Official Luthiers Forum!

New to the forum, first post. I feel confident in trying to learn the skill of guitar making. I have tons of woodworking experience having spent loads of time building furniture. I figured a good place to start is to try to refinish that first cheap guitar that I bought of a friend with my allowance a million years ago.

I'm still really in the planning stages but i'm trying to get all of my ducks in a row. I'm almost ready to start the big deconstruct and stripping the body bare. The finished body is going to be mother of pearl and my wife (the real artist here) is going to paint an old all black tattoo design that i've had for years but never gotten next to the bridge.

So my first question (First of many i'm betting). How do i get that beautiful irradescent mother of pearl finish? Where can i get the laquer? I've read that the best is a nitrocellulose laquer but i seem to be finding all of the clear laquer and pigment additives in basic colors on the luthier sites. Do I just use regular white and that irradesence comes from a clear coat on top? Secondly, the tattoo design. I was thinking of using a black acrylic. Am I correct on this as well?

Hi Lance...welcome to the forum.
I can't offer much but there are some automotive paints that replicate the "pearl" look pretty well. Not sire you'll get what you're after with plain white.

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Dave
Milton, ON

didnt think that would be the correct process. is automotive paint safe to use on wood? not sure of the properties of it but its made to apply on metal or plastic and fiberglass crap the cars of today are made of.

There ya got me .... no idea! I'd think if you sealed then primed it, like a car, you'd be ok. (This is a solid body electric, right?)
As always, test on scrap first.

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Dave
Milton, ON

I have an online buddy that uses automotive paint on his guitars, he just uses matching products (primer, base, clear) that way he knows there will be no bad reaction after he sprays, he does like to use 2K clear on all his stuff though, but it comes out VERY nice.

Yeap solid body electric. Beat up piece of junk at this point. Body will be the only original piece left when i'm done.

Cool finally something I can help with -- I am an ASE certified auto painter and to back up what was posted earlier yes you can do this with car paint just fine. I have done a dozen or so and great results. The color you are after is going to need be a 3 stage finish -- 1 base it out with the white you need, probably just a little on the yellow side -- 2 mid coat with the pearl, this is going to be a very translucent coat -- basically a "clear" basecoat full of your choice of pearl. You are gonna apply it until you get the shimmer you are after -- after all this it should still look dull -- then 3 Clearcoat, 3 wet coats then wet sand it back down and do 3 more wet coats and sand and buff -- looks great -- I use a good 2k primer over the wood and go with it -- so far so good, If you really want to go this route I'll help you get there. Urethane is still urehtane whether on a bumper or wood. IMO also much easier for me to deal with than laquer. It just lacks that vintage integrity that laquer provides.
Hope you get what you are after

Richard

Thanks Rich, awesome info. Probably won't be painting for a few weeks. Only getting to work one night a week (last semester of grad school kicking my butt). I'll be stripping the original paint this thursday. Next week will be filling, sanding, and hopefully sealing. I'll post some pics of my progress.

Wow! These are beautiful. Thanks for the source.

Last night was the big strip. Relatively easy process. After a bit of research I decided to go with Formby's Paint and Poly Remover. Took two coats on both sides and I used a plastic refinishing tool to lift the paint. I then used 150grit paper on a lightweight orbital sander. I revealed a beautiful, and much to my surprise, maple body. I was totally expecting to find plywood under that paint. Apparently this old guitar is a east asian knock-off of a Harmony guitar. Harmony went belly-up in 1975, and this company attached "Est. 1892" to the Harmony name so they could manufacture these guitars. Upon further reasearch I believe this was a model of guitar sold by Sears in the late 80's. I was very surprised to find a decent wood underneath the horrid candy apple red paint job. I'll post pictures of my progress soon. Thanks to all who have responded so far. I'm sure my questions will start again soon after I'm finished filling the dings and sanding next week.

Hay Lance,

I've used automotive paint on mine and have had no problems. Duplacolor makes all sorts of colors and a clear lac. for top coat or clear finish. The only draw back is that it takes over nite to cure so you can wet sand the next day.

Al

I have an automotive paint store I like to get supplies from. Beats the heck out of Home Depot sandpaper.