Painting a guitar body with car paint?

[WhoFan]

Re: Painting a guitar body with car paint?

Whofan, I like to do no more than three coats per day with no less than three hours between coats. I don't think ANY auto manufacturers use nitro anymore and I doubt very many if any use acrylic. I would think all of them would have gone to urathane based paints by now, but of course it's hard to sell that stuff in an aerosol can. But yes, with a heat lamp you could do an entire guitar finish with nitro in one day. You'd still want to let it shrink back for a couple weeks before buffing though, so it sort of defeats the purpose. Not as much of a problem over a metal base because it's already so smooth...

The finish that Warmoth uses is poly, as is the stuff Fender uses. You need a good compressor if you're going to spray that stuff.

Oh, and sealer...I don't recomend using this because it's incredably soft, but I did find Stewmac sanding sealer to be compatible with duplicolor acrylic lacquer. Stewmac waterbased grainfiller, which was actually pretty good, was also compatible with the duplicolor acrylic lacquer.

Good to know the Stew Mac Grain filler works with car paint.... i have a tub of that.... I have a few spray guns... a really good high quality one, a few cheapies, and a small touch up spray gun.... as well as an air brush... I have a good air comp with water filters for spraying paint.... saddly i have to work outside in the summer.... being Canada i have about a 4-5 month period i can spray outside depending on weather... i set up a small booth in the backyard on a bench and sometimes i just hang the parts from a rope and go for it....

Saddly again Stew Mac will not ship the Sanding Sealer to Canada, it's flamable...... I should track down a good paint supplier in the Toronto area... I heard there is one such place some of the better guitar builders buy their supplies from but i have yet to find it...

WhoFan

 

[mnbaseball91]

Re: Painting a guitar body with car paint?

You're better off using no sealer at all than Stewmac sanding sealer. It's unbelieveably soft. Putting any sort of pressure on a finish that used Stewmac sanding sealer gives you all sorts of white stress spots in the finish. It also has a tendancy to shrink even more than normal lacquer. Wish I could help but I have no Canadian connections!

 

[pinto79]

Re: Painting a guitar body with car paint?

Whofan, find yourself a Canadian Tire. If you're going to use spray cans, use Krylon and just a few coats of Crystal Clear as a sealer.

If you're going to spray with a gun, find a mom and pop style furniture shop and pick the painter's brain for what kind of sealer they use.

 

[WhoFan]

Re: Painting a guitar body with car paint?

I think my best bet is to run into the 12th Fret in Toronto and ask those guys where to get good finnishing supplies..... they are the best repair shop in town! Custom made stuff, vintage guitars, great repairs.... good store!

Thanks for the tip Pinto79.. i live right beside a Canadian Tire.....

 

[AlGeeEater]

Re: Painting a guitar body with car paint?

But yes, with a heat lamp you could do an entire guitar finish with nitro in one day. You'd still want to let it shrink back for a couple weeks before buffing though, so it sort of defeats the purpose. Not as much of a problem over a metal base because it's already so smooth...

Uhh, what? Believe it or not, the whole purpose of heat lamps is to cure the finish. Yes, believe it or not! You dont have to let the guitar sit for a few weeks. Heat evaporates the solvents in the finish. Why would let it sit for a couple of weeks once the solvents have evaporated? That makes no sense. I've buffed out guitars in 3 days after using a full heat lamp treatment. That's the whole point of a heat lamp, letting it SIT defeats the purpose.

Although using a heat lamp doesnt evaporate all the solvents at once, you can cut down finish time with nitro with it. I would recommend letting it sit for atleast a week to evaporate the solvents the heat couldnt.

It also has a tendancy to shrink even more than normal lacquer

How? Sanding sealer is more solids than regular nitro lac.

 

[Scott_F]

Re: Painting a guitar body with car paint?

I had some incredible results on an old strat using a can of Gold Krylon and then following up with a can of nitro lacquer. Got both of them at Lowes Home Improvement. Turned out pretty damn nice.

