Custom Paintjobs?

Stompbox

Simply lookin' to change from black to white,any tips?How much would it cost and where can I get it done?

feylya

Talk to Derrick Nelson. It won't be cheap. Couple of hundred anyway.

Voodu Child

It wont be pro-quality but you could probably do it yourself.

www.projectguitar.com

Im thinking of respraying one of my old Ibanez's (no, not a J-Custom ), if i get around to it ill let you know how i get on.

MagnumForce

Im gonna give my Kramer Vanguard a new finish, im gonna go for the Material Finish as described on Projectguitar.com, using leopard print cloth.

What your going to need now is a sandable sealer or a wooden grain filler which dries clear and is easily sandable.

but what sort of stuff can you get in Ireland for this, and what lacquer etc?

Havn't even sanded it yet by the way, haven't even gotten all the hardware off it, need to buy a soldering iron, last one went missing, so i figured while I was out id get sealer and lacqeur while i was at it.

-Freebird-

I have a friend who did it, he just sanded the whole body down then painted it with a lacquer... He put designs on the neck of it aswell but that was just simple stencil and spray paint kinda thing... Turned out really well...

icon

:rolleyes:

Don't attempt to take sandpaper or a sander to the guitar!

A friend of mine had a black fender telecaster body and took it to one of the furniture restorers places, where they dipped the body in a vat of chemicals and stripped it down to the perfect bare wood. Then they stained it to a shade of his chosing and polished up. When he brought this guitar to Musician Inc to try out an amp they really thought it was a custom shop model. It looks unreal, and the finish is really beautiful and very robust.

Trust me a DIY botch job will never ever look or feel right. Spend the money on a pro finish or just get a new guitar.

Voodu Child

Don't attempt to take sandpaper or a sander to the guitar!

Yeah, whatever you do dont sand your guitar down - its much easier to dip it in a big vat of chemicals. Any kind will do, i recommend hydrochloric acid:D

But seriously, sand away. If you read up on what youre doing, and take your time, there should be no problem.

And a stain is different to a respray.

feylya

Do not sand down to the barewood. Think about, the factory who have painted thousands of guitars know how to get a nice flat finish. Why undo all their hard work? Just scuff up the current paint so that the new paint will hold and paint away!

Voodu Child

Youre probably going to get a crappy finish if you dont strip down to bare wood. As soon as you start sanding off the original finish, your body surface wont be anywhere near smooth or flat enough to get a good finish.

feylya

Sorry but I'm calling bull**** on that. If you read my post carefully, I say scuff the finish, not sand it off. Why go through all the work of sanding back to barewood, getting the wood perfect with high grade sandpaper, priming it then painting it? You already have a perfect canvas to paint on, why **** it up?

Voodu Child

A 'scuffed up' black finish is NOT a 'perfect canvas' to paint a guitar white.

feylya

Care to elaborate?

Voodu Child

Heres a good turorial for the OP
http://home.flash.net/~guitars/ReRanch101.html
answers most questions

Doctor J

Actually, it was pretty standard procedure for Fender in their pre-CBS days (the ones with the magic mojo which sell for $$$$$$$$$$$$$$) to scuff up the standard two tone sunburst finsh and paint a solid colour on when they started offering candy apple reds, etc. It's the quickest and easiest way for the OP to get a decent result if he/she chooses to DIY it.

Voodu Child

White over black will need a serious number of coats unless you want a grey guitar.

Doctor J

True, but it will take several weeks less than sanding it to bare wood, sealing and then applying several coats of white and gloss.

Voodu Child

I dont know, i reckon it would be quicker TBH. Between coats, wet sanding should be done. Id sooner use less coats of paint.

feylya

From ReRanch:

(Note: If the old finish is a polyurethane finish you will have a difficult time completely stripping the finish back to raw wood. It is acceptable with poly finishes to sand the old finish with #220 dry and use the old finish as the base. If that is to be your direction skip ahead to the section on priming).

