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Iwata, the HP-Cs or Kustom Cs if you can swing it. Otherwise the Revolution line is good. I would buy from Coast Airbrush as they will match anyones price and have the best service. I would go with the Iwata, for parts avaialbility and overall build quality. 90% of the airbrush artists I know go with a CS. A big plus is they have solvent proof o-rings (teflon) so they will stand up to thinners and solvent based paints. The Badgers, Pasachee's and most others don't. A Cs will cover a wide variety of applications and in skilled hands can do all your detail work.

Typically pearl is in an intercoat clear level. You then add clear and level that, pearl is tricky cuz you have to make sure you dont cut through your clear and damage the pearl becuase then for the most part its game over. Same with flakes, or candy finishes. Runs also are disasterous. If you add it to your base coat you wouldn't see it since it would be coverd/mixed in the base. The upside is you usually can get the finish you want with a pearl base coat and eliminate the hassle.

I thought about Vinyl too, just can't imagine the fun of weeding it all. If I did it using vinyl I would then burst it and uses the hexes as a mask and airbrush in the lines. The mask would be way to delicate if you tried to manipulate it as just the lines. Are you just trying to do the top or back and sides too?

Fascolor, which is just AutoAir/Createx, should work fine. It gets the effect on Rc Bodies, I haven't yet used it on a guitar. What are you putting it over? White will give it more pop, black will darken it, grey will mustard it out. Silver or the Fascolor aluminum paints will give you a slight candy effect. Are you reducing it at all? Autoair recomends a 10:1 reduction for best flow out. Since they make Fascolor for Parma, I'd go with it. What are you spraying it with? Is the tip size right and your gun adjusted well. I think with out proper set up this stuff would be too thick and loose the effect. Also with AutoAir/Createx/Fascolor you need to work in really light coats. I have about 60 quarts of it from a painter that was moving shops. Your first coat should look like a guide coat just dusted on. It gives the next coats something to cling to. The next coat should give you even coverage, even though it can be heavier you don't still want it more than a medium coat. If you've tried 2 brands with out the effect you want, I would really examine your process. Shoot some test pieces and clear them. You wont really see what the outcome is without clear. Otherwise I'd look into the HOK system, but be prepared to buy primer, sealer, base and clear. You can get the best deals from Coast Airbrush. They also sell many of the brands of paint and can help you out.

It doesn't matter what order the stuff goes on just that it's left. Otherwise you'd be looking at cutting masking vinyl and leaving all the hexes, no one will enjoy that kind of weeding.

chicken wire might not be a bad idea, just base it yellow. Then shoot your burst layers through the wire or something with a similar hex pattern. A lot of airbrush snake skin is done that way but with fish nets.

Id use 1 shot, as I have recomended in the past. Just use a wax and grease remover first.

Sata and Devilbiss both have similar systems. I like 'em just to cheap to convert, yet.

6 coats should be enough, sounds like either your prep work is failing you or you need to be consistent in your spray pattern. Either way I'd knock it down some and recoat, following the instructions from your manufacturer for windows etc...

You also could go to a paint store or body shop. They should have chip books for you to look through and find a color you like.

Kustom Kolors is a hobby paint by Valspar who makes HOK. It is not a 2k product. Kustom Shop is just a relabeled production clear, they are not a manufacturer. They are owned by a distributor of many paint lines, TCP Global. The issue is you don't know exactly what it is, or warranty etc. You also are limited to their base coats etc... Not horrible stuff not great stuff, a few kustom painters have told me it's just PPG's bargain clear. However, they could make it whatever they want whenever. Unless you want to play jr chemist and mix paint lines, which is a really bad bad bad idea. Higher solids content is part of it and a big deal when it comes to flow, clarity, durability etc... Also HOK has a lot more UV protection built in. Production clears vs kustom are different in how many mils of thickness they are built to take, strength and uv protection. HOK is designed for thickness of up to 10x what a production clear will support, it has much stronger solvents to cross link specifically with their base coats and candies, sealers and primers. This is because with flakes and artwork etc. you will make a much thicker paint job than you would with a factory paint job. Part of why they are better for our application. Which is a custom application. I took a HOK class where their tech guy. One of the other differences is that HOK tests like you wouldn't believe. UV baths, electron microscopes, etc... One of the main reasons I stick with them is tech support and knowing they will back me if there is an issue. I also feel that they have a much wider array of products than most other companies. I do use a lot of Autoair also. PPG, Dupont, Basf are also good choices but I can't get them in small quantities, unreduced, and affordable like I can from Coast Airbrush.

