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I was wanting to keep my first 'real' body build a natural wood color, but since I have made so many mistakes in it, I have to paint it.
I dont know much about paint other than to shoot it.
Question is this;
I currently have a coat of sanding sealer on it from a couple rattle cans from stew-mac, and I have some left over acrylic enamel black from my truck flatbed project.
Will these finishes be compatible?
I was planning on finsihing with some more rattle-can spray lacquer from stew-m

Thanks!

I'd save the acrylic enamel for the truck, go for the rattlecans from StewMac.

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A man hears what he wants to hear, and disreguards the rest. Paul Simon

Wally Mart.

The thing about painting is ...ya gotts to remember to keep the colour on
the outside.

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Audiences and dispensations on Thursdays ~ by appointment only.


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Doesn't Stew-mac also have black lacquer in rattle cans. You would avoid any incompatibility issues with the acrylics sticking to lacquer. Besides if you use truck bed liner paint every time you gig with the instrument people may be predisposed to throw old tires, bales of hay, their dog, on the guitar....

Black is not the most forgiving color either - it shows every imperfection in the surfaces pretty clearly. Don't get me wrong black is my favorite color but it does have some issues on cars and guitars.

Stew-mac does have rattle-can black, but I already have more than enough black paint leftover from the flatbed project. And it's not undercoating, its paint, with reducer and a hardener.
And this thing is mine, meant to be played.
I dont care enough to spend anymore money on it, I just want to play it. Afterall, it's custom built for me, by me. The volume knob is exactly where I like it.
It's built to be knocked over, puked on, stepped on, beer spilled on, used as a shield if necessary, and keep coming back for more.
But I am going to paint it.
I just need to know if the combo that I mentioned is compatible. I dont want one to react to the other and melt off kind of scenario.
I dont know jack about paint.
EDIT: Imperfect is the name of my game here on this one. In fact I gave her a name; I say she's flawesome!

Got it - can't comment on compatibility and not sure that anyone could. Perhaps try things out on scrap and see how it does?

Lastly your ax sounds pretty impervious to many things so I wanted to ask if you built in any resistance to bong water?

I don´t know much abouta compatibility but on this side of the pond we have three mais types of paint
Celulose, sinthetyc , and water based, my rule is never to mix diferent base paints. If you paint one over the other the top one will eventually crack (found the hard way) cellulose and water based is a no go mix, as for the rest can't be sure but i will stick to my rule.

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https://www.facebook.com/capricornbasses?fref=ts

Thank you Hugo, thats what i'm looking for.
Hesh - I dont have any bongs or bongwater around to test it so i'm not sure, but I can see why you went there.
I was being overly dramatic when I really meant that the guitar was made to work. Nothing more, nothing less.
It wasn't made to look good, it was made to be a player. It has a great neck.
This was my first real attempt at building a guitar, or at least the body, and it has so many mistakes, dings, dents, etc., and the rest i'm just gonna paint over and let'em be.
It has character now, and it's really comfortable. Plus i'm tired of working on it, it's been a year.
What is really driving me though, is this is my only rig without a lock-nut.
It's nice being able to reach up and tune to drop D (or whatever) if I want without throwing the rest of it out of tune. I got away from that for awhile so it's nice to have that option back.
And to Mr. Knox, I will probably ditch the auto paint and throw down for some rattle can black. I was just trying to save a buck.
This guitar originally started as an Epiphone Special 2, that I picked up for $40.00, so it's not worth much to begin with...

this past autumn i finished a body with rattle can enamel, either Krylon or Rustoleum. then i clear coated that with rattle can nitrocellulose. after that dried i noticed a few spot that could use color, so i touched up with the enamel again- as soon as i did it, it formed a "krackle" type shrinking finish. i was so disgusted after all the endless priming/sanding/prepping/painting that i put it down and haven't looked at it since.
so in this specific case, it seemed that nitro over enamel is ok, but not vice versa

That sucks nyazzip!
I know that disgusted feeling. You just lose all interest in the one sec you realize you gotta do it over. Doesn't matter what it is.
So I'll be having some of that stew-mac black lacquer then...
I really hate doing things over.

