syxxstring

Remember the How I Met Your Mother episode with the wedding where someone says "We thought of Indian Headdress before hat?" I would find a vinyl cutter at a local sign or paint shop and pay them to cut masking vinyl for you. It would be easy enough once you found fonts/font you like to vectorize them and cut. Make sure they use masking vinyl as it is low tack and works better with fnishes. Regular vinyl has a different adhesive that is more likely to leave residue and reach poorly with many finishes and is just plain harder to remove. If you want the hand cut/done look get some transfer tape (really wide masking tape used for applying cut vinyl) or masking vinyl and mark and cut it by hand. If you use transfer tape or Automask as its sold under for masking, then you will need to apply it to your surface and cut it there and remove the parts you don't want. You can do this with a FRESH and SHARP blade and light touch and not cut the substrate.

If by marine lacquer something with UV inhibitors, yes it will change color as it is exposed to moisture, air, and light. However you'll find many finishes that have UV inhibitors in them, but much like sunscreen they only inhibit UV fading they don't stop it. If you want to stop it, seal the wood in a dark dry vacum and don't ever look at it or touch it. To keep the Niegel Tufnel mojo, don't remove the hang tag either. That not being a practical option many automotive clears have UV inhibitors as do many wood working clears, read the label and do some research and find something you like. Keep in mind that waterborne finishes still are chemicals and can have health risks as well. You don't want any finish absorbing into your system either through your skin or lungs. I use a lot of auto-air and other waterbornes, and always wear gloves and a spray mask. I still think you want to work with the safer materials that are more enviormentally friendly, just remember safer doesn't equal safe.

I have a 7x7x4 mdf box, that uses plastic sheeting for a door. I have cut outs for spray booth filters and have the seems sealed with duct tape after calking them. It does the job of a ghetto spray booth, which is contain odor when I use clears and keep in the overspray. It also minimizes stuff getting in my my clears. It also uses a pretty small footprint, which is important to me with a garage based business. For a fan I use one I bought at Target. It has a plastic body and fan blades and brushless motor, it is also after my filters. I understand why an explosion proof rating is important, however I don't see where there is a risk with a brushless motor and plastic parts. You have to research and figure out whats right for you. Your milage may vary, it is unsafe in the state of california to even read this post.

Seems like this is the thing I learn today. I'm just starting to work with these types of finishes, I've spent all my time recently on Airbrush/Kustom Automotive stuff.

I understand what drak is saying. But I find my expensive guns easier to clean. However, either way its only a few minutes with some lacquer thinner either way. After a few sessions or if I'm making a drastic color change I will tear the gun down and take maybe fifteen to twenty minutes. I would always want to do this either way to make sure I didn't have contamination etc... I also dedicate a gun to flakes and pearls because they are always hanging out waiting for the wrong moment. Most pro painters I have talked to have never replaced a gun due to age, or wear. I can testify having accidentally left some catalyzed Kustom Shop clear in a gun over a week, don't ask, that a little patience and lacquer thinner you can detail a dun to like new status. Not my preference but you do what you have to.

I don't think linseed oil is the way to go on rosewood. I would use an oil designed for fretboards or hardwoods. Linseed oil is going to give you a film finish, if it works at all with rosewood. What you want is a conditioning oil.

By gold do you mean transparent? Either way yes. What you are refering to is a Candy paint. Which is a variation of trasparent. Auto Air makes a Candy Black. House of Kolor there are some recipes for mixing them. I don't know about the other manufacturers. A candy is a transparent that builds in darkness as you layer it. So for instance a Candy Red would be red on the first pass but on the 5th or so coat would get very dark. So you could easily do one color bursts by layering them. The film thickness would still be very thin because of how much you would reduce it. Candy Apple Red show cars are actually red sprayed over a gold base, in the traditional form. If you look at a transparent bottle of Candy paint the top of the bottle will be the color the bottom of the bottle will be black. It would be the same way as the paint builds. You can see it in the edges of this picture: http://www.syxxstring.com/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=35 Or in the flames on this, which were yellow (pagan gold) sprayed over by oriental blue: http://www.syxxstring.com/gallery/main.php..._serialNumber=2

It depends on what you want. Blood splaters on an existing finish shouldn't be too hard. Use a paint like Sign Painters One Shot that doesn't need a clear coat, and well splater it. The paint and reducer are cheap so you can practice on test panels. One shot takes a long time to dry which is why it works well for pinstriping on cars, so you could remove it from a poly finish before it dries easily. Nitro, your on your own. Just use gloves and masks etc, follow the saftey labels. I think anything other than actual splatters would look fake. What could look cool is splattering silver or gold and then airbrushing in some details like shadows etc.. In some drips maybe hide a skull or 2 if they're larger. Then spraying a candy mixture thats a nice inbetween brandywine and candy apple over that so you would have something that looks deep and textured. If your interested in the 2nd one contact me and we can talk about it further.

