I need some painting tips,Help Please!

[BDSMITH]

It will not cover, I have a sander use 150, then 220.I tried Behr Primer .still looks bad I use Acrylic I got from a art store. Should I try a Heavy pro Artist paint. I want pink,rose pink, or hot pink. Any tipsThis is basswood I think they use sand sealer Thanks Brenda D

[WRGKMC]

You first tale it down to bare wood super smooth.

Then you apply shellac as a primer.

It has three main functions that are extremely important if you plan on painting so listen and learn.

First it seals the pores of the wood so the paint doesnt sink into the wood and show the grain pattern of the wood.

Second, it can be sanded baby ass smooth and give you a flawless paint job.

Third, the paint dries on the primer quickly and you dont have to layer the paint so thick.

 

In comparison, paint applied to dry wood will expand and contract with the wood and actually look worse with time.

 

Once the primer is applied, you should use Lacquer or poly only on a guitar. Acrylics are water based and may be fine

for somethings, but a guitar sees allot of wear and tear and sweat. Water based chemicals will fail in both of these areas.

 

Lacquer is the easiest to apply, maintain, and get a great looking paint job.

The only problem you're going to have is finding pink lacquer. It may need to be mixed (red and white)

then you will have to use a professional sprayer to apply it.

 

I did find these small cans of pink. You may need several cans to get the job done.

 

http://www.google.com/products/catalog?hl=en&sugexp=gsis,i18n%3Dtrue&cp=18&gs_id=2j&xhr=t&q=pink+lacquer+paint&pq=pink+lacquer++++&gs_upl=&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&biw=1413&bih=746&wrapid=tljp131534022745328&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=9571789725896697173&sa=X&ei=zX9mTvSXOcrLgQfl7LG1Cg&sqi=2&ved=0CFMQ8wIwAw#

 

 

You can also buy actual auto paint.

I went here and selected a 1995/Cadillac/ All models, and found "Mary Kay Pink" as the base coat on the list.

http://www.automotivetouchup.com/spray_paint.asp

You can use their clear coat as well, but you can buy clear lacquer in most hardware stores.

 

After you apply the paint smoothly over the shellac, you then apply the clear coat in "thin" layers.

After you get about 10 coats on there it starts taking on that professional glass finish guitar look.

After the finish dries for several days you can use an electric buffere and bring it up to a super high gloss look.

 

There are no short cuts here. You either do the job right, or you dork around with chemicals that at best do a half assed job.

You want a good pro look, just do what the pros recomend.

 

Good thing about lacquer is if, you screw up, you dont usually have to take it all the way back down to the wood.

You can buff and sand between coats and at the worst you take it back down to the primer.

As you layer lacquer on, its melts into the previous layer to make one thick layer.

This makes for tranasparent repairs too. get a ding and use a lacquer stick of the same matching color and you can

melt the stick into a ding and have a completely transparent repair.

[BDSMITH]

Thank you, great tips Thanks

 

Brenda D

[BDSMITH]

What about oil base paint the kind Artist use also tung oil do you got any tips on using them?

[Belva]

 

What about oil base paint the kind Artist use also tung oil do you got any tips on using them?

 

Oil base enamels take a lot of time to cure. IMO not worth it. Tung oil (Good old Formby's) is a really good choice IF you like the grain of the wood. You can mix oil based stain right into tung oil and danish oil, but I'm not sure if you'll get a hot pink color in a stain. I doubt it. I just did a Danish oil with Minwax Sedona Red. I wanted a satin finish so it took four coats to get there (gotta quit playing the damn thang and post some pics).

Another option is Duplicolor if you can get pink. It's an acrylic lacquer. I've found that Deft clear lacquer works better over Duplicolor than their clear and will probably work over the base coat of the brand WRG listed IF it's a lacquer. Go to the stickies here. That's the resources for DIY'ers at the top of this forum. Go to reranch and tead their tutorial on doing a lacquer finish. They sell nitrocellulose lacquer but the tutorial will work with just about any paint you wish to use. They may also have a color of your liking. Theirs is about the best quality paint you can find for a guitar.

