Guitar kit build

Magoo222

Tiger Stripes?

GloopyJon

Nice idea but probably a bit tricky, and I don't think the grain of the wood will support it.

Do they have blue and purple tigers in your neck of the woods?

GloopyJon

Lots of progress to report today!

I have attached a piece of wood to each of the body and the neck to act as handles during the spraying process, screwing them in where the neck and body will meet so that the holes will not be seen (I drilled new holes in the neck but used the pre-drilled holes in the body that will be used to attach the neck).  I nipped into my local DIY shop just before it closed to buy a couple of large hooks that I attached to the end.  Here's the result of all that work:
                                                                                 

I have also covered the entire fretboard with masking tape, being very careful to line it up exactly with the edge of the fretboard.
                                                                                 

Finally, I took them out into the garden and sprayed them both with a first coat of sanding sealer.  They supposedly came with this already done, but I wanted to sand it down again myself (which I did before going to England) and redo it.  Now they are hanging up in the downstairs bathroom, with the door closed and a window open for ventilation.
                                                                                 

I need to check how long I need to leave them to dry between each coat, and how many coats of sanding sealer to apply.  This is going to be a long process - I'm hoping to finish it by the end of August but it depends on the drying time and number of coats required.

Largely prompted by my girlfriend's curiosity, I also got out the two colour sprays and quickly sprayed a spare bit of wood, to get an idea of the colours.  They are pretty much as I expected - the blue will certainly be deeper than this with multiple coats, and I hope I'll be able to get a nice graduated effect into the purple.
                                                                                 

It's quite possible that this is going to look awful, but we'll see.  At least it's going to be interesting finding out!

hyperfish

Nice blue Jon.

Did you mask the neck pocket? can't really see from the pic.

GloopyJon

The blue is nice, we'll see how it looks with the purple.  My gf was very sceptical about that last night!

I didn't mask it, and that was deliberate because the neck is a little bit loose in the pocket at the moment so I wanted to build it up with the lacquer to achieve a snug fit.  I can always sand it down if it gets too tight.  Is that likely to cause unforeseen problems?

hyperfish

It's just that just about everyone seems to mask off, the guy in the video even masked the heal also. It could be a delicate job sanding the sides so close to the finished surfaces? and maybe the lacquered faces would also stick together if the neck had to come back off at some point?

If your fit is loose then maybe fair enough if you coat the whole area evenly. Not sure which way I would go TBH.

GloopyJon

I'll see how it goes when they're lacquered.  I don't think the sanding will be a big problem if I need to do that, and in the first instance I need that extra bit of bulk .  If the lacquered faces stick together....I guess I'll deal with that if it happens!

Second coat of sanding sealer went on tonight, and maybe tomorrow I'll give it all a gentle sanding to remove any rough spots before starting the coloured lacquers.  It would be nice to see some blue tomorrow evening!

GloopyJon

With the two coats of sanding sealer, there are some slightly rough patches now that I will lightly sand down before starting with the colours.  I wanted to do that and apply the first blue coats last night, but it was raining for most of the evening so I couldn't do anything (I'm spraying outside because I don't have a suitable covered location).  Fingers crossed for a dry evening today.

Regarding the neck, I'm going to put on at least a light covering of the blue lacquer and I think I'll see how that looks with the body when I've done the burst before I decide whether to do a burst pattern on the neck as well.  I know that lacquering the neck is going to make it glossy and potentially a bit sticky to play, but I'm not too worried about that because I only really play at home anyway, and certainly not on a stage where it's likely to be hot and sweaty, and also I'm not really expecting this guitar to be played that often - it's a cheap kit, and the purpose was for me to learn more about guitar construction rather than to create the best playing instrument.

GloopyJon

It wasn't raining when I got home this evening so I've been working on the guitar.  First of all, I sanded it very lightly to smooth down a few places that had become a little rough after the application of the two coats of sanding sealer.  Then I cleaned it with damp tissue, let it dry a bit and then started with the blue lacquer.

This has been partly successful and partly a bit of a mess.  I did the first coat on both, and left them for 30 or 40 minutes.  Then I took the body out for the second coat, and while I was doing that it started to rain. A couple of drops fell on the body; I got it inside and dabbed them very gently with tissue to absorb the water, but they still left a bit of a mark.  I left it for a while and gently sanded that little patch before doing a third coat, which more or less hid it.

Unfortunately, a little bit of something (probably a floating fragment of dead leaf) dropped on the front of the guitar while I was doing the third coat.  I tried to sand it off gently but some of the lacquer came off with it.  I left it for a while again and sanded the worst bits back to the wood, then put a bit of sanding sealer back on it, spraying it through a hole in a bit of cardboard to try to restrict it more or less to the affected area.  After another little drying pause, I've applied a fourth coat to the entire body, which I think it needed anyway, and now I'm going to leave it to dry more thoroughly overnight and see how it looks tomorrow.

I don't think that I will be able to hide that completely, and of course it wasn't on an area that will be hidden by the pick guard.  It may be partly hidden by the burst; we'll see.

I'm rather disappointed by that, as otherwise it was going ok.  The neck looks really nice, and I might leave it with the blue rather than trying to do something clever with the purple lacquer.  The neck wood (maple, I think) seems to have taken the lacquer better than the body (basswood).

Anyway, here are a couple of pictures taken after the third coat.  The light was beginning to go and they were taken with my phone, so the quality isn't that good, but they give you an idea of the colour, although in real life the neck in particular looks much nicer than it does in the picture.  My girlfriend took some photos on her phone after the first and second coats but then rather stupidly deleted them from her phone after starting to upload them to Facebook (which of course failed as she'd deleted the files).  Sometimes I despair.

The neck:
                                                                                 

The body after three coats showing the disaster area bottom right
                                                                       

Christian 71

Yup that's the reason for using a spraying booth, painting acts like a magnet for anything airborn. Hence the reason for suggesting a mini greenhouse type thing.

A transparant finish is the trickiest as it's harder to blend in as the more coats the darker it will become. This where dyes are easier to work with. A spray gun I gather you can thin the laquer down and blend it in easier, but with a can you have less flexibility. Maybe try a few isolated blasts like you have done until it's back to colour and then blend the rest of the front to the same darkness.

I'll keep my fingers crossed for you as it's looking good.