Firey Red Finish

[Hobastard]

Hi Guys, I've decided that my first Kit will be a Strat. And since I'm a Bass Player and not a Guitarist I don't have the Benefit of Speed, so I will be building a Guitar that I will probably look at a lot more than play, Therefore I need a Guiitar that looks Fast, ie. a Red One.

I want to build something that is as close to Ferrari / Ducati Red as possible while still showing some nice grain to keep true to the roots of the Instrument.

I also want a High Gloss Finish.

Should I start with as white a body as possible??? I considered Bleaching then Filling, or should I Fill then bleach.
So many random ideas going around in my head at the moment that I need a bit of guidance to help me get focussed.
The build won't start for a couple of months yet but I want to get my strategy in place before I go much further.

I have a clear picture in my head of what I want, (it looks pretty good from here) now I have to work out how to get it, and I need you blokes to help me work that out.

[Andy40]

Hows this

[Andy40]

Thats a candy pearl colour. I would recommend, hitting the old Supercheap auto. There are an amazing amount of reds in sprays that look great.

Phrozin has done a great tute on one of his build diaries about spray painting with rattle cans. Have a look at how he does it. I just level, grain fill with timbermate, use the undercoat, colour and gloss coats from Superrcheap. peasy as mate.

[Simon Barden]

You're going to need a coloured lacquer rather than a paint if you want to see some of the grain through the finish. This may limit you to using nitro lacquers, I simply don't know if clear acrylic or poly lacquers are available.

Fender did used to bleach their guitars before spraying at one time, but then stopped doing that. Butterscotch, one of the classic old Fender Tele finishes, used an ash body which then has a translucent white finish sprayed over it, which was then clear coated using a very slight yellow tinted lacquer (the original clear lacquers yellowed with age so now look a lot darker). You could do something similar, using an ash bodied kit (for the stronger grain patterns), but as the ash is normally a bit darker overall than basswood, the white lacquer will obviously lighten that whilst letting the grain show through. Then some coats of clear red before straight clear coats. Ash will need to be grain-filled before painting.

Phrozin does very nice solid colours, but you'll need to use a different technique for translucent finishes.

[Hobastard]

I was thinking more along the lines of an ink and clear coat. Is that possible???

[Simon Barden]

A stain of some sort, yes. It's just harder to get a really vibrant red when staining wood as the stain always darkens a bit. You can but get some wood scraps and try.

You'll also find that the different bits of wood will take the stain differently, so it will be less coherent than a painted finish. All depends on what you're seeing in your head. Any builds on here or on the web you can point to as along your lines?

[Hobastard]

Sadly, I can't find any pics of what I want, maybe that's because it can't be done, all the close ones are a bit too dark. Maybe I'm being too demanding for a first timer.....

[wazkelly]

I was thinking more along the lines of an ink and clear coat. Is that possible???

Something like this perhaps???

[Simon Barden]

That's a good example Waz (I had yours in mind), though it does also show how the (darkened) ash grain brings the overall brightness of the finish down. Bits of that are very close to a fiery red (in the right light) and others almost a brown.

But would something like that be acceptable, Hobastard, or would you generally like it more vibrant? Not dark staining the Timbermate would help a bit, but some of the grain on ash is very dark anyway. It's lighter on basswood, but that often has very little grain to it, though some pieces do seem to have lots - but probably best to assume not much unless you can pick the exact body you want.

[wazkelly]

Hi Simon, used ebony timbermate as I was wanting to accent the grain in a dark contrasting way. I reckon if stained without TM that the stain would have come out a few shades darker in those grain patterns but not as dark as the ebony filler. Maybe this could be an alternative approach worth considering?