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Newbie Refinish - Need Help/advice.


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Hi there, as thread title suggests i am about to undertake a refinish for the first time and i need some help/advice. Now before anyone says it i have used the search facility on this forum after having read many other first timers getting slated for not looking for themselves - i have also read the tutorials but i have to say that i have not been able to find the kind of answers i am looking for so i will explain my situation and hopefully someone can help me.

I recently bought a Washburn WI64 of ebay as an unfinished guitar project. It has a solid mahogony body, set mahogony neck and a rosewood fingerboard. I would like to respray this guitar. Mostly all the posts & tuturiols here discuss prepping the guitar i know but they nearly all talk about going back to the wood, seal the grain, prime and colour - however is this really necessary?? Can i not just sand off a layer of the existing paintwork to rough it up a bit and then apply a new colour over the top? Also if i were to sand back to the wood, being a factory guitar surely will the grain etc not already be filled? As said i have a rosewood fingerboard, however it is a bit grubby for my liking and i can't seem to find any info on cleaning it up. Can i use sandpaper/wirewool? Is a fingerboard laquered or is rosewood supposed to be left natural? On the paint side of things i want a matt black finish so i'm assuming there is a non-shiny laquer out there to coat the colour or does the shine come from polishing? Does the colour need polished before the laquer is applied or is it only the lacquer that is polished?

Any help you could give me on this matter would be greatly appreciated.

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I'll be nice here 'cause almost all of your questions are answered elsewhere. This also means I can be overbearing and opinionated.

If you have a lacquer finish and aren't but so particular you can scuff sand, feather in any chips and shoot a coat or two of sealer. Then shoot your color coat and clear coat.

Most of the time you'll be okay. And most of the time it will look okay.

If this was a $20 pawn shop guitar that was only gonna be viewed in the light of a bar by drunk I didn't know I might do it this way. If I was gonna go out in public with decent lighting I'd take it down to the wood and follow the other forums.

If you sand off the old finish you may or may not also take off the filler. Hard to say. So what? It's a small area and easy to re-fill.

Go to Guitar RE-ranch and follow their tutorial. When you have problems or surprizes post them here.

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Thanks for your replys guys.

Maiden69 believe it or not but i did read that thread. What i don't understand is this. Maybe i have picked this up wrong but i thought primer was used to provide a painting surface so that the paint does not soak into the wood (please note i live in the UK and so primer might be different here) if i am just scuffing an already primed and painted surface why do i need to prime it again before applying colour? On the subject of Primer is this sprayed on or painted with a brush?

I was able to find out that the majority of rosewood fingerboards are untreated and can be touched up using wire wool.

I'm assuming colorsand means polishing the colour coat before applying clearcoat?

I have been reading about the number of coats etc in your thread Maiden and was wondering does this refer to Aerosol or Paint Gun? I have a contact in an auto shop who said he would spray my guitar for me if i prepped it however i had thought it was something that could be done in 10-15mins and don't really want to put him to too much bother if he has to keep coming back to it every hour or so?

One final note i see you are a both regular contributors Maiden & Doc and i have come across your posts in numerous threads so i am assuming you may be or have contact with forum moderators. I have to say that this is quite an intimadating and obnoxious forum. The amount of new people posting that get sarcastic and smug comments directed at them regarding using search or oh no not again doesn't really give the impression of a friendly community - i myself had to think twice before posting and to be honest, i know you were nice to me doc but i almost expected the response i got even though i had done the homework - i have been on the ReRanch site, Stewmac, Project Guitar etc Sometimes people just want a more personal approach rather than reading he said she said.

Anyway that's just my observations and i hope they are taken in the spirit they were given - constructive criticism. I am grateful for any help i can get from the wealth of experienced members that contribute to this forum

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One final note i see you are a both regular contributors Maiden & Doc and i have come across your posts in numerous threads so i am assuming you may be or have contact with forum moderators. I have to say that this is quite an intimadating and obnoxious forum. The amount of new people posting that get sarcastic and smug comments directed at them regarding using search or oh no not again doesn't really give the impression of a friendly community - i myself had to think twice before posting and to be honest, i know you were nice to me doc but i almost expected the response i got even though i had done the homework - i have been on the ReRanch site, Stewmac, Project Guitar etc Sometimes people just want a more personal approach rather than reading he said she said.

I understand a forum like this can be intimidating at first.....but obnoxious???

How can it be obnoxious?

There is a ton of very useful info in this forum. I personally must have spend hours and hours reading....learning. Some threads and comments are hilarious. (Drak?!)

Fact is that there are newbies, whom just find this forum without even seeing the search function, or the tutorials on the main site. They tend to blur out questions that have been asked a million times, and an easy search or click on tutorials could have saved their day. Some are cool and friendly about it. Some are OBNOXIOUS and demand their questions to be answered. (read: Filthy McNasty #1,2,3,4)

I think it's all in the attitude that speaks from your questions.

And yes, a number of threads by newbies currently are starting with....Hey, guys I did do a search and couldn't find my answers. This simply means the message has come across. Do your homework, read up on info, buy a book......etc. before asking the standard questions. All in all....I don't think that's a bad thing.