Check out what Liquid Gutiars does with the machine. Youd definitley can do necks and bodies with it. I'm seriously thinking about one. It wouldn't be great for running a full fledged factory but could be used for small scale production.

What kind of primer and how long was it cured?

The stain I tried would not work with the traditional method. Also since stain needs to penetrate rather than form as a film finish it creates issues.

For the guitar signal I can not tell a difference, however, for my patch cables on the pedal board George L's made a tremendous difference in clarity and noise level.

Depends on your primer, but you should be good to primer over your filler.

Transparent paints, aka kandys, would be the way to go over a body that was already cleared and level sanded and scuffed so they would have somthing to adhear to. I would probably over reduce House of Kolors KK Kandy Concentrates in a mixture of S100 intercoat clear. You can buy small quantities of the KK Kandy Concentrates from Coast Airbrush. For airbrushing its not uncommon to reduce these paints up 300% so you have a lot of room to play. When I had a bunch of this stuff mixed up as left overs from an airbrush seminar I test swirled some small objects and it worked well. Your milage may vary, even reading this post in the state of California is unsafe at any speed.

Ash can be kind of a pain. You may think the existing paint will seal it, usually it wont for me it either lifts out or I sand through. Paint is just to soft for grain filling. If you can level sand it you can then procede to level it with future coats. I would sand and start with a sealer and then high build primer.

Duplicolor makes a great silver primer in a can for thier spray candys. I think its called ground coat. I have used it over sealer before. Flames over silver I would also look at the HOK Kustom Kolors line of hobby paints. Not the exact same as the good stuff but most of the colors.

Read the tech sheets or can labels, but probably not safe in the garage this time of year for the paint to cure well. You can always try spraying a test piece.

What kind or wood is it? Sanding sealer is available at most places that sell stain, its in a can at my Home Depot labeled Sanding Sealer. It sounds like you may need to grain fill and seal. There are many methods of doing both, that many people use with varying degrees of success.

You can always order from over here. I agree the Sata is a good tool. In my opinion the Lph-80 does better, but its my dedicated clear gun so I havent run primers or colors or flake through it yet. Sata has been the standard for mini guns, but a few top painters (Frasier, Ryno) recomended the Lph-80 to me as what they replaced thier Sata's with. It's all about what you can make work for you, we all paint a little different. Iwata is way bigger in supporting classes and events here than the other companies. They've been the only company that has ever had the time to talk to a one man shop about equipment and techniques.

Shiny hard stuff thats sealer. Flat dull woody surface is wood. If in doubt Its going to be best to reseal at least the areas you think are sanded through. 120 and 60 are kind of agressive. 320 or 400 is where I like to be before priming.

The other way to do it might be to make a photo copy and then perferate the lines with a pounce wheel and then use pouncing chalk to outline it. From there you could paint over the lines and wipe off the excess pounce chalk when your done. This is common way of moving, copying and matching images from side to side on a large scale design like a car or truck.

I got mine from Aaron brothers art and framing. I bet desert Art Supply has it too. If I get your finish plan let me make a suggestion: You want to strip back to sealer. Then Prime. Paint color. Paint image in white. Clear. Cut buff and polish. I would go this way depending on the complexity of your image: Sand back to sealer Prime in a white primer. I've been liking Auto Air Direct to Metal primer. Good adhesion, safer(note the r) to spray, and reasonably priced. Mask your image. Either have it cut in vinyl or using fine line tape, or Automask.(Really wide masking paper available from Coast Airbrush) Spray your base color. Again Autoair is a good choice, I think you've mentioned a blue color. Thier sparklescent blue is fantastic. Carefully unmask. Clear with any eurethane clear. I've even used Minwax brush on poly. Cut buff and polish. All this can be bought locally or through Coast Airbrush.

Before buying a Minijet check out the Iwata Lph-80. I just bought one and its way better than my minijet, atomizes better and uses half the air. Way newer technology from what I've been told. Coast Airbrush price matched mine at $265 with the 1.2 tip. Also Iwata has way better customer service in my experience.

Tracing it with seral paper like i suggested above is a good option.

Most likely you will only need power tubes. Its almost imposible to kill preamp tubes. In that amp I would stick with Groove Tubes. I've always had luck with them and I don't know if the circutry in that amp will benefit much from boutique tubes. However 6 months would be short for tube life unless your gigging/practicing several hours per day.