jazzman22

HELP! I'm working on restoring a tele style guitar for a friend of mine who is a professional musician. She asked to me to refinish her guitar with a red mahogany color stain. I had the stain custom mixed at a local paint shop, sanded the body all the way down to the bare wood, stained it, and was in the process of applying and then sanding/polishing the clear coat (polyurethane) when it looks like the poly started to whiten in one spot. I've seen this happen with varnish, but never poly, so I hit it lightly with some sandpaper and realized it was through to the wood! So I clean sanded that one spot and reapplied the stain, but the spot is now several shades lighter than the rest of the body!

I've tried everything I can think of to get it to match and it just won't work. I was hoping to have this guitar ready for her by early september, so this is a bad time for this to happen.

Does anyone have ANY suggestions? I'm in a bit of a panic here.

Short answer, do your homework!!!! Do a little research before jumping in headfirst.

http://projectguitar.com/tut/tutorial5.htm

Longer answer, read the cans!! Stick with one brand/finish type. Even products from the same manufacturer may not be compatible with one another. Check what clear coats the manufacturer recomends with their color coat. this is all pretty basic stuff.

←

I've read through those and they didnt' answer the question I had, which is why I posted here. I think I've got my answer though, and I was just trying to find out a little more since you learn by doing and asking, or so I was always told.

I think that a lot of your problems are related to

1)cheap paint and

2) using stuff that isn't quite compatible.

Just wait until the first time you even halfway whack your gitfiddle and a giant chip pops off 'caus of bonding problems..

If you don't want to go the Re-ranch route go to your local automotive paint supply store and get a couple of cans of touch up. It won't save you much over the Re-Ranch but a buck is a buck. At least price out the Re-Ranch, and figure what your time and wasted cheapo paint is worth.

←

Explanation please. WHAT isn't compatible with WHAT?! You keep saying not compatible but I don't know what you mean when you say that.

First Question: You say you're clear coating over paint. What exactly are you using?

The guys here will tell you that I'm old school and set in my ways but my experience has taught me that i prefer to use the same stuff all of the way through. Not a different type of clear caot.

You may be having problems 'cause you're using homeowner crap to try to get pro results.

I would suggest going to Guitar Re-Ranch, reading their tutorials and even buying some of their stuff.

I am real partial to nitrocellulose lacquer. I've used damn near everything at one time or another, but it's what I like.

←

The paint was Painters Choice spray that actually looks really good. The lacquer was painters choice, when that failed I tried Rustoleum Enamel, and when that didn't work out I tried polyurethane, can't remember the brand name right now... Keep in mind i've been sanding the "failed" layers off before I tried different stuff.

As for pro results, I wouldn't go that far. I don't expect it to look like a pro did it, I just want a reasonable looking clear coat to protect the paint. I'm all for using top of the line stuff, but money is an issue so I'm working with what I have.

Thanks for the advice

Thanks all, I'll suck it up and be patient and give it a try. Any preferences on which is better? The lacquer, enamel, or polyeurethane?

Thanks again

Hi all. I'm a new user and this may be a common question, but I'm having the worst time with clear coat finishes!

I'm fixing up an old Les Paul copy for a friend. I stripped and filled the wood, primered it, did the paint, polished it a bit, and it looks great. Naturally I wanted to put a clear coat over it to protect the paint, so I used a spray lacquer (Painters Choice... Green spray can) that looks great when it dries. I let it sit for a day or two to harden and then put the body on a soft clean towel to lightly polish it and buff it up before assembling everything. I polished the front, and when I went to flip the body over I noticed that the towel left marks all over the back of the body IN THE FINISH! The first thing I did was switch towels, flip the body over, lightly sand out the marks with very very fine sand paper (1500 grit) and then tried to polish it up. And thats when I found that the new towel left marks on the other side of the body now as well!

So I sanded the body to get some of the lacquer off, cleaned it, and then tried respraying it with a few light coats. I let the whole thing dry for over a week... and had the SAME PROBLEM (towels leaving marks IN the finish)... So I sanded the lacquer off and decided to try enamel instead... I sprayed the body, waited 4 or 5 days for it to completely dry, and ended up with... THE SAME PROBLEM!

In a frustrated fit I sanded the enamel off and decided to go with polyurethane... anyone want to guess what happened? If you said "THE SAME PROBLEM" you'd be right... and it's not just leaving tiny, almost invisible marks in the finish, it's really texturing the finish! I know it's not the towels, they're all clean and there were no chemicals, fabric softeners, etc used... just tide and other than that they're clean. Anything I rest the body on leaves a mark in the finish.

I asked at a few paint stores and got a lot of blank stares, but one guy who seemed to know what the was talking about mentioned that I should let the polyurethane dry for 2 to 3 WEEKS before letting anything touch it... but the can says 48 hours TOPS... is this guy wacky or is he onto something? Whatever the solution, it has to be done with spray cans, since my budget currently doesn't allow compressors, spray guns, etc...

HELP! I'm going nuts trying to figure out how to get a clear, solid coat over the paint! Any advice?

Thanks in advance