Thread: First Kit guitar

Yeah I thought it come up great. The feast watson products I was a bit dicey about went well too. You have to be deadly quick with it though as it dries like lightning. So I've got the back of the body done. I'm going to wait an hour and try to do the sunburst.

I'm getting a bit over ambitious at this point but I guess everything I've ever done great I jumped in at the deep end.

So with the back I cleaned it up with a bit of mineral turps to get any dust and durt off it. (the top side I did with water being water based dyes. Then very quickly and a little bit at a time put on the black straight from the bottle using one of those pads I used.

I was going to do a second coat but I like the way the grain shows though just slightly. I'll leave it that way unless the whole thing goes grey.

I was going to do the kneck in black as well as the back of the headstock but I'm getting cold feet. What do you guys think?

Here come the photos

Shattered........ first part of the finish I'm not happy with. I'm going to look at it with a fresh pair of eyes tomorrow. At the moment the plan is to lightly sand the edges of the sunburst back to get rid of the crap bits and then patch the blue bits. Very light sand and varnish. Any better ideas?

I have to also get rid of those bits of blue comming through the black.... started running our of light though.

Gee your job looks great , looks better than my original i just took a pic & posted it



Why not have a go at doing the neck , worst case scenario is you have to redo it. Oh wash my mouth out with soap.
Oh r.e. jumping in with both feet, is there another way? if so my brain doesnt know it. LOL

hmmm i know its prob a bit late but i did my blackburst on the blue on my guitar with a cheapy airbrush i bought from an Auto shop for bout 70 bucks. makes it a hell of alot easier to build the color as a pose to wiping it on....

just a thought blue looks good though

I'll do the airbrush with my next sunburst I think. I've got a tele build in the planning stage. I'll try it with that. I should have just blacked the non flamed bits but hindsight's 20/20. I'm going to just solid up the dodgy bits to get them looking like the top half which is good. I'm a perfectionist though.

Having said all that. This was meant to be a playable learning exercise so I'm not that unhappy. I'm not going to bother with antthing on the headstock after all. I'll do that on the next guitar.

I really just need to get this one out so I can start to use it. (broke my last guitar when it fell down the stairs and I can't go borrowing my bass player's forever.


Anyways good luck to me.

i reckon leave the back of the neck/headstock natural....

your doing the front of the headstock in dye arent ya?

the guitar will be very dark looking if you stain the lot...

i reckon leaving the back of the neck will give it a better more subtle look

Originally Posted by Andrew_B

i reckon leave the back of the neck/headstock natural....

your doing the front of the headstock in dye arent ya?

the guitar will be very dark looking if you stain the lot...

i reckon leaving the back of the neck will give it a better more subtle look

Too late..... whole things black. It doesn't look too bad. (Is a bit dark tho.) I fixed the sunburst too so it doesn't look as amature. The clear coats are going on now and under the clear things look a bit better. I think the tops tiger/flame job takes your eyes away from the slight imperfections. I came to the realisation that this guitar was always more about learning and less about the finished product. Once I did that I'm picking less on the one or two stuff ups and appreciating the general whole. I'm gonna leave the headstock un adorned as well. A couple of drips started on the first full coat too. I think I'm spraying too close.

Am I better dealing with these before or after the second coat? The system I was working from is 2 coats then wet+dry. Rinse repeat.

Ah so many more things I coulda shoulda woulda.

damn..

yea drips are no good, get rid of them asap...
and by asap... you shouldd be leaving plenty of drying time between coats and sanding....

slow down your process, spray light coats, follow the instructions on the can

light coats = not enough to run....

Originally Posted by Andrew_B

damn..

yea drips are no good, get rid of them asap...
and by asap... you shouldd be leaving plenty of drying time between coats and sanding....

slow down your process, spray light coats, follow the instructions on the can

light coats = not enough to run....

Thought that to be the case. I've left it to dry overnight..... It's pretty cold here at the moment so it looks like I'll be doing a light coat to tack and a heavyer coat to dry overnight then sand. I got the choice of 400 grit or 800 wet and dry to get rid of the drips..... I was leaning towards the wetndry. Which do you guys reckon?

Originally Posted by IamSav

I was leaning towards the wetndry. Which do you guys reckon?

The wet & dry as it doesnt clog (when used wet) & you get a clear picture of your bump/drip/run in the 'mud' as you sand.
Im using the same finish as you & was advised by Estapol (yeah I rang 'em what a woooos) to ues 800 wet & dry for runs/prep work & 1200 wet & dry for the final finish before buffing.

Thanks for the info Dix. Just sanded and on to next coats. I'm spraying lighter now Andrew. I was going over with 4 passes per coat. I've cut back to 3 and am sitting about 20cm from the surface. I'll go through a couple more cans like this but meh.

It's looking good though. The surface goes dull after the sand but you wet it down a little and it shines right up. All thats left to do is build up the glass.

IAmSav what sort of coverage are you getting? E.G. how many coats per can ?

I'm spraying pretty light so about 5 per I'd say. That's 10 passes.