Newbie Paint Questions

[elynnia]

Hiya,

As a newbie in painting, and due to the rather big failure in my last refinishing project, I have a few questions about painting and refinishing:

To repaint a guitar, can cans of aerosol spray paint (the stuff you find in hardware shops) be used well? I tried one time, and the paint started to rub off...

Is there a way of giving a shop-bought guitar with shiny finish a 'satin' finish without excessive repainting?

How can I get a white stripe around the headstock of a guitar, like on recent Epiphone archtops?

thanks,

elynnia

[gun]

Look at Reranch first, there you can buy all you need too. Then ask here for more specific questions

[ryanb]

You should slightly roughen the existing gloss finish before painting it so that the new paint has something to grab onto. (And also make sure the surface is absolutely free of dirt and grease.) You can apply whatever finish you want, but a color coat with no clear won't be very durable. There are matt clear finishes you could apply, or you could use a normal clear coat and just not polish it all the way to a gloss ... that might give you the look you want. Try some samples and see what you like.

[elynnia]

hi, thanks.

For painting, I think I just might sand down the whole instrument and start from there. As for that, does sanding using a handheld electric sander hurt the binding of an acoustic guitar at all?

As for ReRanch - well - I'm in Australia, so if anyone knows where you can buy those things locally, that'd be awesome.

elynnia

Edited August 30, 2005 by elynnia