. works great with varnishes too!

Buillt a SG style , modified the headstock with horns, TUSQ nut, and all new hardware. Set neck a good fit, frets needs filing. Lots of work, but build the way you want. Purple is nice. Another in the works, ST style. All from Solo Music, great guys there.

A suggestion from a non-luthier, use a rag or cloth for the staining so you can use circular motions to get the stain into the grain of the guitar. Also, use a tinted grain filler first to make the flame/quilt pop!

In my best DBG voice " Yesssss!" I have never done a kit,..but your enthusiasm inspires. Thanks Darrell.

One major mistake is that you stained the back of the heel on the neck where it is to be glued to the body. You should never stain a surface that is to be glued, should have been bare wood for a better glue set up. You have created a barrier that could have the glue fail down the road. Also, always use a clean rag to apply stain, you will get much better results.

Hey Darrell, also wanted to thank you. About 1.5 years ago I came across one of your build vids which inspired me to start building. Since then I have done 6 builds already. Turns out it can be quite addictive. Thank you ! Luv your channel. Cheers V

"I've never owned a purple guitar before" *sees the purple guitar behind my head...🤣🤣🤣

In the middle of a p90 Les Paul kit,used rit bright red dye, turned out wine red, still happy,sealed with tung oil, turned out very nice

Darrell....I would say the areas where that water based stain would make the grain rise would be the end grain areas. This will usually be the case. That's why you didn't see any issues on the flat back of the neck or the top of the body. Great job! Loving it!

"deep purple" sounds like a great name for a band.

You’re like a kid in a candy shop…love your enthusiasm! Glad you went with the eggplant- am going to use that as well.

Glad you went with the purple. I have a purple burst PRS Paul Allender. 👍

PRS has a detailed video on how they do this . I’m sure plenty of pro builders have videos but PRS is very open about how they do things. Next time go all the way out to the edges with blue then bring in the purple rags would have helped as well.

I was thinking that the body and neck should really be sanded and maybe a 2nd coat of stain. I think the burst would blend a lot better if you use cloth or a rag. Love the process, thanks for posting this.

That dye is very forgiving. you can be aggressive while applying it and you can always use water to correct any problems along the way... Good choice Darrell. I was a bit nervous watching this too... I am putting together a Pit Bull Guitar Kit, A hollow body "Headless" guitar with F-holes if you can believe it. I've chosen yellows and different shades of brown to do some sort of tiger burst, but I am using leather dyes to achieve the burst or tiger burst that I am thinking off. So I will have to be much more careful when doing it. and I may need to use thinners as well to blend things together. Cheers and keep it up, you are doing Great!

Thank you, Darrel from Italy, waiting for next steep & sound !

From Leo: You are a brave man, going right to the guitar. I dyed and stained about every board in the garage to try to learn before I put one drop on the guitar. I ended up with a single color top and dark on sides and back.

Love the burst, you defiantly made the right decision with those colors.

There's a kind of cool devil face emerging from the quilting of the top. Right between the bridge and tailpiece holes. I suppose it will get covered up once the hardware and strings are in, but he's just hiding there waiting for some sweet tones!

At 12:40 I thought "oh this is going to look hideous". But fair play, by the end it was looking pretty good. Can't wait for the rest of this as I really want to have a go too

Yuuuusssss!!! This is my favorite series! 💖

You really need to watch some videos from BigD Guitars - he is the king of staining. I personally prefer to use rags over foam brushes as I find that easier to do the blending. The burst is looking promising though and the finish should both get it to pop as well as blend a little better. For a glue-in neck, I prefer not to stain the neck heel, so that the glue joint is bare wood on bare wood. Still should be OK though. Looking forward to seeing the rest of the build.

I'm glad you wanted to make a burst with those two colors, and you can always sand it down if colors are too bright but should sand it down before a sealer coat. Please 🙏 do that

Ignoring the 'internet experts' kudos for actually having a go at this. Its great to see someone learning by doing and making quite a good job of it. Really enjoyed the video and I'm encouraged to try a tele kit myself. Thanks :)

This was one of the coolest guitar videos I've seen. Very zen and I learned a lot, thank you dude!

