Guitar paint

Averatu

If I would hypothetically want to paint my guitar, oh I dont know, PINK maybe, how should I go about it, what type of primer and paint etc. Not that I would paint my guitar pink, its a terrible color for an axe IMHO. Like this one perhaps. Hurts my manhood just looking at it.

VellaJ

I'm afraid I can't really help you out with the type of paint, but I can warn you that this is not exactly the easiest / quickest thing to do to a guitar. Much prep and finishing of the guitar is needed...

I like working on my guitars, but I think I'd get frustrated with this...

Malkav

Those solid paints from what I know are basically the same as are used on motorcars - obviously in far thinner layers. In this link: http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/luthiery-modifications-customizations/167621-major-rg1527-prestige-salvage.html Some dude refinishes an RG1527 in a candy orange red kinda colour and explains the process as he goes along. At some point I believe he took it to a car respray place to have the paint mixed and applied. ?

kapepper

it depends on how much work you want to put into it and how valueable the guitar is to you
this what it did to a MIJ tele
before:

after

just sprayed it with a can of spray paint, 100 rand and three layers. ?

I am happy with the result, and it relics very nice ?

Neon-Gecko

Without getting too long-winded, here are the basics... ???

Most paints (not to be confused with timber stains) used on guitars today are derived from the automotive market, which gives you nearly endless colour choices, finishes and effects. These paints are pretty hard wearing too, especially polyurethane and acrylic finishes. The downside to this though is that you'll need an air compressor and spray gun which can be a pretty heavy investment for a one-off spray job.

The golden rule is this: 9/10th of your finish quality is in your preparation, making refinishing a guitar fairly labour intensive.

I personally would never use a chemical stripper to remove the old paint. The majority of chemical strippers on the market generally have built-in rust inhibitors and this will play havoc with the refinishing! So sanding with a rubber block or very carefully with an electric sander using a finer grit paper is the way to go.

As for primer, I never use it. The trick is to get as few coats on as possible on to prevent tone dampening. A few coats of a good nitro based sanding sealer, sanded between coats will give you a good, smooth foundation to start from. I normally whack the sealer on and then remove +- 70% through sanding. Two applications using this technique are normally enough.

I'd be weary of using aerosol paints (I’m not saying that they don’t work) as they have a rather high solvent content which could react with the nitrocellulose sanding sealer.