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Can i paint a guitar with wall paint?

#24
Gibsonguy696 said:
Hello. I am wondering if i can paint my guitar with house paint. The kind you paint your walls with. I was going to wet sand it to the wood and then paint it in a eddie van halen style stripes. Does this work??
Click to expand...

Nah. Spray paint will be just as cheap and wind up looking better.

You need a dry place. And you need patience for multicolored paint jobs. You won't finish this in a day.

Spray paint primer. Let it dry completely....loke more than a day.

Then spray your base color.....over and over again.....allowing to dry and fine sanding between....maybe half a dozen coats if it takes that. Then let the final base color dry a LOT. Once that's dry, tape it off for your first color stripes. Stay the stripes and let it dry a LOT. Then tape off your second color stripes. Spray them and let them dry a LOT.

Then comes the clear coat. Probanly by far the hardest part of the project. If you make it to clear coat, come back and ask in the Luthier's Corner.

Shirt version: If you only have one bass, don't try this. You will be without it for a while.

By the way, Welcome to TalkBass!
 
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#26
Hi guys, first of all sorry for opening a year old thread.
A couple of you have said that you won't get a good shine using wall paint/emulsion. But if you're spraying a polyurethane clear coat over the top of it, does that even matter?
So primer>wall paint>polyurethane clear?
Just playing devils advocate here
 
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#27
I've done several basses. Don't mess with wall paint. For a good finish use some sort of spray paint. I highly recommend the products from Guitar Reranch. I've used their Lake Placid Blue, Royal Purple and I have some Butterscotch I am going to shoot. After you get your color coats down then you apply your clear coat. Since I have been spraying Lacquer, I use Minwax Clear Gloss Lacquer for the finish.

Anyone thinking of refinishing a bass or guitar should read this thread, Rattle Can Refinish Club . Tons of good information in there.
 
#28
TinIndian said:
I've done several basses. Don't mess with wall paint. For a good finish use some sort of spray paint. I highly recommend the products from Guitar Reranch. I've used their Lake Placid Blue, Royal Purple and I have some Butterscotch I am going to shoot.
Click to expand...

Great if you live in the US, you guys seem to have so much choice when it comes to spray paints. Here in the UK there's literally 2 companies that do them and they don't have a particularly expansive range. Alot of people here just use what they can find without having to pay extortionate prices for high quality sprays from other countries
 
#29
Choddy said:
Hi guys, first of all sorry for opening a year old thread.
A couple of you have said that you won't get a good shine using wall paint/emulsion. But if you're spraying a polyurethane clear coat over the top of it, does that even matter?
So primer>wall paint>polyurethane clear?
Just playing devils advocate here
Click to expand...

Yes, it still matters. "Wall" paint will never harden enough. A hard poly clear over a soft color coat will result in cracked clear over time. And that's assuming it bonds enough to stay in place, which is a big assumption. My guess is that after a time, chunks of the color and clear will fall off the guitar's surface.
 
#30
Rub your thumb on a wall for a couple hours a day, for 10 years. If you like how well the wall paint holds up to that treatment, by all means go ahead and use wall paint on your bass.
 
#31
Choddy said:
Great if you live in the US, you guys seem to have so much choice when it comes to spray paints. Here in the UK there's literally 2 companies that do them and they don't have a particularly expansive range. Alot of people here just use what they can find without having to pay extortionate prices for high quality sprays from other countries
Click to expand...

Well then, what are your options for spray paint in the UK? What do you have available? Perhaps another solution would be to find an auto body paint shop and see if they can help you out with color choice and actually doing the paint for you. I have heard of a number of people here doing that for as little as 100.00 US.
 
#34
Why not try.. nothing ventured nothing gained..

My wife painted her first vehicle using random household paint, it help up for 10+ years.. certainly didn't look like a professional job.. however that wasn't exactly the look she was going for. May have been oil based vs. latex..:

poxoddmobile.png
 

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