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The colour looks great. what coour guard are you matching it with?

Black 3ply. I dunno, I was looking at it this morning after the second coat and it looks darker than I'd like. I'm gonna get a 3rd coat down, then take it down and do some light sanding and see if that makes it get any lighter.

Pens wrote:First coat of green down. It has this cool metallic thing going on, I still want to try yellowing it a bit, though.

these white milky stains you see on the surface, you get these when the room temperature changes while spraying, I had this on my stang project as well..

Ah, nah those are actually just reflections, and some is the primer coat coming through. That was the first coat. I've done a million coats so far, but haven't been able to get it completely flat. I'm actually really frustrated with this process right now. I finally filled the drilled holes with a bit of wood filler just so they would quit taking in water from the wetsanding and expanding into bumps/ridges in the wood.

Then last night I got impatient waiting for a coat to dry, and started wetsanding too soon, and a nice chunk of finish came off all the way down to the wood. So now I have to let that settle, sand out and redo. I'm so sick of this.

If you wet sand with white spirit (mineral spirits in the US?) you'll avoid the swelling and cracking you get with water. Don't get too frustrated - it takes ages but it'll look great when it's done.

theworkoffire wrote:If you wet sand with white spirit (mineral spirits in the US?) you'll avoid the swelling and cracking you get with water. Don't get too frustrated - it takes ages but it'll look great when it's done.

Wait, I can wetsand with mineral spirits?? I have a bottle of that stuff already. I use it to clean in between coats and such after I finish wetsanding and to speed up the drying.

Thing was, I had the body nearly mirror smooth, just a couple of minor spots I had to hit with more color, then the wood swelled around the bridge where the holes were drilled through. 90% of the guitar is so damn nice and smooth right now and I was getting stoked to finally start clear coating (my cans of nitro came the other day), then this shit happened last night. So aggravating.

I've had exactly the same thing hapen to me - big cracks opening up from the bridge. Mineral spirits or naphtha lubricate the sanding just the same as water, but evaporate quicker so they don't have chance to soak into the wood and make it swell up in the same way. Just test it on the pickup cavity first to make sure it isn't a solvent for your paint. And keep a window open to stave off the fume headache.

Okay cool, gonna try this tonight. Thanks for the tip!

You can use water with a drop of soap. But plug all your holes with a putty, and paint over em. Don't get stupid with the water either. But for a no hassle, fool proof, use naphtha or mineral spirits.

Yeah, one thing I have learned from this is to plug the holes with putty first. This is the first guitar I've done completely from bare wood, so I didn't expect those issues.

So, how flat does the color coat have to be? Am I supposed to sand the color coat completely flat, then spray with clear, or do I sand flat, color coat one last time, then clear?

Pens wrote:So, how flat does the color coat have to be? Am I supposed to sand the color coat completely flat, then spray with clear, or do I sand flat, color coat one last time, then clear?

the second option is what i did

basically just sand it until you are happy with it..

serfx wrote:basically just sand it until you are happy with it..

I doubt I'll ever be happy with it though...

Haven't bamped this in a while.

I got the color mostly flat, then hung it back up and just finished off the whole can of green onto it. This would be the final coat for me.

I let that dry. I was a bit concerned about some odd differing textures that seemed to reflect light differently in areas, I started sweatin it.

But figured I'd just press on. Got out the yellowed clear, shot a coat. Damn odd reflections were still there. FUCK.

So I moved to the back side and did a coat there. Came back around to do the front a second time. The weird patches were suddenly gone. I guess once the clear settled into the paint it evened it all out. Whew.

I still wasn't sure about this whole yellow-tint thing, didn't think it would actually work to make the color more yellowy green as I figured it would be too light to make a difference.

Nah, after 4 coats of that yellow shit, it turned this really nice hunter's green like I'd been wanting. It's pretty close to the color on the first page here now, but metallic.

I looked at the bottom edge, which I couldn't hit with the yellow coat from that angle, yep, the body is definitely a nicer hunter's green color than the dark forest green it was. I can see the difference in the shades from the bottom edge there.

Shot two more coats of normal clear, so I can save the yellowed can for doing the top and bottom edges once I lay it down flat.

Posted in another thread:

I finished up my own neck last night with a final polish and started putting the tuners on. Freaked me out at first because I couldn't get the posts into the holes, so then I just took a 1/4" drill bit and turned it slowly by hand in the holes to open them all back up again. For the top part with the ferrules, I just simply put them in and used a rubber mallet to tap them into place.

My problem now is that I didn't drill the screw holes deep enough for the tuners, so I ended up stripping three of the screws. Gotta go buy some more from the local shop. Also, I noticed while doing all of this that there are several spots on the face of the headstock that lost the tint, must have been from some of my flat sanding that I completely overlooked. I am debating tapping the ferrules back out and hitting the face with some more tint.

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Well, I did end up tapping the ferrules back out, and did some more tint/clear on the headstock face. I mean, I have time to wait for the body to cure anyway, might as well.

Some pics. You can see my reflection in the finish, that's not a cloudy spot.




This one you can see the "tan line" for the yellowed clear and the contrast from the bluey forest green before and the huntery green now.




The headstock after re-tinting.



This shot you can see the finish after it's been polished.

Looking great. Love the colour.

giver some clear and go from there

the odd reflections will never go away

UGH

SO GOOD

Very pleasing hues on neck and body, gonna be a classy looking guitar.