Coast Airbrush is still carrying the Kustom Kolor line from the makers of HOK. Keep in mind it is not HOK, it is from the parent company Valspar attempting to get the same kolors. And no RC racers don't use much kandy and won't drift from the known brands much.

Guess it depends on what your spraying with a 15 minute time window on uro's I just leave it in there.

Delay. Put the time pot on the movment, create a self oscilatiion and go all Tom Morello.

For the color coats you can also look at Auto-Air paints.

Lightly scoring tape edges before removal can help alleviate these issues. Notice the word lightly.

My point is that spraying a scrap just lets you know that the immediate result is not bad. Doesn't tell you what it will do in a year. Talking to HOK's testing and tech guy he will not call that even a test. They bathe things in uv, solvents, etc... then examine everything under an electron microscope and other lab equipment. That is a test, that will let you know that a product will work or fail. It's not uncommon to see people that mix paint systems have delamination, bubbles, cracks, or other problems a 6 months to a year down the line. While an acrylic lacquer may be an acrylic lacquer the solvents, strengths and formulas may vary. With in the automotive paints many people have said a uro's a uro, while thats true systems have different purposes and mixtures. With in Valspar you have several brands from a refinish clear and House of Kolors UC35, they are not compatible even from the same parent company. The UC35 is designed for custom work where finish thickness can be 4 or more times the thickness of factory paint, so it over refinish products the solvents are too strong and will cause issues. Refinish clear over a full custom paint job and the solvents aren't strong enough to bite all the way down and form one solid film, you saved a few bucks but have a paint job that will fail much sooner than it should have. The only reason to leave a paint system is if you think your smarter than the chemists who designed it or to save a few bucks and risk your whole project blowing up eventually. Neither one works for me. In the days before I had an HVLP gun collection I used some of Duplicolor's clears with no issue. Read the directions and follow them as far as finish thickness, time windows, and application technique. If its put on too thick or in too thick of coats it will take longer to cure if it ever does. Funny Reranch guys saying duplicolor will take for ever to dry when they are spraying Nitro with much longer curing windows, use Nitro and wait a month no thanks.

Stick with in a system and read the directions and follow them. Anything else is just a guess that something may not work out for more than a week, a month, or a year. Jeremy was refering to Automotive Urethanes, uro's are a very different animal than the wood working products.

Ditto on thw watterslides. I have a bunch of the paper. Pm me and we'll work out getting you some done.

Rocktron Short Timer is cheap and sounds great and should get you in the neighborhood.

The only way you'll fill it and have it not be noticed is if your paint it first a color and clear it. Which you can do over maple easily. Bolin did it on Billy Gibbons guitars with rosewood, but it would be more work.

On a Squire, I doubt it. They seem like mostly poly finishes on the ones I've played and with a little working are usually a pretty good feeling finish.

There are a ton of ways. Steel wool may be good, I use find sandpapers and buffing equipment because thats whats always hooked up in my shop.

I have, but mostly aluminum ones. It's like anything else follow manufacturers directions for the material you are painting. My friend Craig says that he uses the clear rock guard vinyl that they put on Mercedes and such over his paint and it protects them well on normal guards. Seeing as he does a ton of work for Jackson I usually trust him on these things, plus he's one of the best custom painters around.

A lot of what your looking for is in smoothing out the existing finish. I would start by polishing your exisiting finish.