Jump to content

MarkPav

Members
  • Posts

    15
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by MarkPav

  1. Get a better quality iron. I started out with a cheap and nasty iron and it sucked horribly. Really, I think that you'll be amazed how much difference it can make.
  2. Hmm. Well, I'm gonna recommend the Kinmans--if you're set on noiseless pickups. I had a set of Kinman pickups in a Strat and they were pretty darn good. They were certainly noiseless! And they had the best tone of any noiseless pickup I've come across. That said, there's something that noiseless pickups just don't seem to capture. It's kinda like the comparison of tube amps to solid-state. I prefer the sound of standard single coils and I make do with them humming. Reshielding your guitar is probably a very good suggestion to combat hum, rather than going for noiseless pickups, IMO. Just to confuse you more, have you looked at the DiMarzio stacked single coils? I don't know much about them, but they might be worth checking out. I've also had single-coil-sized humbuckers and not liked them all that much. They don't sound like a humbucker and they certainly don't sound like a typical single-coil pickup either. If you do choose to go for new pickups, but don't want them to be noiseless after all, I can recommend Lollar pickups and Bare Knuckle pickups. They really sound much better than any other pickups I've owned. Expensive though; Drac won't approve.
  3. Ok, it's not the silicon. Long story short, I sprayed several different surfaces, used two different guns, and it is happening worse than ever. It seems to get worse each time. I used two different paints as well, although they were both the same brand. What the heck could it be? I'm stumped. The only things that haven't changed are the compressor (which used to work fine) and the brand of paint. Guess I'll go try another brand of paint, but if that doesn't help I don't know what to do. Any more ideas? EDIT: I figured it out. It's the Auto Air Color paint. It fish-eyes all on its own, no matter what the surface and no matter how it's applied. It even did it when I smeared it on a piece of scrap with my fingers.
  4. You could use dyes or the spray cans. Both would work, but dyes tend to give a nicer effect. The problem of applying the colour with a dye is that you can't sand the first few clear coats without a high risk of going through to the dyed wood and making a mess of things. Grain filler isn't necessary for the maple top, since maple is a tight-grained wood. However, you can get some nice effects by applying a coloured grain-filler and then sanding it back, but if you're new to this you may wanna start with something more straight forward.
  5. Me, rush things? Actually, I had been taking it all slow and easy, but I messed up and had to strip it and start over (not the first time, either ) and so this time round I was playing catch-up. Thanks again for the help! Hopefully, I'll get it right this time.
  6. Thanks for the fast responses, guys! To answer some questions: I am spraying water-based Auto Air Color paint. I'm almost positive it's not orange peel, although the photos might not clearly show that. It really just looks like the paint won't stick to certain areas as it goes on. In fact, some of it looks almost like a wall in a house that gets mold or mildrew on it. I have a good HVLP gun and I've changed the PSI at the gun (it's 40 at the compressor), plus I've fiddled with all the other settings, but nothing helps. Before this started to happen I was getting nice smooth coats. This is the fourth coat to give me this problem now and I've been going crazy trying to figure it out. The silicon diagnosis sounds the most likely. I had a bucket of clean rags I was using to wipe the body with before I used the tack rag, but I have a strong feeling that my father-in-law used a few to clean his car and then dumped them back in the bucket. I actually could smell some kinda armour-all-type smell on them, but I put it down to something else at the time. Hmm. I understand about doing the dust coats, but should I still degrease the body first? If so, what can I use to degrease the body with that won't eat the water-based paint?
  7. Lately when I spray I get weird dimples through my paint. the surface looks like a golf ball effect. The sunken areas of the dimples are pretty much level with the previous coats, so when I sand level I am basically removing what I've just sprayed. It looks like there's oil or something getting into my paint, but I installed a water/oil trap today and it didn't help at all. Maybe it's not working? It doesn't seem to matter how the surface is prepared either, or even if it's not. It doesn't seem to matter whether I spray light or heavy, close or far. I don't get it. Any ideas? There are some pics of some areas I spot-sprayed tonight, if that helps.
  8. One-part poly is what the Minwax stuff from Home Depot is. Two-part poly you can get from auto paint stores. The one-part stuff is durable, but not quite as nice for finishing guitars (great for patios though). The two-part stuff is, like Mattia said, highly toxic and not something you want to mess with unless you know exactly how to handle it.
  9. Thanks for your help. Yeah, I just spent another couple hours reading stuff online to try to learn everything I can about finishing. I can get epoxy here, so I'll go with that.
  10. I have a mahogany guitar that I want to finish. It's just bare wood at the moment and I plan on using Auto Air Colors for the color and KTM-9 for the clear. In fact, I already have some from a previous finishing attempt. My question is: Can I use wood filler instead of grain filler? I can't find grain filler anywhere here and I don't wanna wait for an online order to arrive. If I rub it into the grain and then rub it off without leaving any excess will that be ok? Thanks.
  11. Thanks for the advice! I'll check it out.
  12. Thanks, unclej. I'm not sure how old the thing is since I borrowed it from a friend and he bought it second-hand anyways, but I'll check that out for sure. The lint is always either black or red, regardless of what I'm actually wearing or what day I spray, so your explanation makes sense. We'll see!
  13. Hey Russ, thanks for the reply. I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure it's lint. I'm spraying yellow paint and this stuff is black and when I sand it, it bends around like lint.
  14. My compressor seems to be spitting lint into my finish! I don't have a spray booth and have to spray outside. Some of it is really embedded in the paint and when i sand it out I get a funny-looking patch in my finish. So I can't just sand it all out, because then I'd have to respray, and then I'd get more lint, and . . . Does anyone have any ideas of what I can do to fix this? I'm on the color coats. Thnx!
  15. Hey guys, I wonder if I can get some help with my first real project guitar? I'm building something like a Gibson SG and I'm up to the clear coats. I have some gloss Varathane and some high gloss Benjamin Moore acrylic urethane varnish. I'm not sure which will be better to use. Is there much difference between the two products? The Varathane will be easier, but it's meant to go on wood and I'm putting the clear over the top of colour coats. The colour coats have been done with an interior latex paint. Also, when it comes to the sanding and such, is it a really bad idea to sand water-based clear with wet sandpaper? Can I wait a few days or weeks and then do it? TIA!
×
×
  • Create New...