Re: CTN builds a Star
Just out of interest ctn did the luthier give you any reason why he thought your paint job ****ed up on you? I know i have said it before and it doesn't really matter now but i think you needed to seal the body more before painting.
I hate admitting defeat on something that's why i was a bit disappointing when you got someone else to do the finish.
He said it might've been just as simple as contaminated paint while it was spraying and that usually Duplicolor's paints are of pretty good quality.
I guess it makes sense though. My "spraybooth" was hardly a professional level thing, and the ventilation, while it was adequate at removing fumes from the air, couldn't get rid of all the atomized paint that was falling all over the place. I'm sure that every time I went in and out of the thing, a bit of paint dust got kicked up and probably some landed on the body. I guess I just got lucky that the same thing didn't happen on the explorer bass cuz I was using exactly the same technique/spraybooth setup. I can't help but wonder if it was the specific paint formulation that helped attract the dust though. I'm guessing the Duplicolor perfect match paints probably have a higher metal flake content in them, and maybe the static generated by them helped to attract dust to the surface? I dunno.
I know what you mean about the sealer, and I had considered that as a possible source of the screwup, but after I shot the primer, I sanded it level so sealer or not, I was still applying the colour coats on a level surface. I really don't think it was a paint incomaptibility problem as a different luthier (I got a bunch of other quotes too) told me - he implied that acrylic paints are incompatible with nitro (which isn't the case if the acrylic paint is solvent based). I think he must've thought I used a waterbased colour coat with a solvent based clear. Actually, everything I used was solvent based, so incompatibility wasn't a problem.
At this point I'm no longer upset about it. Sh!t happens, you live and learn. This was a big learning experience for me. If I attempt a finish/refinish in the future, it will be ONLY under the condition that I have a good setup that will minimize such problems from occurring.