Great timing Darrell! My lovely wife gave me a Solo T-Style (semi hollow) kit for Christmas. I'm liking the stain idea. Seems much easier. I will be staying tuned in! Thanks for the excellent content!

Anyone thinking of doing one of these Solo kits but scared off by the staining, drilling and soldering: I put together one of their Tele style kits with nearly no previous woodworking or soldering experience. I don't think there was any drilling at all on the Tele kit and the soldering was pretty easy. I think they even have an option for solder free electronics which just has push together fittings. And the bolt on neck fit like a glove. Free shipping and no tax to the US. Pretty cool. I sound like an ad probably but really, I'm just trying to encourage others to try this. It's super fun.

Guitar finishing is a rabbit hole we carelessly fall into. It's gloriously maddening, trying to get a nice finish. If you persevere, you'll figure it out. It's a noble quest.

Finally, I got the correct answer on how to apply the proper finish to a raw body. Thank you, Darrell!

Super excited for this build. I've been eyeing this kit on the solo website for a while now. This would be my first kit build so I'm considering doing a tele first

Great to see a kit build again.

1. use a clean t-shirt type rag, you will get better results than you would with a foam brush. 2. apply your base color across the entire top, (in this case azure) then add the eggplant and blend. 3.after staining seal the finish before sanding, you will still flatten the grain after it stands up, however you will not have to attempt to touch up the stain which can go horribly wrong.

You had me worried when you said finishing the guitar wasn’t your thing but you did a awesome job! The body and the neck came out incredible and it will look even better with the clear coat! I’m really impressed, it’s gonna be beautiful!!! Makes me wanna re-finish my kit guitar with water based dye!

Darrell Braun Guitar You can also use top grade artist oil paint this guitar. You take the color you pick of the top grade artist oil paint and start hand rubbing it in then use Japan drier to spread the paint so it will dry. I built a filter box where the guitar dried with out dust or lint.

Looks good, can’t wait for the next video

Oh man, kits are so much fun, so much stress, so much feeling of accomplishment, and so much terror! 😉 Made a BYOG kit last year during full lockdown, a 5150. Came out looking amazing but had a real struggle getting the Floyd balanced and setting the action and intonation. In the end I brought it to a guitar tech and he did a full set up and now it plays like BUTTER. Love it. Enjoy the kit Darrell.

At first I was shaking my head but not anymore. It looks great and your only halfway. I am impressed. At first it looked like third grade finger painting but quickly came together. Thank you for this. I can't wait to see the next video!

QUICK TIP! Initially after you've scuffed the first time. Take a very very lightly damp rag and wipe over that wood figuring and then scuff the surface back up 😊 Itll pull the grain up and then when you stain it, it articulates it better. Cant wait to see more and/or the next build! 💜

