Guitar ReRanch ~ Basic Refinishing
Bassman,
I'm ignorant but trying learn about finishes. Why did you decide to rattlecan the color and flake coats and gun-spray the clear? I have a bass build in the works that i will eventually paint jet black, considering Duplicolor primer, colorcoat, and some other brand for clear, as I keep reading that Duplicolor clear takes too long to dry. I don't own or have access to a gun and compressor, and can't justify buying one for a couple of bass builds. The last bass I painted was many years ago, got to watch the incompatible clear laquer lift up the paint below in sheets. Good times! I'd like to avoid that. There are so many "recipes" out there for paint schedules, number of coats, etc. that I'm thoroughly confused. If it's not aggravating, can you share your process?
The only reason I chose to do the primer/black with rattlecans was because it was just the front of the body and the front of the headstock. If it was the whole bass I might have used an automotive black with a spray gun. It would have been a bit more economical. Speaking of economics, when I originally did this bass I used Reranch primer/black. The Dupli-Color is about $6.00 a can compared to $16.00 for the Reranch, and I don't have to wait and pay for the Dupli-Color to be shipped. I don't know about you, but I think black is black, and if I can save $10.00 a can plus shipping on it I'm going to. BTW the reason I chose the Dupli-Color is because it's lacquer.
As far as the Dupli-Color metal flake goes, I needed that for another project to match a small section of existing metal flake and had most of the can left over. I liked the way it looked so I decided to use on this too.
The Cardinal clear was also left over from another bass as well. As I stated in a previous post, I tested everything on some scrap first to make sure they would not react to each other and come off in sheets like you had happen to you. I learned this the hard way also.
For me it was Rust-oleum. DO NOT mix Rust-Oleum with any other product!! It just will not mix with anything else and then you will have to strip everything down to bare wood to remove every trace of it or it will happen again.
There are many products that will work fine together, just make sure you test everything on scrap first.
You really don't need a compressor and spray gun if you do good prep work first. If you are starting from bare wood, sand with a block of some kind so you get a flat surface. Start with 150 grit and work your way up to at least 320 grit. Shoot 3 to 5 coats of sealer and wet sand up to 400 grit this time. If you are refinishing over existing paint you can skip those two steps and just rough it up with some 320 dry sand paper. After that shoot 3 to 5 coats of primer and wet sand at least up to 600 grit. Then you can start the color coats. I always shoot a dry tack coat first, then shoot a couple of wetter coats. The tack coat will help to prevent runs and sags when you shoot the wetter coats. I always wet sand up to at least 600 grit between the color coats. Each color coat is the same process, a dry tack coat and a couple of wet coats. You repeat the same process for the clear. Do as many color and clear coats as you like (or can afford to). The more product you can get on, the less chance of sand throughs you will have. Always sand the flat surfaces with a block or your fingers will make troughs. Trust me, you wont see them until you do the final buff out. You can get away with using your fingers around the curvy parts.
When buffing you can either order from StewMac or do what I do and buy automotive buffing compound from an auto parts store.
All this I learned from the Reranch page here.
Guitar ReRanch ~ Basic Refinishing
It goes into a lot more detail, but that's the gist of it. Hope this helps
Sorry
