Hazy Paint - corrected!

[fdesalvo]

Edit: Before and After photos of a paint correction on my 1993 Ibanez S540LTD and purple Warmoth Tele.  SO fun and kudos to W for the diamond-hard clear coat. 

Before - note hazy reflections of light sources

Wet sanding to level scratches...

Voila..

Tele:

 

[Great Ape]

Looks kinda like some kind of interaction of the finish and body heat or weird sweat or a clearcoat failure that allowed or caused a skin/finish reaction...that's a dilemma--wish I could help you...but I can't. :icon_scratch:

 

[fdesalvo]

Ah lookatcha with the industry verbiage - clearcoat failure.  It truly does look that way.  Congrats on the win!  Well deserved, buy the way.

 

[fdesalvo]

Wool pad + Ultimate Compound > Softer Wool pad + Ultimate compound > Orange pad + Ultimate Polish > White pad + Wolfgang TSR > Black pad + Wolfgang Finishing Glaze > Ultimate wax = not perfect, but....

 

[Cagey]

It's tough to tell by the pictures, but that may be "blush". Do you know if the finish was applied by a user rather than the factory? Manufacturers usually have climate-controlled paint areas, while individuals usually don't.

"Blush" is an effect that occurs when the humidity is too high when the finish is sprayed. The rapid drop in air pressure when the material leaves the spray gun cause the moisture in the air to condense in the spray stream and it gets caught in the finish, giving it slightly milky appearance.

If it's noticed in time, there are ways to correct for and prevent it, but once the finish is cured, so is the blush.

It does look like it could have been finish-sanded out a bit finer - I seem to see some orange-peel. But, again, it would be easier to tell in real life.

 

[fdesalvo]

I think it was just a mix of age and environmental damage over the years.  She came out nice!  Not perfect by any stretch, but considering the unknown thickness of the clear I was working with, I found a good place to stop and leave well enough alone. 

Cheers, man.

 

[stratamania]

I'm not seeing any of the photos showing up in the thread ?

 

[AutoBat]

Dropbox doesn't usually work well for image hosting. It's great for many other things though.

 

[fdesalvo]

Maybe the folder is private - I see them here.  Photobucket has been erroring out on mobile and desktop uploads all day.

 

[swarfrat]

Not sure about the paint, but what causes kittens is un-neutered cats.

 

[Verne Bunsen]

Dropbox doesn't usually work well for image hosting. It's great for many other things though.

I've had good luck with pic hosting on Dropbox, but it takes some manual intervention. My Dropbox image links end in "dl=0", which doesn't work. You get:

However changing "dl=0" to "raw=1" makes it work. Why? I dunno. But it does.

I see there's some extra code in Mr. Desalvos's links for resizing, not sure if that might effect it. I typically re-size the image, then upload to Dropbox, Then generate the link, THEN make the modification. Works for me and really isn't quite as laborious as it sounds...

 

[fdesalvo]

Photobucket is killin me

 

[Cagey]

All the various "free" image hosting sites have drawbacks unless you start throwing money at them. Things get easier then. But, it's actually easier/cheaper to just lease some commercial server space. You can do a lot more, you get a lot more space, it's under your control/ruleset, on and on. Surprisingly inexpensive, too. I use 1&1, but there are many, many others that provide the same sort of services.

 

[Logrinn]

What Cagey said.

I remember when I first came here to this forum. I had a look around in the many threads and many, many were of the kind were someone had posted pictures of their finished guitar. All the comments were ecstatic and raving, but all I could see were kittens or some sign saying the images couldn't be found/displayed. Very frustrating to say the least.

So I realized I might upload pictures when my guitar were finished that would end up the same way, which I wouldn't like. So I used some server space I got, for uploading images dedicated to guitars and music and hopefully people will see the images even after a year or five or so.

 

[GOM]

We switched the GOTM picture hosting to imgur a couple of years ago as photobucket was maxing out every month. No problems since then AFAIK.

 

[fdesalvo]

THANKS!  Registered with Imgur - uploaded immediately.

 

[fdesalvo]

Updated first post!  Included my W Tele.

 

[Verne Bunsen]

I know it's not the focus of this thread, but damn that's a pretty Tele!

 

[fdesalvo]

Thank you!  No filter used!  Just straight up!

 

[swarfrat]

Light switch plate screws are 6-32 - you can find black, brass stainless, but I had to special order gold from  a guitar parts store some place (forgotten)