I build my first kit about 2 years ago, and it looked pretty good if you didn't look closely and sounded ok if you didn't play it much. I have decided to strip it back and build it again, this time following all the how-to's, not rushing the paint job, and making sure it sounds right.
What kind sealer do you use to finish it off? I had a problem where the paint would come off onto capos, and strings from other guitars caused marks on the back...
What type of finish are you planning to use this time, paint again or something else? Will it be a solid finish or do you want the flame to show, and are you stripping all the old paint off? (Be careful with the flame cap as they are very thin and it doesn't take much to go through them). Am I recalling correctly that you originally used a teardrop cardboard template and rattlecans for the red of the outer burst?
The type of finish you want to use, what the old finish was, how you prepare and/or seal the surface and what clear or final coats you will/can use are all interrelated, particularly with how they can react with each other, so we'll need some more info before we can make specific suggestions.
Hey, I'm going to strip all the paint off.. I want to make it black with a purple stain on the front so you can see all the grain.. That is about all i know. Yeah I used a mixture of stain and red spray the first time. I want to still have the white edges, is that what you mean by cap?
The white/cream plastic strip around the edge of the body is called the 'binding'. The 'cap' is the flame maple grain on the top of the body and is usually just a thin maple veneer on these kits, so it's quite easy to sand through it, especially if you're trying to remove an old finish. It looks like you may already be on the verge of sanding through the cap at very edge of the body near the switch hole, but that won't be an issue if you're going solid black at the edges of the burst. Just try to be as light with the sanding on the cap as you can, just enough to get rid of the paint but no more, or you could sand away your flame grain.
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