Starting A Project

[6]

Ok I have a 2000-2001 Fender Stratocaster MiM. It's black right now. I am going between two ideas right now, both involve painting.

1) Tobacco burst

2) Put a tobacco burst and "relic" it

Both involve the tobacco burst. I really want that. The main deal is the painting. A friend of mine bought me an e-book from paintyourownguitar.com a long time ago and there are videos of him shooting with rattlecans. I'm probably going to be using this method as I don't have any guns or a booth...or anything but a guitar and a desire to do this. From what I've seen on the vids, and heard from chats with people that used his books/vids, the finish comes out pretty damn decent.

He mentions some brands of paint that he prefers and everyone I talked to using his method agreed on the brands. I was wondering what some of the resident rattlecan heroes swear by. I'll be purchasing that handle that turns a spray can into a "gun" from the local Home Depot or Wal-Mart. When it comes to nitro and lacquer...I get lost, I don't understand what the big differences are or the advantages of either. I just want to paint my guitar with a solid tobacco burst, like Fender does on the burst finish MiM Strats. I've viewed the Guitar ReRanch "tutorial" on how to do it, as well as the PG.com tutorial. I feel confident I can handle the techniques, and if I can't I can always sand it back down and start over, right?

I think I will have to wait and see how well it looks, if it looks good at all, with the burst before I decide to relic it and basically ruin the hard work I put into a (hopefully) good looking burst. I have lost my train of thought on this (the new James Bond movie is awesome) and I'm going to leave it like it is.

~6

[biliousfrog]

buy a replacement body with a burst on it or get a natural body & do the burst on it yourself. Stripping that body could be a slow, painful experience depending on the paint used & it might not be worthy of a burst under the current finish anyway.

[6]

Well the idea is to keep this project *cheap*, heh. I was going to strip it down to the wood, which I'm betting will look horrible, and then start all over with a new finish. Not a transparent one, a solid color burst. I understand it would be a lot work but I'm willing to put in the time. Eventually I will be buying a neck from Warmoth with an ebony fretboard and a darker neck wood (I hate all-maple necks) but that will only run me about $150+shipping. For that I will be looking into a waterslide Fender logo and clear coating the headstock, tung oil on the back of the headstock and neck. But that's later down the road. For now I'd really like to just refinish it myself. I feel that I can do a good job on it and it doesn't hurt to try. If anything horrible goes wrong, I could always just get that replacement body, sure...but why not try refinishing first?

~6

Edited March 26, 2007 by 6

[6]

Also, my dad has one of those huge Campbell-Hausfield air compressors (the kind to work on cars with pneumatic drills, etc. all day long and it only clicks on once or twice), it's a big ass compressor. And he has the "touch-up" can that looks identical to this one from StewMac. It's the one with the 8 oz. can on it. I just spoke with him and he said it's a pain in the ass to get the paint mixed with the right amount of thinner, the air pressure right, to get it spraying and not spattering. I told him I have an online resource of people I can ask questions. He said I'm welcome to use it and try whatever I want.

That setup or the rattle-can setup? What would be easier to use in the long run? I already have the stuff for a big air compressor setup obviously, so that cost is out the door. I'd be buying paint and clear...not much expense there.

~6