I've been thinking about building a guitar using a kit for some time now. Because I'd really like one of the various psychedelic guitars that people had in the 60s, like Eric Clapton's SG, Jack Bruce's Fender Bass VI, Jimmy Page's tele, George Harrison's Strat, Jimi Hendrix's strat and his Flying V etc. But I don't want to potentially mess up one of my existing guitars by painting them. And I don't want to have to spend days sanding any guitar to get the original paint off. So I was just gonna buy one of the Harley Benton kit guitars, probably even the PRS style one they sell much like the one you've made here. But yeah I'm pretty terrible at painting or drawing. But these psychedelic guitars look incredibly easy to do. They're really very simple, just big multicoloured blocks of paint. I'll definitely practice on paper first before attempting to paint any part of the guitar though. It seems with a lot of these guitars they just kinda made it up as they went along. Especially ones like George Harrison's Strat. He was no painter or drawer. As far as I can find out, he never went to art school like John Lennon did. And his psychedelic strat up close definitely looks somewhat amateur. But it still is great looking So I feel like I could definitely be able to paint a guitar in this style with ease. It can't be that hard. I remember when I was a teenager doing art lessons at school (cos it was compulsory), I managed to paint things very similar to a lot of these guitars. Especially Jimi Hendrix's psychedelic guitars. Somehow I stumbled onto this thing of making my paintings look a lot more complicated than they actually were, by doing all these tiny intricate leaves and stems and flowers. My art teacher complimented me on them, but the truth is they were absolutely piss easy to do. So I got away with it. And so yeah whaddayaknow, a lot of psychedelic guitars have the same exact kind of patterns on them, and they look great. Hendrix definitely seemed to like the plant-based design, and so do I. Other than painting it, I'll buy some very good pickups for the guitar to use instead of the ones that come with them. Probably something like some humbucker-sized filtertron pickups. Oh and I'll paint the neck too. In all the best psychedelic style guitars, the neck is also painted. It looks really good when you do that even though only you the player actually can see it, because it's on the bottom side of the guitar. But yeah I'll use masking tape to mask off the fretboard completely and paint the neck, and then I'll apply the clear coat varnish afterwards when it's dried. I'm not sure how guitars are normally coated with the clear coat varnish. Whether it's wiped on, or sprayed on. I'd rather not have to spray it cos I live in an apartment building, so I wouldn't be able to take my guitar outside to spray it and it'd be dangerous to breathe it in indoors. So a wipe on polyurethane finish would be best. I'll do as much research into that as possible. From a quick googling it looks like indeed you can get wipe-on finishes as well as spray cans. So yeah. This whole thing is so exciting though. I've always wanted to build a guitar. But I never got around to it.

I owned a very successful boutique guitar manufacturing company for over a decade. Staining guitar tops is an art. It’s super easy to do, but an art in making a PRS quality stain. We used only alcohol dyes, never water based. Water based swells the grain fuzz, and use UV resistant stains to avoid what happened to EBMM’s when the first ran the purple EVH models. Always use a rag or cotton ball and circle blend the dyes. Using a black or dark color first then fine sanding it off before the final lighter dye color will really pop the figure.

finish looks great so far!

I love how you sound like Bob Ross while you're painting! "Ah yes, that is beautiful!" Darrell Braun.

I cannot wait to do a couple of these kits from Solo! Definitely see doing a PRS style like this in my future. Thanks Darrell, always a pleasure!

1. Use a rug, not a foam brush. 2. You can't get it even with one coat. You do a coat, sand it with 800 grit, then add another coat. Don't burn through the veneer. 3. To add accents to the flame, first you'd do a full purple, then sand it off, the purple would remain in the darker parts ever so lightly. Then do a full blue on the whole face, 3 coats or something in the same ballpark. Then purple the edges. Then blend them with a wet rug.

I did this exact same kit! I did a blue to black burst, though, not plum. Looks awesome and it's a great kit!

If you stain it black first, sand it a bit then add your color it’ll make the figuring on the top really pop

These kits are great for kids. Imagine 30+ of them and your walking them through it. It’s a riot!

Hey that looks way better than I thought it was gonna look with how you did the burst. I dig it!

Hi Darrell, nice work. just one tip, make sure you tape off the neck heel where the glue will be applied for before applying the satin finish. this will insure the wood glue will adhere properly when glueing the neck in. Cheers

What a great video, thank you so much for sharing it. I hope you're enjoying your new guitar!

Loved how that burst turned out! I wasn't sure about it at first but man.... that's pretty. If you use water based stains you can always raise the grain first with a damp cloth, then apply stain after sanding. This way you don't have to sand a stained/dyed surface after. I do this for cutting boards, works like a charm. Cheers

Great kits well worth the money.

Love that you're just going for it! I find that really motivating!

Once it drys you can sand back and it will make the grain pop. Starting with a black then sanding back would bring out the quilt top. Fun to watch.

