DrNomis_44's Gold Standard STA-1M Build.

[Simon Barden]

Remember that it's not the initial look that you should consider (unless you get a reaction and blisters), but the look when it's been flattened back and polished. Which to test properly is going to take a couple of weeks drying time.

[DrNomis_44]

Look, a gold guitar!

Actually it's a Dolg Ratiug...not sure what a Dolg Ratiug does, or what it's used for, but it must do something, maybe it's a Lacisum Tnemurtsni of some sort....*wonders why the computer keyboard went a bit weird*....*scratches head thoughtfully while looking at the monitor in disbelief*....now, not only am I confused, but my computer's getting confused too....lol.

[DrNomis_44]

Remember that it's not the initial look that you should consider (unless you get a reaction and blisters), but the look when it's been flattened back and polished. Which to test properly is going to take a couple of weeks drying time.

Good point, I was mostly interested in seeing if any of the two cans of clear coat would react with the gold paint,I haven't sprayed any clear coat on the scrap piece of wood yet, so I'm going to let the scrap piece of wood dry overnight and continue the experiment in the morning.

[Simon Barden]

I've got a Gordon-Smith hardtail Strat-style body I need to touch up some knocks on, and will probably spray the edges dark brown to help cover up a mixture of damage and a really bad factory spray job. There were big blobs of sunburst paint on teh edged that hadn't been smoothed down under the clear coat and you could see visible lumps! Rubbing back worked in some areas but in others the blobs came away revealing the under-finish. So plan to use a darker solid colour scray to cover them up with - plus it will increase the sunburst effect, which is a bit weak as it stands.

But I need to find out what it was finished with. It could be nitro as the finish isn't that hard. So will be testing for any reaction with nitro paint a bit later with the paint in the control cavity. If it does, then it's probably polyurethane, so will have to try and find some suitable sprays.

[DrNomis_44]

I've got a Gordon-Smith hardtail Strat-style body I need to touch up some knocks on, and will probably spray the edges dark brown to help cover up a mixture of damage and a really bad factory spray job. There were big blobs of sunburst paint on teh edged that hadn't been smoothed down under the clear coat and you could see visible lumps! Rubbing back worked in some areas but in others the blobs came away revealing the under-finish. So plan to use a darker solid colour scray to cover them up with - plus it will increase the sunburst effect, which is a bit weak as it stands.

But I need to find out what it was finished with. It could be nitro as the finish isn't that hard. So will be testing for any reaction with nitro paint a bit later with the paint in the control cavity. If it does, then it's probably polyurethane, so will have to try and find some suitable sprays.

Sounds like an interesting project, I seem to remember hearing some good things about those Gordon-Smith Strats, I think Fender used Nitro finishes on some of the Strats they built in their factory, but I could be wrong.


Can't wait to hear what my Gold strat will sound like with the new white Kent Armstrong Dual-Blade pickups, particularly the Bridge position sound, I know that they do sound good in the neck and middle positions.

[DrNomis_44]

Update:

I've just finished doing the little experiment with the scrap piece of wood and the two cans of Clear Coat, I've only sprayed one coat from each can on there respective halves of the scrap piece of wood and got some interesting results, the actual differences are very slight, with the Clear Rust Guard half looking a bit shinier than the other half with Clear Acrylic on it, which looks slightly hazy, I didn't notice any adverse reactions to the Gold paint with either of the two Clear Coats, so, I'm going to go ahead and go with Wokka's recommendation of using White Knight Clear Rust Guard to Clear Coat the Gold Strat Body, furthermore, the Gold Paint on the body appears to have dried fully so I'm going to go ahead with Clear Coating the body today, will post pics after spraying the first coat so you can see what it looks like.

Will also post a pic of the scrap piece of wood too.....stay tuned.


Okay, here's a pic of the scrap of wood I used for the experiment, the left-half has Clear Acrylic on it, and the Right-half has the Rust Guard on it, hopefully you can see the slight differences:




Okay here are a couple of pics of the guitar body with it's first coat of clear coat on it, to my eyes the Clear Coating doesn't seem to have dulled the shine of the paint much, so I'm pretty happy with the result I got, the surface texture is far from being smooth but that's not really an issue because I'm not really aiming to create a mirror-smooth finish on the guitar body, it's going to end up with scratches and dings in it anyway, so I'm aiming for a more functional finish that's really only there to stop the wood from discolouring from dirt and sweat, etc, besides this guitar is meant to be played:

Anyway......here we go, first the front:




And the back:

[stan]

Looking nice Doc, is that a ding or a run on the top side of the neck pup? I'm sure it will come out great

[DrNomis_44]

Looking nice Doc, is that a ding or a run on the top side of the neck pup? I'm sure it will come out great

It's probably because I wasn't able to sand it perfectly flat, but, as it's going to be hidden by the scratchplate, I'm really not going to worry about it, I just tried putting the scratchplate in it's place on the body and that imperfection near the neck pup route is virtually un-noticeable.

The good news is that, since there's a coat of Clear Coat on the body, I don't have to worry about the paint tarnishing from fingerprints anymore cause it's protected by the Clear Coat.


There's an interesting side-effect, caused by the paint not being flat, it has a sort-of "Orange-Peel" texture to it (from the individual paint-droplets), but, with the Clear Coating on it, it gives it a kind of speckled effect that I am actually liking a lot, so, rather than try to smooth it all out, I'm going to go with it, gives it some character in a weird way, I guess that's the essence of the Japanese philosophy of Wabi Sabi, seeing the beauty in imperfections.


Update:

Just sprayed a second coat of Clear Coat on the body, I'm going to leave it alone for the time being and maybe do another two coats tomorrow.

[wazkelly]

Hi Doc, loving that gold colour.

As you add more clear coats maybe they will flatten out some of the imperfections?

[DrNomis_44]

Hi Doc, loving that gold colour.

As you add more clear coats maybe they will flatten out some of the imperfections?

Cheers mate, I'm loving the Gold colour too, it probably will smooth out as I add more coats, if it does then that'll be a bonus, but I'm going to stay open-minded about it and just let it do what it wants to rather than try to control it.