Oil Paints And Guitar

[Rosseh]

I am relatively new to this, so I apologize for my ignorance, but I am learning as fast as my schedule allows. I currently have an ambrosia maple body and a maple neck. I wanted to paint my guitar this body color: http://www.humbuckermusic.com/fender-1952-relic-tele-sonic-blue-tortoise.html but I want to keep the grain of the wood slightly visible. I am guessing a dye stain is my best bet, is this correct? After I am finished with that I was hoping to hand paint some artwork on the guitar using oil paints. What kinds of finish would not dissolve the oil paints or make them run? Is there a better paint than oil based that I can use on a small brush?? I don't want anything high gloss, as my guitar is going to have a steampunk feel as I plan to set a pocketwatch in the headstock, and various other small things like that. I need advising on what kinds of paints and finish would be best? Unfortunately the neck I bought is already finished but Ill probably take the finish off with a heat gun and then proceed to tung oil just the back of the neck. The rest of the guitar I was thinking of going with nitrocellulose as I prefer the tone. Any thoughts? I really need some help here guys.

Thanks,

Brett

[Ripthorn]

Just my thoughts:

1) Why paint an ambrosia maple body? Those things look awesome with a clear finish

2) You get that finish by using a white tinted base with a little bit of color to it (usually a little brown and maybe a little red)

3) After you get that color, you can seal with shellac and then put pretty much whatever you want over it assuming the shellac is DE-waxed

4) After your artwork, seal with shellac again, and put whatever clear coat on it that you want, probably satin based on what you described. I don't think you will find a really high quality nitro in satin, though I could be wrong, as I don't use nitro and the only satin nitro I know of is Deft and I had a really bad experience with that once, and exactly once.

[SwedishLuthier]

Or use water based laquer. I have made a copy of this guitar:

(that fat bald guy is a true swedish guitar wizzard, Kalle Moraeus) for a customer. I used a water based base coat (LMI's KTM-9), flattened it out 100%, sent the guitar to be painted with that traditional nothern Swedish pattern using oil paint (I don't do that type of things), and cleared it all with KTM-9