SWEET DUDE!!! Now I will be able to build mine. Thanks Darryl!!! You da man bro!!!

Looks great! I've never tried assembling a kit guitar because I'm nervous about the outcome. Watching videos like this educates me more on this stuff & makes me slightly more confident to try it.

Your Canadian compatriot, Brad Angove, would be a perfect mentor for this.

I was thinking of doing an SG style build with that deep purple stain one day. Good choice!

Absolutely buzzin you went with the purple I was sat here screaming purple purple at ya when you showed us the ink

Hello instead of using the foam brush if you had used a small piece of cloth like part of an old t-shirt I believe you would have had good luck controlling the dye application and thinning it just a bit as well. you can sand it back to lighten it up but if you start with a thinning the dye with a bit of water if it isn't as dark as you want you can always apply a second or third coat till you get it to the depth of color you want. That way sense the veneer on the top is as thin as it is the less sanding the better and you are less likely to sand through it.

One of your most entertaining video's yet. I was laughing so much at your attempt of painting the body, it looked terrible until it dried.

Tip to prevent the dye raising the grain: Wipe the body over with a damp cloth and let it dry overnight. Next day sand the grain down where it is raised. Repeat as necessary. All will be fine now.

I really like those colors, it's like a galaxy burst or something, and the quilting really lends itself to that cosmic aesthetic.

Been looking at these kits from Solo!

I got a tele kit for Christmas , i finished it a few weeks ago. It was an enjoyable experience , i would definitely do another in the future!

Gr8 video 👍 Om the 1st year of the coof house arrest i got a simlar prs style kit and one of the nost satisfying part of the build was pepping & painting, this was my very 1st kit build. My apologies for not being able to share a pic or video of the finished guitar as its presently living at our holiday apartment.. Water based paint is essential imo not be unless one has access to a good paint shop with extactors and heaters from my experience in industry working as a s/s spray painter. Love and respect to y'all 👍🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🧔

Nice when doing a finish like this it's best to apply a black stain first then sand then stain with your choice of color the black brings out the flame/quilt

I just finished my 18th build, which happens to be a PRS style, natural stain with all gold hardware. Done Strats, Teles, LPs, Jags,etc., but really love the PRS style with quilted or flamed tops - when dyed or stained the grain pattern looks great.

I dig the colours! Can’t wait to see the progress. ✌🏼

Love the builds, always something interesting to do and learn! Keep up the good work!

I did a 'PRS' build, but sourced the body and neck separately. My body had a thick maple cap on mahogany body.The neck stood too tall in its socket for my taste, so I re-cut it so the neck binding was at the body face. I used a Wilkinson combined stop bridge and took an extreme amount of care setting the neck to the correct angle. I have stained guitars before, but this one was en-natural and clear oiled. Came out nice.

When you were doing the top burst, I heard a Bob Ross type of enthusiasm. So awesome! "Happy little guitars". \m/

Something I did with a kit build I bought recently was hydro dip it. You can get a good amount in a kit for like 30 bucks usa

Anyone else getting some Bob Ross vibes listening to Darrell talk while putting the stain on? 😂

I have a purple PRS custom 24 with zebra coil pickups. You made a good choice.

I love these kit builds from Darrell

Looking good! I have a channell dedicated on guitar kits (in Italian) lots of things can go wrong. So far i would recommend to veeeery lightly sandpaper the top and pass some colour again in a circular way so you'll get the top to pop. Looking forward to see it finished!

Hi Darrell, Great job, in my experience I do find that using a wood conditioner....in this case water base , does really help the wood take the dye or stain in a more even fashion......so less chance of blotchy spots....just a tip.....from Kingston ontario.