[BDSMITH]

Cool, I got a Tele body coming and I want to stain it cherry or S. Red then use oil base like Danish,teak T oil,I might mix all 3 I also got walnut oil.Hey can you mix Shellac with tung oil

[Belva]

 

Cool, I got a Tele body coming and I want to stain it cherry or S. Red then use oil base like Danish,teak T oil,I might mix all 3 I also got walnut oil.Hey can you mix Shellac with tung oil

 

I'm not sure about that one. Most oils, unless you get pure tung oil, already have varnish in them. I'd also stay away from the idea of mixing different oils. may work, but it may leave the git so phucked up you can't do anything but turn it into fire wood

[BDSMITH]

wow,thanks I got some great tips

[WRGKMC]

I've mixed oil based stain with tung oil and it worked fine to give me a translucent color for my dining room chairs.

I started to tung oil a set I built and they werent dark enough to match the table so I added some mahagony stain

and it darkened the tung oil just enough to match the table.

 

Staining the wood first give much different results. The stain sinks into the soft pulpy grain to make it dark and the harder

parts of the grain, the stain doesnt sink in so that remains light. Its good for bringing up contrast in light woods.

If you want a more solid toning of the color then mix a little with the tung oil will darken the wood gradually as you put coats on.

You dont want to add too much so you darken it all in one layer. Instead use several layers to gradually darken it. Then for your last coats

use tung oil without any stain mixed.

 

Never use enamil on a guitar. I made that mistake once and it took over a year to harden. Enamil hardens from the outside in.

Even when it seems to be dry you can set the guitar in a stand and the outside paint slides on the body and leaves dent marks.

I also found out if you leave a rubber cord against the body, even 10 years later, the vapors from the rubber will cause a

chemical reaction and melt the cord onto the finish. Bad news all around, stay away from things like rustoleum. They were designed

for metals and have rust preventitive chemicals that suck for wood. Stick with poly, Lacquer or Tung/true oils.

[Belva]

All good advice from WRG. One addition: Minwax makes a pre stain condidioner that helps keep their oil based stains from becoming blotchy and evens out the coloring. I'm not sure if it works with other brands of oil based stain, but I'm sure it would.

Another note: until you've gained some experience, I recommend using the same brand of products from start to finish. The exception being Duplicolor clear. That stuff is garbage and will stick to any guitar stand. It doesn't seem to set up enough and it's inconsistent. One batch will be fine, the next will be crap. The Deft clear lacquer is far better over the colors Duplicolor puts out.

[b_f_c_99]

If your staining use ANILINE dye, its a water based, works great, follow up with 12-15 coats of laquer. Check my avatar, it used to be pink and red candy cane stripes (don't ask it was the 80's) anyway I sanded it all down. Dyed it back to the factory red. Lots of fun!

[Belva]

 

If your staining use ANILINE dye, its a water based, works great, follow up with 12-15 coats of laquer. Check my avatar, it used to be pink and red candy cane stripes (don't ask it was the 80's) anyway I sanded it all down. Dyed it back to the factory red. Lots of fun!

 

Don't forget the lacquer sand and sealer. Remember, prep is everything when it comes to painting anything, including guitars, cars, dogs, etc. {censored}ty prep={censored}ty paint job.

Come to think of it, I never painted a dog.

Fido, come here fido.................................

[xadioriderx]

 

Never use enamil on a guitar. I made that mistake once and it took over a year to harden. Enamil hardens from the outside in. Even when it seems to be dry you can set the guitar in a stand and the outside paint slides on the body and leaves dent marks. I also found out if you leave a rubber cord against the body, even 10 years later, the vapors from the rubber will cause a chemical reaction and melt the cord onto the finish. Bad news all around, stay away from things like rustoleum. They were designed for metals and have rust preventitive chemicals that suck for wood. Stick with poly, Lacquer or Tung/true oils.

 

 

its interesting, my last build i used acrylic lacquer, and had it leaning against the wall but sitting on a few cords, and it did the same thing, melted right into the lacquer =( guess it wasnt fully cured?

[xadioriderx]

 

If your staining use ANILINE dye, its a water based, works great, follow up with 12-15 coats of laquer. Check my avatar, it used to be pink and red candy cane stripes (don't ask it was the 80's) anyway I sanded it all down. Dyed it back to the factory red. Lots of fun!

 

 

i also recommend leather dye from fiebings on ebay. its cheap and works great. i have a tutorial to do a burst with it using the rub-on method on my webpage in my sig

[Belva]

 

its interesting, my last build i used acrylic lacquer, and had it leaning against the wall but sitting on a few cords, and it did the same thing, melted right into the lacquer =( guess it wasnt fully cured?

 

Most likely. It takes a full month for any lacquer to DRY, not cure. Lacquer will continue to dry throughout it's life. Also, LIGHT and I mean LIGHT coats. If you go too thick with lacquer it won't ever dry enough to be useable.