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Makavelli,

Any body here can get in touch with the mods, just go to their profile and PM them, they are very nice to deal with, as long as you don't bring up an attitude or make stupid comments, you have to remember that they don't get paid to do this, it is on their own freewill and most of them have guitar related jobs, so they know what they are talking about.

The reason you are seeing this stuff happen is because a lot of new people just ask the question the wrong way, how are you going to ask a question stating that you are too lazy to do a search, or that you know it's being asked a million times, but here I will go and ask it again.???

On topic,

The link I gave you is for spray can (aereosol), so it doesn't relate to automotive paints. The primer is used to do 2 things, if you have bare wood it will act like a sealer(which I don't like too much since wood soaks primer up too much, ( I used a fiberglass resin in the past if I have too, but lately I have used nitro sanding sealer with great results), and to make the finish flawless before the paint. if your factory finish is in good condition and have no flaws, you can use it as a base, the reason I say to use one coat of primer is to make it an even color, hence making it easier to color.

Automotive paint is the best way to go... If you can get a friend to spray it, and he is familiar with it, just tell him to paint it just like he is painting a car. ie. primer, base coat and clear. The only thing different is that on cars you can get away with colorsanding (wet), on a guitar you have to be very careful because the wood will swell and damage your finish if you use too much water. So he has to lay the paint as perfectly as possible.

Don't be afraid to ask question, just know how to ask them, and make sure that you do a search!!! I say it again, you can get an answer by using the search faster than by asking 90% of the times.

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Makavelli,

Sorry if you find me intimidating or obnoxious. I am not being that way intentionally with you. My goal here is to pass on what I've learned the hard way over the last couple of decades.

One of the problems with your initial post was that several of the issues that you brought up had just been discussed at length in several posts. Specifically cleaning and oiling a fingerboard. This leads one to assume that you took a quick look at the old threads, and didn't go any deeper. Sorry to make a snap judgement.

Some answers.

There aren't a whole lot of absolutes with what we're discussing here. Number of coats and such are highly variable depending on how heavy a hand you have, what you're shooting and how you prepare it.

There are pretty much as many opinions, both right and wrong as there are finishers.

There is not much here that can be done or even taught in 15 minutes.

Primer serves many purposes. It does seal the wood. It gives you a smooth surface to lay down color and clear coat. It also can provide a base that adheres to the base surface, be it wood or old finish, and that the top coat will stick to. Some things just don't work on each other and need an "insulator" in between them.

Being in the UK means that you use very different terminology from us Yanks. You also have much more restriciton on what you can get to use. I've had a bunch of Brits and Scots work for me over the years and have learned the differences. If you need a translator feel free to ask,'cause it does get confusing.

Again sorry if you feel that I jumped on you.

Just as an editorial comment, with a handle like Makavelli one tends to invite some amount of sarcasm.

Feel free to direct e-mail me with specific questions.

Doc

'

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Ok first of all many thanks you guys for replying to my thread and offering me some advice.

Secondly my comments were not directed at any individual in particular, it was just the general feel i was getting from this forum particularly from reading newb/help posts.

Thirdly i would like to try an bring some understanding to the whole argument that i have generated.

I realise that probably every topic under the sun has already been covered at one stage or another in this forum, but as you said doc there aren't a whole lot of absolutes - and for every person that says yeah there is another one somewhere saying nay so one reason for posting a new thread would be to try and get a general consensus rather than having to sift through the archives. Leading me on to my next point, i know there is a view out there that this is the lazy man's approach and in some cases that would be perfectly valid, however there are people out there that are not academically orientated and are unable to read through masses of articles and tutorials, finding it easier to learn in a more personal environment which in my view would be the reason for starting a new thread. Another thing is that some archived threads may have contributors who are no longer members of the forum or have maybe changed e-mail address and cannot be contacted with any follow up questions - a new thread may necessitate the regurgitation of already discussed topics but at least the information is being discussed by current users and, as doc has kindly offered me, can be taken outside the forum to e-mail or whatever. Also terminology can sometimes be a bit confusing given that i imagine the majority of people on this forum are from the US, but again maybe that gets back to your argument of asking the right question and stating what country you are from.

I realise there is a fine line between the two arguments but i think newcomers who post already discussed topics could be cut some slack - i mean if you are going to bother posting comments such as 'use search' or 'this topic has already been discussed' then you might as well just post a link, seems to me as they would both take about the same amount of effort. Again i'm not pointing fingers here as i know you were kind enough to post the link Maiden .

Anyway that's about all i have to say on the matter, the last thing i want to do is cause any ill feeling on this forum - and once again thank you for your contributions

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I realise there is a fine line between the two arguments but i think newcomers who post already discussed topics could be cut some slack - i mean if you are going to bother posting comments such as 'use search' or 'this topic has already been discussed' then you might as well just post a link,

If you are talking about the thread that got closed from "Filthy whatever", it wasn't that he asked a redundant question, is the way he asked it. Liek I said on my previous post.

And I always help the new guys since I was and still consider my self a newbie. Just that I have taken countless hours to read and apply what I have learned here, still I think that if I did it, anybody can do it.

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