Painting solid colours by hand?

I'm just about to start building my first kit. I'm planing to paint the body, neck, and head white (no steins, solid white).

- Should I glue the neck before painting as everything is going to be the same colour?
- What grain sandpaper should I go to before priming?
- What sort of paint and primer works best? I live in an apartment without balcony. So spray paints aren't really a practical option. Any paints I can apply with a brush and sand to get a good finish? I've done some research pointing me in the direction of using acrylics with a water based polyurethane top coat over that.

Thanks for any helpful hints!

I'd be looking at acrylic rattle cans from an auto parts place ( or the green shed if you're brave ), shoot the paint in the carpark and then get back into the flat, her indoors is going to hate the smell which ever way you do it.

Word of warning, when I did the final coats on The Count it was incredible hot and humid so I hung it inside, next morning the budgie was dead and I think it may have thought the strat body was a big bird of prey.

Fortunately the wife was at the weekender at the time so I didn't have much explaining to do :D

It's a lot easier to paint them separately, so personally I'd do that with the primer and the white, then glue the neck. I'd then fill and touch up any gaps round the neck joins then I'd probably add some protective clear coats.

Make sure you remember before painting anything, to first mask the inside of the neck pocket and any areas of the neck that go in the pocket. You need to glue wood to wood, not paint to paint.

What wood is the body made from? Basswood seems likely, but it's best to confirm it. Some woods like mahogany and ash, have open pores and need grain filling to get a flat surface to start with. Basswood and alder have closed pores, so don't need filling.

There's no need to go too fine with the wood sanding. Running up to something like 320 grit should be fine. Always sand with the grain. You'll want to sand out any machining marks left and also smooth flat as best as possible the end grain of the wood, which is always rougher than the two main faces. If the body looks relatively smooth, then maybe start with 120 grit. If there are some deeper marks, then start with 80 grit. If any grit size is taking a long time to remove the marks, then go to a larger grit (smaller grit number). Always use a sanding block for the flat surfaces. Look at the body at an angle against a strong light, as this should throw up shadows if there are any low areas. Always wear a dust mask when sanding. (Most of this also applies to paint finishes, though you'd want to start with a finer grit for paint).

At each stage, the smoother you can get the body and neck, the easier the next stage will be and the better the final finish will be.

I'm not a fan of mixing paint types. For best compatibility, I'd either go all poly or all acrylic. I spray my guitars, so I can't offer any advice on paint choice, but the paint layers are going to be thicker when applied with a brush, so you won't need so many of them. I'd use a soft artists brush rather than a household painting type brush. I'd suggest something like a wide brush used for applying watercolour washes. I've got one that's about 3cm wide by 5mm deep and it's got really fine soft bristles. It should leave far fewer marks than a standard decorators brush. You haven't got a huge area to paint, so you don't need a brush that can hold a lot of paint.

You need to put enough primer on so that you've still got a reasonable layer of primer once you've sanded it back flat (though you don't want it too thick). Same with the main colour coat. Some people wouldn't add a clear coat on a solid colour, but I would. Whatever your final coat is, it needs to be sanded back flat, then sanded with finer and finer grits until you can get the polishing compounds out to give it its shine. You don't leave it with an as-is gloss finish after you've painted it (well you could, but it would look like it was hand-painted when it could be flat and shiny).

From the primer coats onwards, I'd do all the sanding wet, with good quality wet 'n' dry paper. The very cheap stuff you can get from eBay is a waste of time as the grits come loose when wet, and end up scoring the paint finish. It's also meant to be soaked overnight before use, so that the backing paper becomes soft and you get a smoother result. Just make sure you block up any holes in the body first that haven't got paint on the wood, otherwise the water will get in and the wood will expand.

Thanks for the advice!

The body is basswood so I should be fine without filling then.

What grit wet 'n' dry paper do you recommend using on the paint and top coat?

Fortunately I don't have any pets to kill. ;) I might be able to hang the guitar to dry in the basement though. With the obvious drawback that its the most humid place in the house. Then again I live in Northern Europe so humidity generally isn't a big issue.

I'd start with 400 grit for the paint. Using it wet makes it a bit gentler on the paint as well, but still pretty effective in sanding down any ridges left by the brushing. You only need to sand until the paint's truly flat, then go up a couple of grades for the primer plus colour coat (if you are doing a clear coat), but you can go up to 2500 grit on the final coat. You can go much higher if you use Micromesh cloth or pads, but a good polishing compound should give a good gloss shine from 2500 grit. Ideally, you'd get coarse, medium and fine polishing compounds, though they are not always easy to source. There are a lot of car polishing compounds, but I always find their descriptions hard to understand.

If you've been reading any of the build diaries, then you'd know that its important that you leave enough time for the previous coat of paint to dry before progressing with the next one. Even spray acrylics seem to have problems with this, as the outer layer dries first and partially seals in the moisture in the under layer, which takes time to dry fully. Certainly when finishing a full layer, like all the primer, I'd leave it 4-5 days to fully harden before rubbing it down (especially as your brushed layers will be thicker than sprayed layers). The final coat needs to be left at least 3 weeks before polishing, though longer is always better (though you could rub it back flat after a week as the extra surface area created by sanding will help it dry more quickly).

As you say, humidity isn't normally a problem in Northern Europe now that spring is here. I'd just be careful of temperature as the weather is still pretty unstable, so I'd want to paint and let it dry in 18°C or more (not normally a problem if you're doing it all inside). It's been a glorious weekend here in the UK, with temperatures of 22°C-23°C, which is uncommon (but welcome) for early April, though things are set to drop during the week. If you've got a tumble dryer in the basement, then I'd avoid leaving painted items to dry there, as they can raise the relative humidity (more important than the absolute humidity) to quite high levels.

Good luck with your build!

Also: what is the best way of holding/hanging the body when it's a set neck? I cans see how you would just screw a bolt on neck to a long piece of wood. But is it possible to do something similar with a set neck?

Thanks again for the input. Seems I'll be spending a lot of time watching paint dry then. ;)

What guitar kit is it?

It's the SG-1L

There are various ways people have used, mainly for spraying, and when painting by hand, you may be better off just doing the top, then the bottom. Hanging it up by the tuner holes in the headstock is one way (though obviously, not when working on the headstock). Some people have used a clamp to grip onto the inside of the neck and bridge pickup routs, and used that like a handle to hold the guitar when painting, then hanging it up on some wire to dry. This is still quite unwieldy, so it's best to leave the neck unglued until you decide its time it all has to fit together. It's often better to paint the front and rear of the guitar when flat, as you are less likely to get any runs in the paint when the surface you're painting is flat, so it does draw the process out a bit longer. But acrylic paint (if you use it) doesn't take too long before it's dry enough to touch and turn over, so you could do a full coat in a day.

Or you hold it by the neck and paint the body, then when that's dry, hold the body and paint the neck. As you are going for a solid colour all over, you don't need to match up a neck finish to a sunburst on the body. so there's less of a need for it to be finished all at once.

Lefty eh? nice;)