Official Luthiers Forum!

Last evening a friend dropped off another bass to modify.

He wants the headstock painted similar to another Jazz bass he has.

The body and headstock are just the most beautiful red metal flake color.

Fortunately, the body is already the right color so all I'm doing is matching the color of the headstock and refinishing the entire neck.

Thanks for any and all suggestions, Bruce

http://img3.musiciansfriend.com/dbase/pics/products/5/7/9/539579.jpg

Here is a red sparkle metallic Fender if it comes through.

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/document?cpd=0OEY&doc_id=99371&base_pid=515813&index=4

Just click the links they both worked for me. TIA

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

Bruce...check out Guitar Reranch. They often have exact color matches all figured out.

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

This is a common custom automotive and motorcycle finish. You spray a metal flake base (usually aluminum), then a red transparent coat, then clear coat. There are a number of metal flake sizes, so you may have to experiment, but if you can't get the exact finish from Reranch, any shop that does motorcycle gas tanks can take a look and tell you what metalflake size to use, or close to it. They probably can spray the flake and color for you (in a few minutes if they are doing another candy apple job), but it will likely be an acrylic or catalyzed lacquer, so you will need a compatible topcoat.

One good thing about it being the headstock is that if you come close to a match no one will notice a slight difference from the body.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

Thanks guys, just what I needed.

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

The autobody paint store has just exactly what's needed.

Supplies to do the headstock were $72, and then there is the labor. More than the customer anticipated. Actually I hope he passes and leaves the neck straight Nitro on maple.

Great suggestion though Howard the auto paint store actually had three that were so close any would have worked fine, due to the distance from headstock to body. It would require as you said three seperate coatings, gold metallic underbody, red translucent coat which lets the metallic show through, then a clear coat.

JJ I checked ReRanch out and they had two Fender reds but not the metallic. Looks like they spent a lot of time doing this work. Actually the first place I looked was StewMac and didn't find it there either.

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com