Painting a Headstock with Inlays

[AxeMasterG]

Hi there, I'm currently building a guitar from a kit and I decided I would paint it and do some custom inlays too. I've got the inlays cut and the recess routed out, but I was wondering how you would actually go about painting a headstock that has inlays? My current plan is to glue in the inlays, sand them level with the headstock, then mask them with a liquid frisket (Pebeo Drawing Gum to be precise). At this point I was going to paint the headstock (along with neck) before peeling away the frisket, hopefully exposing the inlays in the process. Does this sound like a viable plan? Or is there a better way to do this? Thanks.

[mistermikev]

i have no idea what a frisket is... but I like the word. hehe.

have never done this myself... but have often thought about it.  if I had to do it... I would probably do a scan of my inlay and get it into my computer, then print out those lines on my vinyl inkjet paper, use a sharp fiskars detail scissors to cut the lines carefully... and then tape it on carefully.  all easy to do.

another idea might be to use flex-all or other rubberized paint... use a detail brush to paint it on... spray over it... rubber should just pull right off the inlay.  

I think the frisket (whatever the hell that is lol) could work just as good... the trick I think is going to be nice clean lines.  I have recently used vinyl as mentioned above to do nat binding and it worked very well.  was super easy and I got nice crisp lines.  Painting something on... gonna require a real steady hand to get those kind of lines... but doable.  

 

hope something there helps.

[ScottR]

22 hours ago, mistermikev said:

I think the frisket (whatever the hell that is lol) could work just as good... the trick I think is going to be nice clean lines.  I have recently used vinyl as mentioned above to do nat binding and it worked very well.  was super easy and I got nice crisp lines.  Painting something on... gonna require a real steady hand to get those kind of lines... but doable.  

Frisket is the masking film used for airbrush illustrations. Very thin and semi transparent with light adhesive, you lay it over your illustration and use a razor knife to cut windows into it to airbrush that area whilst keeping everything else clean. In other words it is the stuff made to do what you used vinyl for.

SR

[mistermikev]

16 minutes ago, ScottR said:

Frisket is the masking film used for airbrush illustrations. Very thin and semi transparent with light adhesive, you lay it over your illustration and use a razor knife to cut windows into it to airbrush that area whilst keeping everything else clean. In other words it is the stuff made to do what you used vinyl for.

SR

i actually looked it up after that post... my take-a-way - what an odd name!!

[Bizman62]

1 hour ago, ScottR said:

Frisket is the masking film used for airbrush illustrations.

Not only that, it can be any sort of masking material. The Pebeo Gum mentioned is a masking fluid - the word "gum" made me think of engraving tombstones by sand blasting. They apply some liquid rubber on the polished stone, cut and peel the letters and images off and blast away. When finished, they peel the rubber off and melt it for reuse.

Back to the original question, the biggest issue with any masking material is to level the paint with the inlay. With tape, stickers, whatever on the protected surface you'll end up with a gap when you remove the protection. Often there will also be a rippled edge especially if you let the paint dry before peeling.

I've heard about applying a thick layer of clearcoat to protect the inlay but applying that on fine details can be too tricky. Anyhow, the idea is to have a clear layer of finish right on the inlay and paint surrounding it and when you sand it level the paint covering the clearcoat should sand off and reveal the inlay. If you paint the wood once before inlaying you can be a bit sloppier with the clearcoat as the base would already be of the desired colour!

Another option is to leave the inlays a hair proud so when you do the level sanding to remove the orange peel of your final coat of paint you'll also level the inlay with the paint. A layer of polished clearcoat will then finish the job.