Refinishing

I've done a few refinishes. Most of mine get completely stripped and then recontoured before the new finish though.

 

Are you asking about refinishing? Or trashing a perfectly good fin..oops..I mean "relic'ing"?

btw...I admired that nice piece behind your guitars in your original thread and wondered at the time if you had done it yourself.

 

I have refinished six guitars in various types of finishes including a fabric paisley. Can definitely assist you to get where you are going and offer some advice.

I also have put hours and hours into creating a high resolution f-style paisley file in 5 layers where I can adjust the colors into any imaginable combo which you can have printed and apply to your guitar, then repaint and reveal... in this case.



Can simulate aging lacquer discoloration as well as screen print resolution errors of the '68/'69 paisley, even red pigment fade to your chosen level, where the background starts to peek through.



Can change background colour at will.



Possibilities are endless.














Background colors and "bubble texture" appearance also fully adaptable.

In short, can confirm once you contract the paisley guitar viral infection, no quarantine or treatment can save you except to see it through.

Even a simple refin is not for the faint of heart. Estimate for yourself how much time and money it will cost, then triple that amount.

 

That cardboard is what ruined his sunburst in the video. You don't need to use cardboard, spraying sunburst it's easy enough just lay the body flat and follow the curvature of the body.

How close you are to the object is also important. If you want two colors to fade into each other you should step away a few steps and spray lightly to create a mist. That way they blend together nicely.

I don't know about the process of the relic refinished one that you're aiming at. My best best guess would be that the steps would be as following

Porefiller
Primer/Basecoat
Sanding
Flashcoat of clear
Apply the first color coat/ in the case of Paisley that would mean applying the paisley wallpaper. But in your case I assume you want a finish, let's say fiesta red for the sake of it.
Wetsand
Clearcoat

Here comes the tricky part. You want the cover some areas with masking tape, then cut the masking tape in shapes that later will reveal themselves when you remove as relic'd areas/worn down so to speak.

Apply the last finish on top, let's go with black.
Remove the masking tape
Wetsand if needed
And then apply the clear coat
Wet sand
Polish /You can choose to go at it at this stage with steel wool to take away the sheen and give it a more scuffed worn look.

Here's a video of a guy doing an SRV style relic, to show you what I mean with the use of masking tape.


Final note, you want to have a well ventilated spot for this. If you're going to choose any of the following colors white, black or any type of metallic finish you gonna want to have the area dust free!

On those three types of finish any tiny amount of dust will sit and get stuck to the finish, like any other finish, but it will pop out and show itself once the job is done. It's going to be annoying, believe me.

If you're going to choose metallic finish then the steps are a little different. Here's what I do

Don't step over the porefiller, it is crucial since metallic paint is contained more of aluminum particles and very little color, you don't want these particles to sink in the pores of the wood. Also if you're using Ash, always use porefiller because Ash is like a sponge it will otherwise suck up all your paint and you'll have to go through a lot in that case if you skip it.

Primer, make sure to wetsand it and have a flat surface. Any imperfections will show otherwise once you're done. No way of repairing it other than refinishing when it comes to metallic.

Lay the body flat. Apply mist clouds of metallic finish, don't spray too much because you might cause the paint to run, once it runs the aluminum particles will lay flat and you want them to stand up so that reflection of light from different angles cause the metallic effect.

No wetsanding at this point. Start spraying clouds of clear coat. Once you've built up a nice coat on top then you can spray a wet coat of clear and let it sit for drying.

Wetsand and then polish.

 

@Believer7713 what did you use for a color coat on the gold strat? It's gorgeous, a dead ringer for Aztec Gold to my eye.

 

This was the build tbread for it.
https://www.strat-talk.com/threads/when-a-strat-goes-on-a-diet-custom-content.522730/#post-3687210

 

Gold is fun... this was two cans of gold craft paint found in a bargain bin... couldn't resist...

 

Very nice. I like Duplicolor for color coats - lays down well, and the variety of colors is great.

 

That looks fantastic too.

 

I would do what this dude here does....after i paint the guitar white and sand flat i would apply a wallpaper of some sort(i would have it printed at a store)using zpoxy...easy fast and effective...after that i would paint the guitar(lets say black like you have in your example) and start wearing that black down to get the relicing effect you want.

In fact iam gonna do pretty much that(minus the painting above and relicing) on my only project i have left.Iam gonna make my rear routed handmade 7 string look like it has a finish and a pickguard on although it ll only be a wallpaper buried in z-poxy.


that is approximately my goal...





The guitar ll look similar to this(minus the headstock you see ) i now have to choose which one of the three ll make the cut.

 

It really does. It has been some of my favorite paint to work with. That gold one, the blue/orange/champaigne one and the candy apple red/gold one were all done with duplicolor color match lacquer bought from O'Reilly Auto Parts. I couldn't get the green I needed for the blue/green one so I had O'Reilly mix those colors for me...Dodge Jazz Blue, Chrysler Sublime Green Pearl, and GM Silver metalic. Those colors laid down beautifully and left perfect lines. Dried and hardened about three times as fast but the clear coat was harder to work with. I wanted a hard clear coat so I used a wheel clear coat. It was hard but started to catalyze in the air so I had to work more on removing the orange peel. The Duplicolor clear doesn't seem to do that for me but is more susceptible to hazing. So, really, that makes it 6 of one--half dozen of the other. Choose your poison.

 

Very true. That drove me almost nuts when I was applying this metallic blue finish in my garage. I finally gave up on trying to deal with it, saying, "Well, it's just a $100 kit so why worry?" You can see some of the pits and marks from foreign object removal. Also the basswood body was kind of self-relicing anyway. I don't think I'm going to do another metallic finish until I get a better spray tent setup.

 

Just about to start my own thread when I saw this!

Looking to strip my Dave Murray Strat (really dislike sunburst and Pearloid pickguards):


Once stripped, I'm planning on painting with this:
https://www.northwestguitars.co.uk/daphne-blue-nitrocellulose-guitar-paint-lacquer-400ml/

And the outcome will HOPEFULLY look like this:

 

Sorry to quote myself but I've just had a brainwave...

Could I use Nitro over the top of the Poly Sunburst finish? I'd imagine I'd have to scuff it up first but other than that it'd be OK?

Thinking it'd be cool looking in a few years to have some sunburst poking through under the Blue in the wearspots.

 

Manufacturers do that in factory, there are several companies selling relic'd poly guitars like that sprayed with poly. The thing is that it's their formula so it works with no problem.

Whether it will or will not work has to do with how the lacquer and poly will react to each other. So it's a coin toss really. You'll have to scuff up the poly underneath pretty good and spray thin coats of nitro. Let it rest and see how it reacts before moving on.

Fender used to finish AVRI series like this, poly underneath and lacquer on top. But again it was a formula that they knew would work together.

 

They all look awesome. I used Duplicolor for the color coat on this one - can't remember the exact name. For the clear I used a 2K catalyzed finish (also a rattle can) and it dried fast & super hard.



I'm considering doing a body in their Deep Cranberry Pearl - looks pretty close to Midnight Wine, which I always liked, but is pretty hard to find these days.

 

There are forums dedicated to guitar refinishing too.
You can find experts on refinishing there.
Here are a couple links that I've found to be very useful.
parts and techniques link https://www.reranch.com/index.htm

and their associated forum https://www.reranch.com/reranch/

Poke around... it's not a very active forum but a great resource. Tons of refinishing info available there (the rule of threes is a good place to start).
Good luck with your project