Hanging guitar body for spray finishing?

[Zaman]

I hope this is the right section of the forum for this question, and it may seem so rudimentary, but, seriously, how do you suspend a guitar body for evenly spraying on a finish?

I tried a coat hanger through jack hole, but that still gets in the way. Do you just cut a board the width of a guitar neck and screw it on there and then hang the board? How, then, do you have the board and on what?  :icon_scratch:

Any and all help and tips are welcome. Thanks.

 

[jlegnor]

I use a piece of 1x2 attached to the body with #12 x 1-1/2 screws from Home Depot using 2 of the neck screw holes.  They just barely bite into the holes, so it's not widening them any.  At the other end of the 1x2, I drilled a hole, used a thick plastic zip wire tie and made a loop.  Hand that with a "S" loop brackit thingy onto whatever you can use.  Wife has a shepards hook in the yard I can use. 

Let's see if pics will work.

 

[MUYFUE]

dude, that's almost EXACTLY how i did mine.

 

[jlegnor]

Forgot to add, but you can tell by the pics, I screwed a 2nd 1x2 to the first one for strength. 

And if you go this route, DO NOT OVER TIGHTEN the screws going into the body screw holes.  If you strip those out, the holes will be enlarged.  And you don't want that. 

"dude, that's almost EXACTLY how i did mine." 

I had 2 sizes of screws at the house, 1 too big, 1 too small.  Just carried them to home depot and found one in the middle.  I admit, it was scary picking the body up for the first time.  Held my other hand under it for a while until I was comfortable that it wasn't gonna give way.

 

[jackthehack]

Coat hanger, different hole...

 

[Zaman]

Coat hanger, different hole...

What do you suspend it from?

 

[Zaman]

I use a piece of 1x2 attached to the body with #12 x 1-1/2 screws from Home Depot using 2 of the neck screw holes.  They just barely bite into the holes, so it's not widening them any.  At the other end of the 1x2, I drilled a hole, used a thick plastic zip wire tie and made a loop.  Hand that with a "S" loop brackit thingy onto whatever you can use.  Wife has a shepards hook in the yard I can use. 

Let's see if pics will work.

This was the route I was thinking of taking. The tricky part is what to suspend it from?

 

[jlegnor]

A shepards hooks works great as long as it isn't too windy for spraying outdoors.  Depending on where you live, you can find them at Wal-mart, Big Lots, Home Depot, Lowes.  Tree limbs.  Hard for us to say what to hang it from.  Just someplace where you won't get paint all over things. 

Some just hold the wood stick with one hang and paint with the other.  Did that for my first coat of sanding sealer and after the use of my arm came back to me, I decided to hang it from the shepards hook.  It got real heavy after a few minutes.

 

[jackthehack]

Coat hanger, different hole...

What do you suspend it from?

I made a sun shade over the deck in back of the house by running a 1/4" cable from the corner of the house to a tree and have a 31 foot #2 jib sail rigged up on that; I just hang the bodies from that cabling

 

[MUYFUE]

When I use the "holdin' stick" method, I clamp it to my table so it's stickig up from my table...upright and upside down.

I have used the hangar and wire method...I hung it from my garage door support beams on the ceiling. That gave more room.

 

[Keyser Soze]

I use a piece of 1x2 attached to the body with #12 x 1-1/2 screws from Home Depot using 2 of the neck screw holes.  They just barely bite into the holes, so it's not widening them any.  At the other end of the 1x2, I drilled a hole, used a thick plastic zip wire tie and made a loop.  Hand that with a "S" loop brackit thingy onto whatever you can use.  Wife has a shepards hook in the yard I can use. 

Let's see if pics will work.

I use the same type of setup, but upside down.  

Tape off the neck pocket then attach a 2' piece of broom handle with a couple wood screws.

Put a long shaft eye bolt in the body where the rear strap button goes (leave a goodly amount of the shaft exposed), then hang the body by attaching this to a piece of suspended wire.

The broom handle hanging down allows me to manipulate the body while spraying - mainly so that I can control the lighting (maintaining oblique lighting)  and get the best look at the film surface as it is being layed down.   In the event I see a sag developing I can also tilt the body to prevent it from becoming a run - hold it in place for about 20-30 seconds and usually it has degassed enough to become immobile, after that the drying process will pull it tight to the point you'd never know it was there.  

Once the body has cured you unscrew they eye bolt.  There may be a pimple of finish built up around the hole, if it is minor I deal with it as part of the sanding process, if its ungainly I'll shave it off with a wood chisel prior to sanding.  But it's not a major concern anyway as the strap button will cover it anyway.

 

[jlegnor]

I like Keyser's method.  Same as the stick, but you don't have the hassle of making the stick.  :icon_thumright:

 

[TomK]

I hung a strat for finishing as follows.  Locate and drill the strap button holes but undersized.  Screw in 2 eye hooks (closed loop with wood screw theading).  Attach string to the loops in the body and suspend from hooks in your ceiling.  This has some advantages.  There's nothing in the way and you can tilt the body toward you to shoot the sides.  Once its dry to the touch you can lift the string carefully off the ceiling hooks and rotate the body to do the other side if you can't go ahead and walk around it.  I suspended the strat in front of my exhaust fan from the ceiling and sprayed nitro this way.  If your really careful you can turn the body around while its still wet.  IMHO it works great but to each their own I suppose.  Once your done you can usually just screw in the strap buttons without enlarging the holes.