Voodu Child

Theyre talking about chemical stripping there Fey, which the OP isnt likely to be doing. Polyurethane is very tricky to strip chemically. A power sander would make light work of poly or nitro, its all the same.

EDIT- in any case, it doesnt really matter. If I was refinishing a guitar, thats what id do. Some guys, yourself included, wouldnt. Like i said, it doesnt really matter, the OP can read up on it himself and decide. None of us here are refinishers, its all just different (informed) opinions.

feylya

Aye. It'd make light work of the wood too.

Voodu Child

feylya wrote:

Aye. It'd make light work of the wood too.

If you dont know how to use power tools sure, you could ruin it. Id assume most guys do.

Don1

Friend of a friend, straight painted over a beautiful Fender acoustic with standard house paint. Also stuck coins on it with glue for some reason. His brother, a very competent carpenter (not just knocking up roofs, furniture building) with a fair ammount of experince went to restore it. Tried to sand back down to the wood and ended up with a very uneven finish. Ended up losing a layer of ply just to get all the paint off. Disaster. Looks good from a distance now that he's refinished it but it's so soft now any touch marks it.
Defo use light grade paper to scuff the finish and build from there as was siad before. Too risky imo.
New guitar ftw!! Any excuse!!

Voodu Child

Shouldnt be risky if youre careful:
http://www.projectguitar.com/tut/sand.htm

If he paints white over black he's going to need a rake of coats to get a bright white finish. Each coat will need to be wet sanded to remove blobs and drips, and then allowed to dry overnight.

Even if he only needs 5 coats to 'lose' the black colour, that will still mean 5 separate days, and 5 bouts of wet sanding.

Id sooner strip the thing, use grain filler & primer, and just do 2 or three coats.

feylya

For all the PG links you're posting, you don't seem to read any of the stuff from the guys in the forum. One coat of paint per day is foolish. And if you sand every lair, you won't have any lairs left!

Doctor J

Hmm... two or three days for the paint, a day each for the filling and priming and, Ancient1, how many months has it taken you to sand that strat body?

I'd go for the 5 days

Voodu Child

Its called wet-sanding. If you dont know what it is you shouldnt be giving advice about refinishing.

reranch wrote:

Before spraying the next coat, wet sand the finish to remove any runs or particles that may have settled onto the finish. Start lightly with #400, #600 and end with #800. Let the surface dry and repeat yesterdays schedule. I.e., three passes, let dry three hours then repeat and then repeat. Let to the finish dry overnight and sand as you did the first day.

Doctor J

Jaysus lads... cool the jets. Can't we all get along?

Don1

Handbags at dawn!! Handbags at dawn!!!!:rolleyes:

Voodu Child

Doctor J wrote:

Jaysus lads... cool the jets. Can't we all get along?

TBH, i think the OP has posted in the wrong forum. Unless someone comes along
who actually has extensive refinishing experience, its all just opinion anyway...ive given mine, which is i wouldnt paint white onto the scuffed-up laquer of a black guitar..ill leave it there.:p

Ancient1

Doctor J wrote:

Hmm... two or three days for the paint, a day each for the filling and priming and, Ancient1, how many months has it taken you to sand that strat body?

Man, it has to be seen to be believed

I started sanding it a long time ago, in a galaxy far away. I managed to mess up the sander with it too, can you believe that...Then I decided to experiment with some paint stripper, but I was impatient and applied the, em, chisel. I thought it was a scraper, but it was actually a chisel.

There's very little body left there.

But I'm determined, and I'll finish it soon. Although I think as soon as I screw the neck on the body will probably crumble into pieces.

Damn that takes some talent.

jimi_t

Convienient that this thread has come up I got a bass off boards for e45 a while ago and, since the electrics, pick ups and saddles are more or less shot, I've been trying to get my ass in gear as regards giving it an overhaul.



I was going to sand it down to the bare finish (which I'm sure is absolutely brutal, if its even wood at all) as there seems to be feck all paint on it and there's a lot of punk-rock esque dents on it.







