Refinishing Superstrat

[Fowl2338]

I want to refinish a BC Rich superstrat of mine into possibly somehting like this:

From this:

As you can see, the Gunslinger is already red, so I was wondering if I could simply scuff up the poly-clear coat, "paste" the camp pattern,

and paint the gray and black.

Possible? Or do I have to take off the entire finish and start from scratch...?

[sdshirtman]

You should be able to wetsand and spray right over it I would think.

[ihocky2]

Scuff and paint is all you need to do.

[Fowl2338]

Can I tape the camo pattern on top of the already clearcoated red, scuff the rest, spray black, tape over the black, spray gray, then clearcoat? Or would the clearcoat already over the red + the new clearcoat look bad?

[dalandser]

If you spend some time working the clear coat so that it is evenly scuffed, then after a the black, gray, and final clear coat are applied, you should have some nice results. If you sand through any spots on the red - no big deal, you can paint any such areas black or gray.

You may have more experience with painting then me, but here's my 2 cents for the project:

I would make sure any imperfections are smoothed out to the black and gray parts while the guitar is still masked off for each color. This will save you time rather than wait to do any smoothing until the whole guitar is unmasked and then decide there's one spot that doesn't make muster. I would then apply one or two light coats of clear (light, light, light) and another light coat or two on the whole body between colors. If the coats stay light and consistent, then they will be very unnoticable in the finished product and help the paint stay protected once it's applied. If the clear gets too thick, well... Just keep it nice and thin and your guitar should stay about the same weight and tone.

If you apply too much black, gray, or clear during this process, you'll get a material build up line at the tape line. Avoid this if possible by keeping your coats nice an thin - since the guitar is masked off, you can keep the spray can (assuming this is what's being used) pretty far away from the body and watch that thin coat appear. This is also another good reason for putting a clear over each layer - protect the thin coat of paint (this is a guitar after all and not a boat, door, or a wall getting painted). If you do happen to get a thick build up you can either do a quick smear and remove as much of the paint while wet and then wait a couple days and sand it down and try again (keep the guitar masked, but redo the tape around the smear) or wait until the paint is dry enough to remove the tape and fiddle with the build up line, assess how much you don't like it and then decide on sanding down the problem spot and remasking. After writing that, the first option seems a lot easier, but sometimes you might not notice the build up until after you unmask.

Mask the whole body for each color - but just use tape around the edges of the new color and masking paper (any paint supply place has it for $2-3 a roll) or just double up on some newspaper held down by the tape for the large sections of masked body. This saves time and tape=money.

Either way, you can do a those full body clear coats between the colors and then smooth everything out without as much danger to the paint that you've already applied. If you're patient and let the clear coats competely cure between doing the colors (waiting a good 2 days or at least until when you touch the clear coat it feels hard like plastic, not tacky at all), then you can use four ought (you'll see 0000 on the package at Ace, HD, Lowe's, etc.) steel wool to buff out each full body clear coat layer if you don't have a buffer or want to use a buffer. Just go easy, easy and you won't go through the clear coats. Steel wool is awesome because it forms to guitar's contours - just don't use to try to get rid of a drip - sand paper is better here. Just dust off the body each time between coats to get rid of the remnants. You'll probably want a nice rotary buffer or such for the final clear coat(s). I don't have one yet, but I'm looking to get an attatchment for my cordless drill.

All that or you can just try to bang out the whole thing in an afternoon. Depends on what you're feeling

Edited August 22, 2010 by dalandser