Like Rocky says, not a quick answer, so here is my post from a similar thread on budget refinishes a while back. There is alot that dosnt apply to your situation, but you should be able to apply some of the principles by using clear instead of a base colour (that is base not bass BTW). Thats kinda how I would do it any way. I hope this is more the sort of info that you are looking for.
I have never been happy with the finish that a brush will give you, but then i am so anal, I spray my wooden garage doors This is how I used to do it using no machines,
For a cheap repaint I sand with 120- 220-320 water paper, DRY, I dont use water when sanding a wooden instrument.
Dont try to remove all the original finish just flat it, if you do go through then you will need to do a lot more primer work to seal the wood grain. Any deep dings are better solved with bondo than mega sanding. If you go any finer than 320 you gan get piant adhesion problems. I often stop at 220 grit.
Go buy aerosol car paint. SHAKE the cans properly, this is important!
READ the instructions on the can, and stick to them. When you have a bit more experence you can choose what to use and what to loose. Wipe the sanding dust off properly, try to make sure you're hands clean and not greasy when handling the job from now on, I wear latex gloves, told you, anal.
I hang bodies with a wire coat hanger through the neck bolt holes from a roof beam in my garage fo the spraying. Spray the whole body with primer, allow to dry over night, then flat (with a hard rubber block on the flat surfaces and you're hand on the rounds) using 320 grit water paper (DRY).
Wipe all the dust off. Spray your colour, allow to dry over night. Dont worry about orange peel in the surface unless its really bad, if it is, flat the same way you did the primer. You cant do this with metalics these you must flat and respray using light even coats, a dusting almost, and the final surface should look pretty much matt when dry.
Spray the clear. The clear is the trick to getting a good deep high gloss finish, I clear all colours, metalic and solid. I put on 4 or 5 good coats of clear waiting at least 4 hours between coats. Dont try to get a finnished gloss from the can, you wont, all that will happen is you will put on too much clear and get run's. Been there, wearing the tee shirt right now.
I then let the whole thing sit for about 2 weeks, It is often hard to curb the impatience but it is worth it. This lets every thing cure a bit and harden nicely so you can polish to a high gloss, soft paint is hard to polish well.
You will see that you have quite a bit of orange peel texture in the gloss, and perhaps some runs if you were heavy with the spraying, this is mainly due to the spray can nozzle. Take 1600 grit waterpaper (with rubber block on the flat surfaces) and sand, GENTLY, after a miniute or less of sanding wipe the surface clean you will see that the sanding highlights the surface inperfections with matt (high points) and gloss (low points) areas. Gently keep going sanding and wiping untill the surface is uniform. This is not a speed event! if you go through the clear on corners or points, you will have to re-clear and wait again.
Take two pieces of 1600 and rub them agaist each other abrasiv to abrasive to "soften"the grit, wipe the dust from the piece, and sand again all over with the softened 1600 grit. Wipe the body clean. Using a cutting paste and a soft cloth polish the surface by hand. The finer the paste the brighter the surface. The longer you take with this the better the finnish gets. I use three grades getting finer all the time, but these paste's are expensive, so see what your local auto parts shop has on the shelf, normaly called a paint renewer polish or system, every thing seems to be a system these days (NOT one with wax or silicone in).
I now use pro kit, compressors and spray guns ect, but I have finnished a number (15 -20) of guitars this way in the past, all to customer satisfaction.
All of the above assumes that you are working in an environment which is dry, warm (24deg C or warmer) and reasonably dust free.
ALWAYS WEAR A DECENT MASK, holding your breath isnt an option, and get some air movement though the area that you are spraying in, not a huricane, this picks up dust, just a steady draft to move the paint particles away from you and the job, the paint fumes/particles arnt good for either.
hope this helps, good luck. post pics.
Richard
Chris K
What richtea said, except for DRY sanding.
I prefer wet sanding going up to 400, to make the original finish veeeeeery smooth. But even more important is to CLEAN the surface BEFORE sanding with a prepaint cleaner. Otherwise, you will be sanding the dirt into the orgiginal finish
