Hand Painting Over White Color Coats B4 Finishing....

[blakeish]

I'm wanting to paint a weblike design on the guitar I am repainting as olympic white/ and refinishing with a water-based poly.....but the design in my own work, and here's a phot about as good as i could get for pencil/sharpie on scrap mdf.....the squared area with the screw in it is the bridge plate, so you can get an idea of the lvl of detail:

I'm not completely done doodling all over it, but i plan to keep the colors simple. white guitar, solid black webbing. I'm wondering if it's possible to use a fine detail brush to block in the color before applying the finish coats....I'm aware that I'll have to use a larger number of topcoats to level everything out. But I'm curious, waterbased acrylic paints? or some sort of enamel? a passing thought was to use model paint, like the toy car kind....::shrugs:: just need some confirmation before i get all my materials together.

thanks in advance to anyone who can throw me a bone on this one. peace.

EDIT: I'm going to use the rattle cans from reranch (olympic white) to paint the guitar and a water based polyurethane (non yellowing) for the final finish. thought i should add that.

Edited June 24, 2006 by blakeish

[ryanb]

You might want to rethink that base coat. The ReRanch paint is nitrocellulose with pigment added. Mixing NC with other finish types (acrylic and/or poly), either under it or particularly over it, is often asking for problems. You might end up with the clear peeling off.

The poly top coat is a good choice over white for the non-yellowing aspect (another reason to question the NC white base) -- though two-part automotive poly would end up much more durable.

The best route would be a white base coat and urethane clear coat from the same product line ... applied by someone with a proper spray booth, like a body shop. You could do the intermediate graphics with something like the Auto Air paints, etc. There are some other threads with similar ideas.

If that isn't an option, you could probably do fine with an acrylic or something that you can find -- using the same products for the white base and the graphics. As long as it is completely dry (which can take a long time with some products), you most likely can put the urethane over it (pretty much anything but NC should work).

Just my $0.02. Test first and see if it works....