midnight blue finish

[aliendude012]

I'm going to be painting my guitar soon and am doing research on coloring. i want to get a real dark midnight blue. like a black that you can only tell is blue if you look real close. i ran a search on 'midnight blue' and came up with only two threads, and neither were extremely helpful. Im thinking either spraying a black basecoat and then a real dark blue topcoat, or a black basecoat and then some kind of transparent blue topcoat. has anyone here done a midnight blue before? how'd you do it? Have any pictures of a finished product?

Rust-o-leum has a midnight blue color, but im not sure i want to use their paint. one thread on here that came up mentioned plastikolor and autocolor both having midnight blues, but i searched their sights and couldnt find any.

so any suggestions? whatever you got would be great.

ps - this guitar has somewhat of an interesting history, and when im done(probly in about a month, have to get back from school first) i'll post pics and the story.

thanks a lot,

chris

[Myka Guitars]

What type of wood is it? Is it sealed yet? You could dye the wood with wood dyes. I recently did a blue burst guitar that has the quality you are looking for. If you look at it stright on it looks blue but from across the room it looks quite black.

If you go with the dye apply a couple coats blue, then a couple coats black with the last coat blue. It will do what you need. I used maple. Any wood should work. I have done the same thing with limba and mahgany with good results.

[skibum5545]

It seems like a single black basecoat with blue/navy clearcoats on top would give you the effect you want. However, I don't speak from experience, but Drak did something like this (i think) with maroon, but I don't remember the results.

[GregP]

I had the same thought, but the problem is that once the light passes through the blue to the black and reflects back, it still won't be reflecting any of the blue spectrum.

Myka's way (I'm assuming the coats aren't thick-- and it's dye, not lacquer) there is always at least a little blue present at all levels that some will be reflected back.

[frank falbo]

You might try using the dark blue as your basecoat, then following up with a clear with some black pigment in it. Just enough so it looks smokey. It would be like the same amount of tint used to make a trans black finish over bare wood. That way when light passes directly through it it will be more blue than at an angle, as the tint of the clear compounds. So depending on your viewing angle, either your edges and contours will be darker or your flat surfaces will be darker. I agree that you definitely want something with more depth than a flat blue surface with no character. Carvin has a good pearl blue, if you like pearlized finishes.

[aliendude012]

Thanks for the input, guys. Myka, im looking for more of a solid color finish, not a stain. I dont really want the grain to stand out. But thanks anyways, interesting idea. Frank, I like your idea a lot, im going to research it more.

Like I said, what I'm really looking for is something as close to black as possible, that just looks blue in certain lights and certain angles. I can picture the color in my mind perfectly, but I just cant figure how to go about making it. And yea, I want a more solid color, not a stain. And it'll have about 30 gallons of clear laquer on it at the end. I want it to be like a mirror

[aliendude012]

what do y'all think about a black basecoat, some real dark (maybe navy) topcoat, and a real light black dusting? Would that work? or would it make it look speckled, etc. or would it cover it too much.

[GregP]

I'm still trying to visualize the thickness and coverage of the paints. If you want full coverage with the blue, the black basecoat would be redundant, as any old primer will set your blue up. I guess the advantage of the black basecoat would be if you have a difficult time getting even and full coverage with the blue, at least it would be black (the target effect) poking through rather than gray or white.

Again... all theory and artistic painting, no actual guitar finishing experience speaks in the content of this post.

[lovekraft]

Try a black metallic or pearl basecoat under a dark Candy (translucent) blue - it'll look black, but it'll highlight and relfect deep blue. They do it on bikes all the time.

[GregP]

That makes great sense... the reflective particles in the basecoat will reflect back through the blue 'filter' of the transparent blue coat. Sounds like a winner, Chris!

Greg

[aliendude012]

cool suggestion, lovekraft, i'll look into it. got any pics of bikes that have that done? I'd love to see a finished product.

[lovekraft]

Well, I thought I could, but after spending an hour sorfing for something to show you, I can't find a good example. The effect is similar to ghost flames, where a pearl or metallic flame is sprayed on top of a gloss finish and the whole thing is overshot with a Candy tint, so the flames disappear at some angles and only the candy shows. Here's a couple of examples of ghost flames -

This one's blue metallic base, white pearl flames, and blue Candy topcoat

This is white pearl base with silver-grey pearl flames and what looks to be a light amber topcoat.

Sorry I couldn't find exactly what you were looking for, but maybe that helps you visualize it.

[aliendude012]

i can kinda picture it. i'll have to test it out tho. im thinking perhaps, based on the color schemes in those pics, that a blue base with a translucent black would work too. do they make trans. black? or is that wishful thinking

[lovekraft]

I'd go blue on black - I've got a trans black finish on my Dean bass, and it looks grey where the wood grain is lighter. Remember, highlight reflections are going to tend to flash the topcoat color - if it's black, then I think it'll look black at almost all angles. Actually we should try to get some input from the monster painters on this forum - we've got some killer finishers here that have way more experience than I do. Jeremy(LGM) and butnut are two that spring immediately to mind, but there are plenty more. Guys, any more ideas?

[aliendude012]

Cool. Y'all got another two weeks before im home from school and start workin. I've painted it before but i did a shitty job sanding and not nearly enough clear, so this'll be my second shot at it. I wanna make it perfect this time.

edit: what companies sell pearl and candy paints? preferrably in rattlecans if possible. I've been looking around plastikote and dont see any.

edit again: dammit! duplicolor makes these kits for color shifting. if they had one for blue/black thatd be bitchin. but no, why would they do that?

[lovekraft]

You can get House Of Kolor paints in rattlecans from Black Gold, and Guitar Reranch sells black nitro, translucent blue dye and clear nitro in aerosol cans if you decide to go that route.

[aliendude012]

Wow. that aerosol blue dye at reranch is sweet! id love to use it, but it definitely wont it with my project. im gonna keep that in mind for future projects, though.

im real interested in the black gold stuff, tho. grab a few cans of pearl black and kandy blue from them and i may be in business. anyone here have any experience with them? is it a good paint or should i avoid it? is $9 a can too much?

thanks a heap, lovekraft.