PaintIt

The paint list Black - Dupont Chromabase White - Dupont Chromabase Yellow candy concentrate - Dupont Hot Hues Green candy concentrate - Dupont Hot Hues Red candy concentrate - Dupont Hot Hues Hot Clear ( intercoat clear for mixing candy concentrates ) - Dupont Hot Hues Chroma Clear 2K finishing clear - Dupont I use many companies but have been trying to use all of the dupont products in the candies and intercoat lines because I get better pricing adn can by small quantities locally. For HOK and Alsa I have to but large larger amounts unless I buy it from someone who is repackaging. Coast Airbrush does a good job with the HOK stuff but I do not like to wait 7 days for my paint. I am reall liking the Hot Clear from dupont for airbrushing better than the HOK SG100.

Ok, I am ready to clear and have not decided on gloss or satin clear. Any opinions would be great.

Well I got another hour in tonight and this is wher it is at. first with yellow. second with green candy and third mostly finished with red and green candy toi make brown and white to recreate the highlights. I will redo the eye as it looks wierd. After 4 coats of dupont clear it should really glow.

Thanksall. I am going to try to get another hour in the whte tonight if possible. Should see a dramatic difference in the detail on the face when then. It will have all of the skin texture and such after that. This is for sale when done if anyone is interested in a Fender Bullet with great paint!

If you find a sign shop witha gerber edge they can do colors, foils or metallic colors. They use cartridges for each color to print on a colored or clear 2mil vinyl and then cut around it with a self registering plotter. Not as thin as a water slide but easy to have made and apply.

Thanks Man. Actually I do not even play any musical instruments just think they are cool to paint. I may try to learn using this one but I really do not have the time for another hobby. This may get sold at the shop where I piced it up but that depends on the finished result. It may get finished, photographed and then repainted again. Another couple of hours on the face and details in white and then I will start to add candy colors. Should be very sppoky.

I started a new project tonight for fun. I have about an hour in the white details so far. I bought a bullet the other day just so I could paint it. It was stripped down 30 min after getting it home.

I agree to to a point that it is the painter not the gun that creates a great finish. No matter the gun if you do not have any experience in tuning it through hour and hour of use it can spray just as bad as the cheapest gun. If you are painting 3 times a year and have the best gun in the world there is very little chance that you will get it perfect due to lack of practice. In the end you are going to sand and buff so a little peel is not that big of a deal. I have several Sata mini jet 3 , Iwata LPH 50 an 400 and they are all great guns but take practice to make them spray correctly. Not only do you need to learn the gn but also the material that you spray. Primer , base and clear all spray different.

looks like it is just masked off flames that have been layeredover a green heavy metallic base. I would guess that they used pearls or flip flop colors on the flames since they are still transparent. The masking can be created on the computer and cut on a sign plotter in paintmask fairly easy. This could be done with an airbrush but is better suited to a spray gun IMO.

You can use a product called Vreeble to create the crackle effect with auto paints. Metalflake Corp Water based crackle paints are available at the craft store. With auto paints this crackle will occur if you spray acrylic enamel over urethane it will crackle. Test panels are the only way to figure out the exact mix. It is possible to get paint to do this with a torch but I don't see this as a production method pic from jackson http://www.jacksonguitars.com/customshop/g...ages/234_md.jpg http://www.jacksonguitars.com/customshop/g...ages/233_md.jpg

The decal paper is clear and the ink from the printer is transparent. If it is not over white it will not show the colors well. If you are using a black logo over the candy red it should show up ok. The decal is pretty thin but still requires several coats of clear and sanding to level. after leveling a few coats of clear finishes up.

The better choice for this type of work would be application tape or vinyl paint mask. Both are available at your local sign shop. I use a lot of the gerber mask but avery makes a good one also. It is low tack. The application paper is the stuff that is used to apply vinyl letters and is very cheap and low tack. Application paper is used commonly for airbrush when the design is hand drawn and cut on the piece. The paint mask can be hand cut also but is usually cut on a plotter first. frisket requires a perfect smooth surface and has so little tack it usually blows up on the edges and you get overspray or underspray in this case.

I use two different cleaners that I purchase at my paint distributor. I will have to look at the names on them. Both are for final cleaning between stages. The first is similar to mineral spirits but not oily and the second is a low VOC cleaner that is really mild. The reason for the different types s that if you use the regular final clean it is strong enough to remove a small amount of paint. So on multi colored base and delicate airbrush areas I use the milder low voc cleaner. This prevents dragging one color over another and also does not remove the fine spray from the airbrush

A common mistake regardless of the paint is not cleaning the sanded primer properly. If a good final clean product is not used a thin layer of sanding residue can be left on the surface or in the scratches. If this is the case it will have poor adhesion. One sign of this in the chip can be that the primer has not been stained by the color and the undersinde of the chip has the primer color on it very light. When using a final clean solvent you need to wipe on with one rag and off with a dry rag. The reason for this is so that the evaporating cleaner does not leave any residue in the scratches.

Thanks all. As far as being a professional I do get paid for my work so I guess I am in that sense. I really try not to use the artist title I am just a painter really. I have been specializing in high end bicycle paint for about 6 years now completing about 100 frames a year until the hurricanes that hit New Orleans caused me to close my shop and now I have a small home shop. I only take the cool stuff now and will paint a max of 24 frames this year along with the assorted odd objects such as guitars.