Nothing wrong with saving a few bucks, I always recommend that! But it only saves you money if it works, and I suspect your acrylic enamel would work over the stewmac sealer, but not under the stewmac clearcoat. Finishing is difficult enough without compatibility problems, and using a single source for the sealer, color, and clearcoat is usually the best bet, unless you have the time and inclination to do a lot of testing on scrap.

Generally, nitro over enamel does not work, but enamel over nitro is OK. Sometimes mixing different types will work, sometimes not. And it's not always as simple as this over that works, sometimes the application technique makes a difference, as spray this and let it cure for a week before you spray that. There are so many finish types and brands that may or may not work together it's as Hesh said, nobody knows!

The only way to know is to test it out with the actual materials and application technique. And there's always the chance that it will initially work fine, only to have problems after some period of time.

I'd suggest you consider a matte black finish, that seems to be more in line with what you intend for the guitar, and will be much easier to make it look decent.

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A man hears what he wants to hear, and disreguards the rest. Paul Simon

Okay, on to the next thought...
Can anyone tell me if these two products are the same or not? I'm looking at sanding sealer;

http://www.lowes.com/pd_84835-86-DFT015 ... BeanArray=[com.lowes.commerce.storelocator.beans.LocatorStoreBean%403c533c53]&currentURL=%3FNtt%3Dsanding%2Bsealer&storeNumber=2808&Ntt=sanding+sealer&langId=-1&storeId=10151

And number 3883 here;

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Finishing_s ... cquer.html

??

Deft is a nitro-based lacquer and is compatible with color tone lacquer.
I've used the two products together.
Be aware the Deft can take 4-6 weeks to fully cure.

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wah
Wah-wah-wah-wah
Wah

Even after that amount of time, in my experience once the instrument is buffed and assembled, Deft stays pretty soft for up to a year. It will pick up imprints from things it is laid on, marks from sitting it in stands(even stands wrapped in cloth to protect lacquer from reacting with the stand material), and on bolt ons I have had the neck and body glue itself together because the lacquer was so soft just bolting it together was enough to fuse them together over a few months. This after two months cure time before assembly.
I refuse to use Deft any longer. If you can find Minwax spray lacquer it's miles above the Deft. MHO.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

I do not understand why people invest dozens of hours into making a guitar and then want to cheap out on finishing materials bought at Home Depot or Ace Hardware, etc.

When I worked for Gibson, I learned that 1/3 of the labor in the typical Gibson guitar was in the finish process. I'd imagine it to be about the same ratio for any luthier built guitar where the goal is a good finish...on a par with PRS, Martin, Collings, John Suhr, Tom Anderson, etc. If you can't make it look that good with a closed pore gloss finish, then don't even bother, much less go trying some back alley hardware store finish.

Read up on how it's really done. StewMac is a great resource for this. Buy finishing materials known to work well on guitars. Pay whatever you have to...it's cheaper than doing a crappy job and then redoing it. Understand that it will take you quite a few guitars to do a pro job.

Or just send the guitar out to a finish specialist like Addam Stark. You'd be amazed at how much finishing he does for pros who do know how to do it right but wisely choose not to.

Me too. Once was enough!

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Old growth, shmold growth!

... because a few of us of us already own some basic woodworking equipment for other purposes, and are only in the guitar game to build a dozen or so, experiment and see how it goes... and thus don't have infinitely deep pockets and space to invest in a dedicated temperature controlled spray booth/ compressor/ spray gun/ and pro-quality paints and finishes and solvents...

Yeah, I finished my first with Deft two years ago. I gave it to my nephew this year at Xmas. I decided to polish it first. I polished it, layed it down on a towel, and it immediately stuck to the towel and left a nasty imprint. Now I spray Behlens nitro using a cheap gun and compressor with good results.

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wah
Wah-wah-wah-wah
Wah

Yeah, I went to Behlens as well. No comparison.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.