BC-1

[kt101]

Finished up a final coat of primer on the body today. I'm not sure how many that is in total, but it's the better part of three large cans, although a lot has been sanded off. I'd say perhaps 7 to 10 coats of primer. Also sprayed three coats of primer onto the headstock only. I masked the sides & back of the neck, as well as the fretboard and nut slot. The headstock got a lot less coats of primer than the body, as it's simply a flat surface. There were no complex curves or points waiting to be sanded through.

I gave it a quick sand with 400 grit, taking care not to spend too much time on the edges. I really just neatened up the finish. The Septone Acrylic Primer spray seems to leave some small amounts of dusting on the surface. They could probably be brushed away by hand but a quick sand is useful.

After sanding I gave it a quick dust down with a brush, and a wipe over with a barely damp cloth. I used a Chux type cloth to wipe excess sanding dust off between all coats of primer. It worked quite well, but just before I shot the colour coat it started to shed. This wasn't a big problem, I just used the dry dustpan type brush to brush any bits off.

I don't have a lot of room, and certainly don't have a lot of equipment to put together a spray booth to do this. I simply rig up a rope in the back yard and hang the items from it. While obviously far from ideal, this has been very successful so far. As far as I can see there is no dust or particles in the finish, although it seems that flies do like the freshly painted surface. Very light coats dry quite quickly, so I think this has a lot to do with it.

Some pictures of the setup attached.

[kt101]

Today I got three colour coats on the body, and two on the headstock. That used up the small can of Monza Red Power Plus from Super Cheap Auto. I've happy with the colour.

I tried to keep the coats very light, and you can see the striping type of pattern that the nozzle of the can leaves. It took me a little while to figure out a comfortable distance to get good coverage but not risk runs. I don't think there are any runs at this point, and it doesn't look like there are any defects I missed. The headstock coverage looks better, as there are no difficult curves to look into. One tip - keep the nozzle fully depressed. It's either off or on, anything in between causes spitting, and I narrowly avoided what could have been big messy drops. Once I got the hang of that it was not too difficult to get some coverage on most areas.

You can see from the pictures how the first coat went on horizontally, and the second vertically. I alternate, as it helps make sure everything gets a pretty even coverage after a few coats. It was getting dark, so I didn't get any pictures of the third coat. Hopeful that I might get a few more coats on tomorrow afternoon.

[stan]

looking very red! Very Devilish.

[kt101]

I finished shooting the colour coats. I didn't quite use all of the large can. You may be able to get by with one large can only to shoot a solid colour body. The first picture is the body with 6 or 7 colour coats. I was worried about bugs, insects, dust etc. in my large painting booth (ie. the backyard), but this wasn't really a problem. Occasionally a spider would build a small web I didn't see before shooting another coat. The solution is easy - light coats, and remove any contamination when dry after each coat.

After shooting the colour coats I noticed a "granule" type contamination on the surface. I thought this may be dust, but it looks like it's actually overspray on the front/rear from painting the sides. I tried overspraying with clear, but it didn't hide the texture. I gave it a very brief once over with 800 grit wet sanding and this cleared it up. Finish the clear coats up later this week.

[57strummers]

Man that is a serious axe....not something I can see our Blues bass player using... I do like it though!!! Looking forward to seeing the end results. I am using Repco All Surface Primer for my undercoat just going to finish drilling the holes and will be ready do go...

[AJ]

Lookin good there,
** always pays to wet sand to get smooth sface before the clear goes on

[Brendan]

Looking good...

[kt101]

The photos again, as the ones above are broken from the move. These are of the rope & fence spray booth.

[kt101]

The progress of spraying

[kt101]

And some of the stippling effect caused by overspray. Fixed with 800 grit wet sand.

Finished the clear coat the other day, and will hopefully start polishing this week. Will submit some photos of that when I get there.