Post pics now.

you can get colored finishes. Go to Home Depot and have a look around.

 

I don't know about transparent pigments, but I painted my sons Fender Strat Mopar Sublime Green enamel followed by three coats of 2K clear and then wet sanded it. It came out beautiful. He loved the guitar but not the original color (kind of a metallic pale mauve). So he asked me to paint it. Now (2 years later) he's got it all covered with stickers.

My bro in TX restores guitars, I'll ask him.

 

Bro got back to me.

Don't use a stain. The finish you are looking for is a tinted clear. You build up successive coats until you get the depth of color you like. My brother has his paint mixed at an automotive supply shop (which is a bit pricey). He said if you're on a budget, you may be able to use a Testors' enamel from a hobby shop. They may have a tinted clear for doing candy-apple red finishes on car models. If not, get a furniture-grade self leveling clear lacquer and get some tinting pigment from a paint store and mix your own. A little tint goes a long way. Too much tint will screw up the characteristics of the lacquer. You'll need a better-quality spray gun with a 1.4mm tip (minimum) to get a good finish. Practice on something else first.

 

you dont use tinted clear on wood body guitars... Use enamel, or autobody paint. If you're wanting to get a woodgrain look, you're going to ahve to stain - and THEN clearcoat. I do a lot of custom drum and guitar work. Mostly drums though..

 

Thanks to you and your bro for all that info!! i wonder if you might be able to have him explain why not to use a dye/stain with several layers of clearcoat? it seems like it would provide the depth/color i want, and it is also relatively cheap. thanks!

I did a fair amount of research yesterday afternoon, and i came up with a couple of options, based on websites selling the supplies. the cheapest way i found is to stain, using either alcohol- or water-based dye, found here http://www.lmii.com/carttwo/thirdproducts.asp?CategoryName=Dyes&NameProdHeader= Aniline+Dyes+Water+Soluble, then layer A LOT of clearcoat (they suggest around 7 coats!!!) on top! this site http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Finishi...,_tints,_and_stains/2/ColorTone_Aerosol_Guitar_Lacquer/Instructions/I-5880.html has the tinted clear in spray cans, and says that also works well, you just have to keep layering until you get the desired color, etc. however, the cans are fairly expensive, and since i want a very deep wine-red, i'm guessing i would need a couple cans, and then you still have to put clearcoat over that, so it will turn out much more expensive. this site gives techniques/suggestions for all the different methods http://www.projectguitar.com/tut/tutorial5.htm. personally i am leaning toward the dye and clear, since there's a little less to screw up with a rubbed-in finish than with a spray gun or cans (except for the clear, which i will be wet-sanding between each coat) i need to get a new batch of pics with the progress i've made on the body, but i will post some ASAP. thanks!

 

My brother recommended the multiple tinted clear coats because you are new at this.

How much staining experience do you have? That will determine whether you will get a good finish with stain. It's not as easy as it looks to get a furniture-grade finish as they make it look in the Minwax commercials. Staining wood is like welding, you get better with lots of experience. A splotchy stain job will ruin the guitar. If you are experienced with quality stained finishes, by all means go that route.

Here's another site where my brother gets his materials. It's local to him. You can contact them to get true professional advice.

 

awesome, thanks for that link. i have however had a decent amount of experience with wood stains, i have just never tackled a "color stain" or dye, especially on a guitar. i'm a senior in high school and have taken 3 general shop classes and 2 specific woodshop classes, and many of the projects required a stain of some sort. i went ahead and placed an order for red Aniline Water-Based dye and 4 cans of nitrocellulose clearcoat (the recommended amount of clear for a very deep, glossy finish). they should arrive early next week, so hopefully i will be able to finish the guitar before graduation. if nothing else, this is a learning experience, so i will know what works and what doesn't the next time around. thanks again for your help!

 

Best of luck!!! Promise you'll post pics. I'd love to see it all done.

 

will do, here's a few teasers. first one is before, the other two i just took this morning after reshaping and sanding down to 400-grit sandpaper. i need to finish the edges and then i'll be ready for the dye next week.

 

Alrighty, a little bit of an update: the supplies arrived Friday, namely a container of Red Aniline Dye powder (which needs to be mixed with between 1-1/2 and 2 quarts of hot water for it to dissolve. I will probably mix it with 1-1/2 quarts because i want a very dark, rich color) and 4 cans of clear nitrocellulose lacquer, all of which will be sprayed on top of the stained wood to give a very deep, shiny, protective coat. i also found a nice design that i will be painting/airbrushing in between some of the layers of clearcoat, hopefully resulting in an almost 3-dimensional effect on top of the color but below the topcoat. i should be able to start staining tomorrow, starting first with a scrap piece of maple to nail down the technique and get an idea of the color. more pics to come!

