Spraying Laquer?

[InSasquatchCountry]

So about 5 months ago I thought it would be cool to refinnish my schecter blackhawk. I had to rewire it anyway so i thought, "why not make look how I want too?" So I looked on the project guitar website and saw three options, heat, sand, and chemicals. Not knowing what I was up against I decided to sand the thing thing. The neck when fast but the body was basswood with grain filler 1mm deep into the pores and a nice thick coat of black paint. This thing took me FOREVER to sand. NEVER AGAIN!!

So I finished my sanding, stained the headstock, neck, and body black, and now I want to spray some lacquer on this bad boy. I have a HVLP turbine spay gun but I have never spayed anything before. Are there any good spay tuts out there? I live in Tampa Florida, will humidity be a problem?

Thanks

James

[killemall8]

one thing people always misunderstand is that you dont have to strip the paint all the way down to the wood. why would you want to? thats basicly good thick primer to spray on, instead of stripping it all down and re spraying back to the same thickness of pimer.

humitidy does affect your spraying horribly. but i dont know what to do about that, since i live in a 1% humitidy area.

[InSasquatchCountry]

one thing people always misunderstand is that you dont have to strip the paint all the way down to the wood. why would you want to? thats basicly good thick primer to spray on, instead of stripping it all down and re spraying back to the same thickness of pimer.

humitidy does affect your spraying horribly. but i dont know what to do about that, since i live in a 1% humitidy area.

Yeah true (*bangs head on desk), but this was kind of a learning project anyway. I'm gonna build a strat soon so I wanted to use this guitar as a practice run for applying lacquer. I wanted to see the grain and I wanted the guitar to be totally black. The thought did cross my mind to go surfer green but the inlay on the fretboard said otherwise. I already have some Blackout pups to install.

Since the body I have for my strat is just bare wood I thought I'd just strip everything off this one. Looking back I think I would have tried chemicals but idk if that would take the grainfill out.

Good tip though. I never consider leaving the grain filler. If I had known that I would have just painted it white and stained the neck to look vintage and lacquered it.

*tip- I was trying to strip the neck from a Ibanez Roadstar while back and someone told me to sandblast it. So i took it into my schools woodshop and blasted neck and it made it really smooth. It dulled the dulled the finish but it felt a lot faster. (Thats the neck I'm gonna use for my strat. I think Ill use some chemicals this time.)

[CrazyManAndy]

What type of paint are you going to spray, exactly?

CMA

Edited June 9, 2008 by CrazyManAndy

[RAI6]

one thing people always misunderstand is that you dont have to strip the paint all the way down to the wood. why would you want to? thats basicly good thick primer to spray on, instead of stripping it all down and re spraying back to the same thickness of primer.

You would if you stain it, which is what he said he did...

[InSasquatchCountry]

What type of paint are you going to spray, exactly?

CMA

Does everyone on this forum just slap paint on their guitars? (not a personal attack at you CMA)

[CrazyManAndy]

I'm not sure what you mean?

CMA

[InSasquatchCountry]

Well anytime i've seen anyone talk about finishing a guitar on this forum its either paint or oil. Laquer is not a paint its a finish. Also, most of the posts and tuts on this site are about using paint. I've learned a little about laquer and its very different from paint. I just wish some one had a good tut with pics and opinions. Ya know.

[CrazyManAndy]

I'm sorry for the confusion. When I said paint, I didn't mean "paint". Paint is sometimes used as a generic term for finishes, where I come from. What I meant was, what type of finish do you want to use? Nitro, acrylic, urethane, etc.?

CMA

[scab]

That's how we say it here sometimes too.. Usually if it's an electric w/o a nice figured top it's getting "painted" (color) w/ lacquer. I've never sprayed color (yet), only clear finishes. If you ever see paint or a burst on a(n) acoustic guitar, then that may mean that the builder possibly ran into some mistakes when they were building.

Just to add: I saw your topic asked about humidity. I build my guitars between 35% and 45% relitive humidity. Thus, I spray at 35%-45% R.H.

Edited June 13, 2008 by scab

[InSasquatchCountry]

I'm sorry for the confusion. When I said paint, I didn't mean "paint". Paint is sometimes used as a generic term for finishes, where I come from. What I meant was, what type of finish do you want to use? Nitro, acrylic, urethane, etc.?

CMA

Ah, well I'm using Lawrence-McFadden Nitro Lacquer.