So whats recommended here then. Should I just rough the finish up a bit so that I can paint it, and will a few coats even out those gouges, or should I sand it bare to get an even finish?

Also. Whats the best way of getting rid of the glittery nail polish that the previous owner marked the frets out with without damaging the surface of the neck



Finally (I swear), I'm going to paint the headstock the same colour as the body and put a different decal on (like the Aerodyne strats or showmasters). Whats the best way of going about this?

fish-head

You're a brave, looney, silly, brave, looney, brave man.

The Doktor

Here is how I would (and have) refinish a guitar.
1. If it wasn’t in bad condition, I would sand it with light paper, all you need to do is make the existing paint dull. Not sand off the paint.
2. Fill any chips or dents in the wood with filler (automotive type)
3. Spray on a filler primer (usually grey type). This will allow you to see any high or low spots and can be sanded a few minutes after painting. After sorting these bits out with a wet sand, I would coat it again with the grey primer to cover the bits I had resanded.
4. If I was painting on a dark colour for the final coat I would just rub the primer with the finest wet paper I could find, if it was white I would use white primer, maybe 2 coats(finer grade type). The grey primer would totally cover the original colour, so no worries about it bleeding through.
5. Clean off the guitar, wipe with a tack cloth and spray on top coat. Or coats if your usin interestin laquers. If you prep it well enough, use good paint and do a decent job with ur top coat, you don’t even need to worry about polishing it.
The only reason I would dip it is if I wanted a wood or transparent finish. You could do the whole thing in an evening if you had everything you need at to hand.
Also if you don’t want to go to the expense of getting a spray gun an compressor, you could use spray cans, and after about a week polish it. It can give satisfactory results.

jimi_t

Nice one, sounds like a plan. Just a few things

1) Does anywhere in Dublin sell small tubs of that electro-magnetic resistance dampening paint (kinda silvery stuff you see in the pickup and pot cavities)?
2) Is there any good tutorials on wet sanding online? I'll be doing more or less all the sanding by hand.
3) Where can I get music-grade pots (rather than pot :rolleyes: )
4) What kind of paint is best to use after the primer? I'm looking for something along the lines of that glossy strat finish.
5) What about painting the headstock?

jimi_t

fish-head wrote:

You're a brave, looney, silly, brave, looney, brave man.

It had to had to be done. The pots were completely shot and most of the other bits needed a serious cleaning and TLC. In fact, I might replace the bridge altogether.

Geoff was originally trying to get me to cover it in ZZ-Top esque fur. God bless that man

Oh, finaly question, I've been told to leave the tuners and other shinies in a basin of coca-cola for a few hours to clean them up, and then to shine them with silver polish. Is this advisable or even sane?

The Doktor

jimi_t wrote:

Nice one, sounds like a plan. Just a few things

1) Does anywhere in Dublin sell small tubs of that electro-magnetic resistance dampening paint (kinda silvery stuff you see in the pickup and pot cavities)?
2) Is there any good tutorials on wet sanding online? I'll be doing more or less all the sanding by hand.
3) Where can I get music-grade pots (rather than pot :rolleyes: )
4) What kind of paint is best to use after the primer? I'm looking for something along the lines of that glossy strat finish.
5) What about painting the headstock?

1. Farnell or radionics do it, im sure you can get it othere places too
2. you get the wet and dry paper (woodies), wet it... sand for a few mins.. wet it... sand....and so on..;)
3. Farnell or radionics
4. I try to use two pack paint meself, but you are gonna need a spray gun for that.. If you want to use spray cans... Halfords. Now you are not gonna get a large range of colours there but if you want black.. well they have it.
One thing, when you paint it, make sure its somewhere dust free. Pour water on the floor to keep the dust down.
5. Same as the body, but take off the nut and mask it underneath it. If you dont want to get paint on the sides and back of the neck mask around the edges neatly and paint it as above.

When you are finished LEAVE IT for a week. Then polish it all.