Cracked Finish

[greentea]

I had my guitar re-painted about a month ago by some dude, i'm pretty sure he used spray cans

when i got the guitar back it looked fantastic, except i noticed all these little cracks forming around the black pinstripes

after all thsi time ive started to notice many more deeper cracks forming around the body and making my guitar look pretty ugly. Ive taken great care of it since noticing the cracks but nothing seems to be working to keep it from getting worse

what might be causing this =S ?

Thanks

[killemall8]

probably compatablity issues. do you have a pic? is it a v?

[greentea]

Yup, a jackson rr

i tried taking pictures with a high resolution camera but the cracks arent even showing up

they're extremely visible from about 10 feet away though in person, and more become apparent as you get closer, they're popping up everywhere from around the pickup bezels to the trem cavity to along the bevels. The finish looked really nice before but its starting to get really messed up. Would the shape have much to do with it?

[Mickguard]

Would the shape have much to do with it?

Doubtful. More likely "some dude" either did not prep the body properly (oil/wax/polish/silicon residue), used incompatible paints/lacquer/sealer, or a combination of both.

Did you pay to have this done?

[syxxstring]

Since it's cracking around the pinstripes, did he bury the pinstripes in clear?

If so he may have used One Shot stripping paint, a standard for pinstripers and a good choice. Except, you can clear over it with out mixing in a catalyst. For clearing over stripes you can used House of Kolors Urethane stripping paints or as mentioned add the catalyst to One Shot.

The other catch is if you use Hok and don't clear over it you need to add catalyst.

For this reason many people choose to use Hok when they are going to bury in clear and One Shot when no clearing is involved.

My other guess besides that would be the prep work as previously mentioned or application thickness. If the paint was put on in too thick of coats it won't cure correctly and cause issues, or if it's too much of it there.

Either way sounds like time for cash back and a refinish.

If you let him redo it talk about his process first.

If you post up pics we may be able to give you a better idea what happened.

[greentea]

I paid $100 to get a complete paintjob done T-T with pinstripes

from far away itlooks alright

but when you get closer...

pinstripe

mounting rings

pinstripe again

deep crack

not looking too good, and its getting worse and worse every time i look at it =S

[killemall8]

it looks like he diddnt prep it right. thats what it looks like when you dont sand the body right, or spray ontop of gloss.

[greentea]

im not sure if he sanded it right down to the wood or not, but would it not have occurred if he had?

[Mickguard]

im not sure if he sanded it right down to the wood or not, but would it not have occurred if he had?

He wouldn't have needed to sand down to the wood. It would have been enough to scuff the surface of the existing finish. But he would have had to make sure to have thoroughly cleaned the surface --and if there was any kind of silicon product in whatever polish had been used on the guitar, cleaning it would have been that much harder.

Really, he should have sanded it back to the sealer coat, takes about 15 minutes. And he should have worn gloves during all of it.

But from the looks of it, he doesn't know how to polish a finish either.

Do you know what kind of paints/finishes he used?

I'm afraid he didn't do a proper job of it. He should give you your money back or redo it properly.

You can do this yourself you know-- lots of info in this forum on how to get it done.

[RAI6]

Let's put it this way:

you get what you pay for.

$100 for a complete paint job should barely even cover materials...

[Dean]

Just tell everyone you had it reliced...just kidding.The products used did not work together.$100.00 dollars or not ,maybe get with the guy and work something out to get it done right.If I did something like that ,I would pay to make it right.That's just me.He mite have some pride and want to fix it ,as his name is on it.Good luck and hope it works out.By the way at least give him the chance to make it right,like I said his name is on it.

[syxxstring]

RA16

I don't know what paint your buying but even using House of Kolor products the materials would be under a hundred dollars. Each coat should only be about an ounce of paint. Following the HOK system:

Sand to sealer coat.

Level sand and fill and low spots.

Spray White Ko Seal 1 coat

Mask of black areas, apply black base coat.

Uc35 Clear, 3 sessions of single flowing coats.

Granted if you didn't have it the Ko Seal or Clear you can only buy them by the quart but a quart of either will do many many guitars. Custom painting guitars the labor is much more expensive than the material.

As far as what went wrong here, hard to tell exactly but the bottom line is the painter screwed up. I think he put on too much paint without enough flash time. Prep problems usually cause fish eyes not the cracks seen here, but its hard to tell with out knowing the products, application methods, and conditions. He needs to make it right, or if he's not capable of doing that give you the money back. Chances are your going to eat the cost on this one. Then next person to paint it has way more work now because they have to take all of his stuff off.

[SwedishLuthier]

This looks like incompatibility to me. Like, he only scuff sanded the body, added pin stripes and clear, but the pin stripe colour wasn't compatible with the original finish, or the top coat wasn't compatible with the pin stripe colour or the top coat wasn't compatible with the base coat or...

I have tried to mix some different types of finishes and when things go wrong it looks like this. BUT, on the other hand an incompatibility usualy shows up much faster than in a month.

Whatever may have caused this you should simply take the guitar back to "dude" and politely explain that this is not good enough and eihter ask for a refund, or make him do it all over again.

[Tim37]

As far as what went wrong here, hard to tell exactly but the bottom line is the painter screwed up. I think he put on too much paint without enough flash time

looks like that too me solvent poping it happens when there is too much paint and solvents get traped in they have to go somewhere and sooner or later they will come out.

[DGW]

Your "painter" used Krylon.

Krylon is crap ... I know first hand.

It's an acrylic lacquer and can take up to a year to fully cure.

I painted this guitar with Krylon and let it cure for 8 months before wetsanding and buffing the finish.

It looked awesome at first, though the paint was really soft and really suseptable to damage ...

Approximately 3-6 months later, it looked like the first pics shown above.

I wish I had better news, but your guitar will only continue to look worse and worse.

I will never use that crap again.

Edited May 13, 2008 by DGW

[greentea]

Crap, its basically my only guitar too, aside from this terrrible strat copy i started out with

haha, i guess RA16's right, i got what i paid for

i guess its going to be a project to work on when i get a better guitar, until then, thanks for the help!