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Painting A Warlock


Milkman

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Ok, so I have a B. C. Rich warlock bronze series and i'm feeling like I want to paint it. I've never painted a guitar before so I don't know what kind of paint would work best. I just need some tips and suggestions and if you have any projects you've completed i'd love to see your work(I've seen some peoples work and it's just insane).

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My advice... JUST DO IT!

Acrylic spray paint is cheap and readily available from Car Spares shops. Some paints are nitro-celulose based and they react badly with acrylic based paints. Ask for assistance in store. they *SHOULD* be able to tell you which is which.

With any finishing job, the end result will depend on the work you put in during the preparation stage. Fill holes and dents, Sand with varying degrees of sandpaper, clean the whole job with a scotch cloth and some prepaint wipe, then apply / sand / apply / sand. etc... , leave to dry (a week at least!), apply many many coats of lacquer or plasticote and allow them to dry.

Perhaps you prefer the idea of gluing veneer to your instrument and dying it, or a material finish....

The choices are endless. Take your time, read the posts by others to get some idea of how to approach each stage. Dont rush it, enjoy it and learn. Most importantly, dont expect amazing results on your first go. Its easy to try something and make silly mistakes the first time (we all do it!). It took me 4 or 5 attempts to get myself happy with the quality of the finishes I get now, but thats because I made mistakes and learned from them.

I know I sound quite pessamistic, but since this will be the first one, you should concentrate on getting your technique right at first. Dont spray too much paint on one area as it will run and cause an orange peel effect. Put several thin coats on and *LIGHTLY* sand between coats to give your paint a key to grab onto (it will just peel straight off a base that is too smooth). Keep the work as clean as you can (One fingerprint will show up light a light bulb on a freshly painted surface). Think about where you are going to store the piece once its wet. Wet paint smells quite strongly, so a shed or garage is better than indoors, and then you need to rig up some way of hanging it up. I use a bent wire coat hanger over a joist or beam in my shed, and that seems to work ok for me, but even then, bugs can sometimes want to explore my work too closely and it has the same effect as fly paper!

All in all, I advise you try it and see how it turns out. best of luck

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If it's chipped up and scratched to hell, strip it down to the clear sealer coat. If you just want to change the color of it and it's in good shape, sand it down with some 400 grit to take the shine off to a UNIFORM dull finish. A red ScotchBrite pad works well too. I hate rattlecan jobs with a passion, but they can turn out ok if you take your time and don't rush it. Sanding between coats is silly and unnecessary and usually will double your chances of screwing something up. Make sure you have a place to let it dry where it won't get bumped or touched. The more coats you put on, the longer it will take to dry.

I use a basecoat/clearcoat polyurethane on all my stuff. The clear has a hardner that locks up the clear and makes it very durable. I've been a custom painter for over twenty years and have ALL the equipment you'd ever need for painting. I don't recommend trying to use the auto paints unless you or someone else is familiar with their use. It's expensive and can kill you without a proper respirator.

Here's a link to some of my more recent projects.......Heavy Metal Hot Rods

Good luck and have fun with it!

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