 

Well, i made tons of progress yesterday and then forgot to post up pics. Basically I spent virtually all day putting layers and layers of stain on the guitar, and got it to a pretty nice red color. unfortunately all the pics make it look orange, but you have to believe me it's really quite red. I left it overnight and came back to it this morning, and the color had lightened and flattened quite a bit, so i started putting even more coats of stain on it. I have now used up almost a pint of dye, and i made up 3 pints (1 1/2 quarts). so i'll have tons left over. anyway, the color when wet is now pretty close to what i want the final color to be, and once i get the clearcoat on and polished it should be perfect. i also made the decision to buy a new neck as the one that came on the guitar has seen a lot of use and the frets are pitted and the fretboard is pretty rough and grooved. instead of paying tons of money to have a mediocre neck refretted, etc. i have been scouring ebay for cooler necks, so we'll see how that turns out.

 

dude - one thing though - you cant go throwing some random neck on your body. EVERY company has different depth and vert. tracks to set the neck. Dont waste your money buying something you 'think' will fit. Isnt this an old Kramer you said?? good luck finding a neck man.. you can go and have the frets redressed and shaped for less than $60, rather than buying a neck that prolly wont fit, and will never have a set intonation due to not fitting correctly. Just trying to help.. not trying to be discouraging.

 

i actually emailed the seller and the measurements seem like it should fit just fine. It's actually the same as a fender strat, so the fitment is pretty common. as far as the frets, i would need a whole new fretboard, not just the frets themselves, so it would cost a lot more. and the neck i found is only at about $25 right now, so it won't be too much of a loss if it doesn't fit. thanks for the suggestions though!

 

strats are pretty common neck fittament - but we're talking extremely close tolerances here, and dont forget to map out the bolt pattern - thats more specifically the problem when fitting another neck. Good luck to you. I've built many a guitar, was a tech for 4 years. looks like you're doing just fine!

 

hey thanks a lot man, that's great encouragement! if it does turn out i need to redo the bolt holes on the neck (hopefully i don't, but ya never know) i was going to just clamp the neck in place and drill through the holes from the back of the guitar. is this okay, or do you have another method that would be safer/work better?

oh and here's a few more pics for y'all

 

Color's looking good!

 

thanks, but you haven't seen the half of it! haha keep checking back!

 

Speaking of guitars...

Does anyone know where to find replacement necks for Les Paul style guitars. Mine is completely broken off between the headstock and 1st fret. No way to glue it back together. Replacement necks seem fairly common, except for Les Pauls.

 

Speaking of guitars...

Does anyone know where to find replacement necks for Les Paul style guitars. Mine is completely broken off between the headstock and 1st fret. No way to glue it back together. Replacement necks seem fairly common, except for Les Pauls.

fleaBay!!! i just bought new tuning pegs and a case of strings for less than $50, and i've been searching for the last couple days for necks, im pretty sure i came across some les paul ones.

 

It's a Gibson Les Paul Voodoo. As much as I'd like to find a matching neck, I know that will be impossible. At this point I'm just trying to find a neck that would fit the guitar. I seem to be finding lots of Les Paul profile necks, that are actually screwed onto the body (ala Fender). This is for a future project, and I'm not really sure how to get a Les Paul neck seperated from the body. It looks like it's just glued onto the body.

I have to deal with a clutch replacement before I can allocate the funds for a guitar neck/repair.

 

yes, Les Paul necks are glued, or set necks. A lot of of them are neck-thru bodys as well. Yes, will prolly be hard to find the Voodoo Black Matte headstock to match your body.. But it was a popular guitar, so maybe you'll get lucky?? Thats the other problem though, usually when people sell les paul parts, its because they've snapped the headstock off the neck. : ( Either way, any les paul haedstock you buy will still have a black headsotck, it will just be shiny instead of matte like your body. It'll look fine - tell people its a special edition! haha.

 

Bit of a thread revival here, but I thought I'd toss up a pic as an update. I still am nowhere near finished with this project, I still have to put the clear enamel on, go through the electronics with new pots and pickups, maybe toss in a Floyd Rose, etc. I now also have a Les Paul kit that I'm trying to figure out what direction to go with.

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Switch by M. Washburn, on Flickr[/IMG]

 

If you're looking for a simple clear solution that will hold up real well, you might want to try SprayMax 2K clear. It comes in a special aerosol can. It's made for doing spot repairs on cars mostly. The stuff is really easy to work with, wears like iron and is more resistant to things like body oils than a lacquer would be. You can get it online through Eastwood.com. As always with projects like this, you might want to test it on some scrap wood first.

Cool pic!

 

This makes me miss my 62' strat I sold a year ago

 

I already have 4 large cans of clear lacquer I picked up from Steward MacDonald when I got the stain, it's specifically designed for high-gloss guitar finishes, but thanks for the suggestion!

 

Now for sale, if anyone is interested. http://www.saablink.net/forum/items-sale/55689.htm#post836634