I will be taking pics of the whole project for a possible how to in an upcoming mag. Thanks for the props on the art. The goal was to make it look realistic and erie at the same time. Using photo references of a real skull make the difference in the realism of the shadowing and highlights opposed to just woring out of your head

The black will get dull due to sanding but that is what the clear is for. Wet the surface to see what the clear will do. As for the grit of paper you need to have enough scratch for the clear to adhere only if out of recoat window and 1500 is way to smooth. I have sanded as far as 400 over black and cannot see any scratches after clear. If you spray a level coat of black the only sanding it should really need if any is to nib sand any dust specs in the black before clearing. If you are out of the 24 hour recoat window then it is a good idea to scuff it.

I am starting on a Flying V and thought I would paint a test panel of the main graphic. This is actually on a sport bke windshield that I had laying around. Black basecoat and white underpainting for skull colored with transparent candies. The guitar will have a group of thes skulls with some chains and such I am thinking. Any ideas?

There is no need to buff out the black until the final clear has been applied. I would sand it with 600 if I were using auto basecoat. Not sure if you are using all auto products. You can use final clear over the bevel instead of the intercoat. I prefer to use the final clear for this but it requires a full day cure opposed to 20 min with intercoat. The nice thing about the final clear is that it is harder to sand and this makes it less tedious to expose the red bevel.

There are 2 types of candy and they both dry to a non gooey finish. First is UK Kandy that requires a catalyst the same as clearcoat. The second is Kandy Koncentrate and it is just a dye that is mixed with a clear basecoat called intercoat clear ( SG100 is the name for HOK intercoat ). The reason for clearing the UK kandy while wet is so that you get good adhesion and do not to sand directly on the Kandy. When using KK and intercoat it is the same as base coat and has a 24 hour window before to clear then it should be sanded. If you spray the intercoat over the KK and intercoat you can increase the time you leave it open because it can now be sanded with out hitting the candy. If I were doing this finish with red bevels I would paint the bevels silver and then candy letting both go over the bevel by an inch or so on each side so there is no hard edge. Then I would clear the bevels with 3 coats of intercoat clear. I would then paint the whole guitar black and then carefully snad the bevels with 800 wet to reveal the bevels. This way there is no had edge to worry about and no difficult masking of the bevels.

A old tecnque for this is to spray several coats of laquer clear on the front of the poster. After this has cured you soak the paper from the back with water and rub all of the paper away leaving only a thin layer of laquer and the ink from the poster behind. Difficult to do it works and is very thin. To adhere it to the surface you would spray some laquer and lay it on . The cool thing is the laquer melts together adn it is permanent. This is a little time consuming so I would use a water slide decal paper printed on my pigment based inkjet to create the decal. Pigment based color is rated for 100 year fade resist indoors. I have been testing the ink outdoors for 4 months and it has not faded compared to the unexposed area.

It is possible to sand the candy without causing any issues but it is really difficult and not worth the time to level. The best way would be to spray your bevels , unmask and clear the whole guitar. The only reason you would need to spray the clear on the candy while wet is if you were using HOK UK candy that reguires a catalyst like the clear. The reason for this is so that you get a chemical adhesion between the Kandy and clear. The addition of clear allows for the level sanding without hitting the candy. If you were to spray the UK Kandy and did not clear it would need to be sanded to allow the clear to get mechanical adhesion. I would guess that you have Kandy concentrate that has been pre mixed in SG 100 intercoat clear . If so this is no different than basecoat and does not need to be cleared while wet. You have a 24 hour window for the clear to get chemical adhesion and then it would need a scratch. Watch the thickness of your candy so you do not get to much of a tape edge and do not fod the candy on as it will get darker on the edges near the tape

This is typically reffered to as die back. This is when the finish shrinks during the curing. In some cases it is the primers that are still shrinking if they were top coated while still wet or not fully cured. I like to spray my filler primer and let it sit a day before sanding. I do spray my basecoat over the sealer as soon as the sealer has flashed in order to get a good chemical adhesion. Clear can be sprayed as soon as the basecoat has flashed to get the best adhesion also. If the base coat is left open out of window then it needs to be sanded to get a good mechanical adhesion. As we know sanding the basecaot is not an option on metallic color so it is best to clear in window or use a intercoat clear over the base to allow for scuffing. Depending on the temp 2k clear is curing for about a month and can sie back after buffing. I like to cut and buff twice. Once within 24 hours of clearing( the clear is easier to sand ) The second cut and buff about 1 week later. You also need to be carefull of the heat from buffing as this can cause the wood to swell and contract. hope this helps

The only thing 1500 grit is used for is polishing the clear. If your guy is spraying over surfaves sanded with 1500 the adhesion is really poor. A good filler primer can cover 80 grit scratches in a few coats. After that it needs to be sanded to about 400 grit for the basecoat. Basecoat is not generally sanded before clear unless it has been coated with intercoat clear ( clear basecoat ) to allow for artwork and the paint being open longer than the recoat window ( about 24 hrs ). If it has been coated with intercoat then it can be scuffed to allow the clear to get a mechanical adhesion. Using products from the same paint system is a good idea.

Looks pretty good cleaned up as a vector on the pc. Cool design.