Painting a guitar

[wallie!]

hello gentlemen.
Long story short, my gf's birthday is coming up and Ive planned to take an old guitar body, paint it her favourite colours and put her name on it (something she can hang in her room)
What sort of paint should I be doing this with? Is a decent brand of spraypaint (ironlak, belton, montana) going to get the job done (with an undercoat, primer)? Or should I be using a different type of paint?

[CityofBlindingLights]

It'll take a little more than just paint. First, sanding. Then, wood spirits and (multiple layers of) primer. Then, the actual paint. Then, clear-coating/finishing. It'll take more than a day, if that's what you're thinking. Considering if you don't have heat lamps, primer and paint dry overnight. And you'll need at least four layers of each (that's being conservative).

[wallie!]

thankyou city, that all seems fairly manageable at this point, will it be fine using spraypaint?
I want a nice quality of work, so will spraypaint achieve that? or should I be using paint and a brush or something?

[RG462]

Spray paint will get a you a nice paintjob if you know what youre doing. It takes alot of practice and precision to get even coats and a paintjob without any mistakes.

[CityofBlindingLights]

Originally Posted by wallie!

thankyou city, that all seems fairly manageable at this point, will it be fine using spraypaint?
I want a nice quality of work, so will spraypaint achieve that? or should I be using paint and a brush or something?

No, spraypaint will get the job done. From what I've heard, standard Krylon spraypaint is not only the best spraypaint to use, but also one of the cheapest. The key in painting guitars would be to get even coats, probably holding the can about six inches away from the body. Also, you'll need to completely disassemble the guitar (including electronics and neck) to paint it, unless the guitar won't be played at all. Then you can just mask off whatever you don't want painted.

Once you start, the best way to learn is trial by error

[Mikael Jurman]

You might want to check these pages out...

http://www.projectguitar.com/tut/tutorial5.htm

[C.Thep]

Spraying clear with cans is pretty tricky.

[CityofBlindingLights]

Yeah, projectguitar.com has a LOT of useful tips and info... snoop around and check it out, it's super helpful.

[wallie!]

thanks guys, much appreciated.

[David McCarroll]

Have a look on Stewmac.com - they sell various guitar refinishing products (including water borne lacquers) in foo foo cans - make your life easy!

Also, Guitar Reranch are quite good in terms of advice - they told me you can spray Nitrocellulose lacquer over acrylic colour - something very few poeple seem to admit to.