 

[jdbluesville]

Re: Painting a guitar body with car paint?

grain filler (depending on the type of wood. ash, two applications at least. maple...none! mahogony, two) sand and sealer...i do at least two coats. depends on the results after sanding. primer...a sandable primer. BIN works great but wants to run and drip like a crackhead with a cold. color coat(s) clear.

auto paint will flash in minutes and can be over-coated the same day, a couple hours later even. nito-cellulose color, give 24 hours.

nitro-cellulose clear: 3 coats (first two "dry" then leave a nice wet edge) 24 hours dry. after that i do 3 more coats in the morning when i come in, 3 coats at the end of the day. next morning i wet sand with 400 grit, wipe it down with spirits then shoot 3 more coats, three more at the end of the day.

follow that schedule another couple of days. you're sanding off probably the equivilent of two coats each time. inspect your surface under a good light, sun being the best. when you have a nice, even surface haze after sanding...no shiney spots (dimples) no orange peel, deep scratches etc you can apply more clear if you want or, wait at least a wekk...two preferred, more if you can, before doing the final sand and polish. nitro needs some cure time, the longer it can degas before the final the better!


what's up fretfire?? always good to see ya, man!! stop by the JDB forums and say hey!

 

[mnbaseball91]

Re: Painting a guitar body with car paint?

I'm sorry I can't tell you exactly what Stewmac puts in their sanding sealer, but the fact is that their sanding sealer does shrink back more than any nitrocellulos lacquer I've ever used. Period. And that's on 4 different projects.

 

[jdbluesville]

Re: Painting a guitar body with car paint?

the problem with krylon is it's acrylic. i don't like acrylic finishes...the wood has too much "movement" and acrylic can be problematic. if you do use krylon (a LOT of people use it, no matter WHAT i think lol) i'd recommend an adhesion promoter (bulldog can be got at home depot i believe, in a spray bomb). the acrylics lack of movement combined with the wood movement and the laquers movemrnt with the wood can cause checking, flaking down the road.

of course, a well taken care of instrument that never experiances any drastic, or not so drastic, temperature/moisture changes probably won't be affected too much.

 

[jdm61]

Re: Painting a guitar body with car paint?

Something to ponder.....a Stradivarius sounds the way it does because of the design AND the varnish, which nobody has been able to replicate accurately so far. The old Nitro finishes of the 50's are very fragile, unlike urethane, etc, yet they are the holy grail as far a tone goes.........so I would think long and hard about using a finish that was not designed for guitars

 

[AlGeeEater]

Re: Painting a guitar body with car paint?

I'm sorry I can't tell you exactly what Stewmac puts in their sanding sealer, but the fact is that their sanding sealer does shrink back more than any nitrocellulos lacquer I've ever used. Period. And that's on 4 different projects.

OK, if it's a FACT than show me SCIENTIFIC proof, no just this "4 projects" bull. A lot of product defects have to do with the user and application whether you would admit it or not.

What are those 4 projects?

 

[doctadre]

Re: Painting a guitar body with car paint?

Depending on what color u are painting the guitar, here are some suggestions:


Solids: get your primer from home depot, color from the Reranch or some other site that will deliver to Canada, and get the clear coats from either the reranch, or the Home Depot. If you want a nitro finish, you can buy a huge can of it, buy some thinner, and get one of those portable cheap spray systems with the aerosol and the little jar (i forget the name).... Or just buy a ready to go can of polyeurethane. I made one of my guitars with the nitro finish and it takes many more coats to get a nice quality finish. I have experimented with a cheap 5 dollar can of poly, and if you do it carefully you can get an amazing finish with less coats.


Translucents or stains: just buy from the reranch or stew mac, and get the clear coats using the methods above.


It takes time, attention to detail, and slow calculated working to get the finish as close to manufacturer specs as you want.


Dre

 

[jdbluesville]

Re: Painting a guitar body with car paint?

i've used the stew-mac stuff before with no problems at all. no softer than normal. i avoid stew-mac because they're horribly over-priced but sometimes you need something! i've more than 4 projects so far but who knows...maybe i'm wrong.

personally i wouldn't use a heat lamp. i use heat when i want to remove nitro, works well!! in the old days when they used it on a car body, sure. the steel didn't move as much with temperature. heat makes laquer LIFT off the surface due to the wood movement etc.

patience is a virtue and a requirement for doing it right, IMO.

 

[mnbaseball91]

Re: Painting a guitar body with car paint?

Don't misunderstand me, their lacquer is perfectly useable, it's just their sanding sealer that I find worthless. MAYBE I just got a bad can, but I can tell you I'm absolutely not doing anything wrong. I've gotten excellent results applying a different brand of stuff using the same method.