Nice build Darrell!! Just a couple of tips: 1) Don't touch the stained body with bare hands (especially if you have a lot of sweat) - besides it will get messy, aniline water-based dyes are harmful for your health. 2) Make sure to mask properly the area of the neck heel that will sit inside the neck pocket before you apply sealer or clear coat, because you got to have bare wood to glue the neck and the body together. I'm lookin' forward for the next episode! You have fun!

i think prs is one of those rare companies that has popular products because of the quality. prs makes consistently flawless guitars, well designed, engineered and built around being played, that kind of goes out the window with a kit, but if you like the shape and setup there’s nothing wrong with it

You can use 'Rit' cloth dye as well for dying wood mixing it a littl stronger for the wood works well . I went with spray cans and an airbrush for the space theme stars and planets paint job I put on my project guitar. startimg with a Starcaste, Strat electric guitar, Said it right on the head stock befor I stripped off all the paint to begin the xtreme mods I had in store for this build I hand made the stainless steel pick guard that holds the 3 quad rail humbuckers each with a500K P/P vol. pot and 500K tone pot with the bridge pot also a P/P as a bypass to activate the bridge and neck pickups together regardless of the 5-way selector sw Pos. coil splitting with th P/P pots wired like a Les Paul 50's stle circuit for cleaner highs. and i only need one side of the 5-way blade switch for that. the other will operate the pickup coil indecator leds also wired the same as the pickups using the opposite sides of the blade and P/P switches,, as each has 2 seperate sides remember? its there so why not use it for a new trick i dreamed up... It also gets a kill button just for fun. I added a fwe trick parts too including a ful size brass trem block, roller saddles and roller string trees and a titaniun nut as well as locking tuners too.. like I said in the beginning this is an extreme build/mod. I started with a "Starcaster. so in thr Fender naming pogression i went one step furthr they started with the 'Broadcastger, having tp change it to Telecaster, then Stratocastr then this Starcaster so I progressed it to My new version, the "Stellarcaster" space is the final frontier.. isn't it so the space theme paint and the astainless steel pick guard that will mimnic a space craft a little as well as act ass the overall ground for the circuits. ... like I say use what you have tht works for your project. the mounting washers and nuts aer attatched to the case which can be the ground so a stainless steel pick guard can also be a grounf. less wiring to worry aout but I still have to add a few extra wires for the bypass ans kill button so it all evens out I think..wish ne lick.

This is awesome, as usual. Out of curiosity: Have you ever considered trying the AIO Wolf guitars, specifically the AIO W400 (PRS Style)? They are budget guitars from a shop in Los Angeles. Thank you for all the awesome content, man!

Looking good Darrell ! I like the eggplant you went with. Looking forward to the next video and the finished product.

Great video DB. Thanks for throwing caution to the wind, as I'm too afraid to! 😬😆

Thanks Darrell, great video.👍 That guitar is going to look awsome when its finished.! 👍🤘

smart man. turn this into a build channel. it's gonna be the new trend.

Nice job! Yea I have had a bass kit shoved under my couch for over a year! Finish fear is real.....

Can't wait for the rest!

Usually when I see people do a burst, they use a rag and blend in a circular motion. You get a smoother blend.

It's looking good so far!

Great video My favorite review channel. Like he said TAPE lol off parts you want to protect. Kits with binding can be scraped with a razor blade to expose fresh plastic. Just be gentle. The Thin Maple on this and some other kits may be to thin. But if you want the Quilted Maple to really pop. Dye the whole thing black and sand it back to bare again. The Black will darken the dark lines and give some a finish after clear coating that looks like the grain if almost floating. If your doing a earth tone like honey or tobacco burst. Use brown instead of black. A mixture of brown and orange. Will give a warm hue to the lighter center area.Use bits of a well washed white tee with circular motions. Those sponge brushes tend to make the edges to defined and hard to blend.

I made your kit.... I swapped out the pickups, tuners and replaced the frets & fret dots. Enjoyable build & update.

Got one I started just like that, stained it and hate it so need to change it maybe black or blue and then finish it up.Waiting on spring also. I will upgrade the pickups and tuners.

That looks like a fun little project. Good job so far. The head looks sharp with the chrome hardware. I tend to get a little anxious and hurry/botch the paint. My colour sense blows chunks too.