Hunter Green Paint
- Thread starter KDC1956
- Start date
Cagey
Mythical Status
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- 24,425
"Paint" is generally an opaque finish created by mixing a pigment to a base. If you want something transparent or translucent, usually you mix a dye into a clear base to create a stain, then clear coat over that.
I'm not certain of this, but pretty confident that "Hunter Green" is an opaque shade with a very specific recipe. If you want something transparent, then you probably wouldn't ask for "Hunter Green". Here again, I could be wrong, but when something has a very specific name like that, it depends on it being a full-cover finish. Anytime you use something transparent or translucent, you allow the underlying color to show through and the blend of that and the finish essentially creates a new color. Tough to name that, since the supplier doesn't know what you're going to put the finish over.
"Hunter Green" (as well as "Cadillac Green" and "British Racing Green") are all very close to each other and look much like the finish on the guitar in my sig below. You'll notice that's not a transparent finish.
If you want to stain something to a particular shade, your best bet is probably to just get some green dye, some some denatured alcohol, and a spread of "coupons" or pieces of the wood you're planning to finish, and do some experimenting. Pay attention to ratios, like 10:1 or 12:1 or whatever as you mix base to dye, and stain some pieces. When you find the shade that works, make up a batch and have fun.
I'm not certain of this, but pretty confident that "Hunter Green" is an opaque shade with a very specific recipe. If you want something transparent, then you probably wouldn't ask for "Hunter Green". Here again, I could be wrong, but when something has a very specific name like that, it depends on it being a full-cover finish. Anytime you use something transparent or translucent, you allow the underlying color to show through and the blend of that and the finish essentially creates a new color. Tough to name that, since the supplier doesn't know what you're going to put the finish over.
"Hunter Green" (as well as "Cadillac Green" and "British Racing Green") are all very close to each other and look much like the finish on the guitar in my sig below. You'll notice that's not a transparent finish.
If you want to stain something to a particular shade, your best bet is probably to just get some green dye, some some denatured alcohol, and a spread of "coupons" or pieces of the wood you're planning to finish, and do some experimenting. Pay attention to ratios, like 10:1 or 12:1 or whatever as you mix base to dye, and stain some pieces. When you find the shade that works, make up a batch and have fun.
anorakDan
Hero Member
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- 709
Cagey's right, a smaller pigment-to-carrier ratio probably won't give you the result you seem to be asking for. But you can try it out for yourself.
Let that paint sit for a couple weeks to allow the pigment to settle out of the clear carrier. Then gently dip a paint stir stick straight down all the way into the settled pigment. Do not stir, just pull up the resulting carrier and pigment that clings to the stick and stir that up in a small container. Brush that on some scrap wood similar to your project and see if it looks like that thinly pigmented paint is what you want. Do not use your project body unless it's a part that will be covered when done.
If you want a translucent green finish, you need a tinted clear. But I'm sure there are others here with more finish expertise.
However you solve this always experiment with a new finish on scrap wood first and not your project body.
Unless you like inventing new cuss words! Good luck and keep us updated on your progress.
Let that paint sit for a couple weeks to allow the pigment to settle out of the clear carrier. Then gently dip a paint stir stick straight down all the way into the settled pigment. Do not stir, just pull up the resulting carrier and pigment that clings to the stick and stir that up in a small container. Brush that on some scrap wood similar to your project and see if it looks like that thinly pigmented paint is what you want. Do not use your project body unless it's a part that will be covered when done.
If you want a translucent green finish, you need a tinted clear. But I'm sure there are others here with more finish expertise.
However you solve this always experiment with a new finish on scrap wood first and not your project body.
Unless you like inventing new cuss words! Good luck and keep us updated on your progress.
bagman67
Epic Member
- Messages
- 9,106
Hey, KDC -
The boys are correct as far as they go. You are probably wasting your time trying to thin paint to your desired transparency. But you can get the job done another way, and that is by adding pigment to clear lacquer (this is Tonar's approach to doing the transparent yellow on his traditional burst Strats) or you can add pigment to a vehicle of lacquer thinner and lacquer reducer mixed 2:1. This was my approach to my green Telecaster using Mixol tint no. 13. (Grass Green). I suspect you will have good luck using the next darker tint, Mixol no. 12 (Fir Green).
My voyage is documented here:
http://unofficialwarmoth.com/index.php?topic=16742.msg246207#msg246207
Mixol tints are available here, as well as many other places online:
http://www.woodcraft.com/Product/832397/Mixol-Tint-Fir-Green-12-20-mL.aspx
The boys are correct as far as they go. You are probably wasting your time trying to thin paint to your desired transparency. But you can get the job done another way, and that is by adding pigment to clear lacquer (this is Tonar's approach to doing the transparent yellow on his traditional burst Strats) or you can add pigment to a vehicle of lacquer thinner and lacquer reducer mixed 2:1. This was my approach to my green Telecaster using Mixol tint no. 13. (Grass Green). I suspect you will have good luck using the next darker tint, Mixol no. 12 (Fir Green).
My voyage is documented here:
http://unofficialwarmoth.com/index.php?topic=16742.msg246207#msg246207
Mixol tints are available here, as well as many other places online:
http://www.woodcraft.com/Product/832397/Mixol-Tint-Fir-Green-12-20-mL.aspx
Looks like I got my self a big can of worms here. Guess I better do a lot more thinking on my Hunter Green Telecaster guitar I wanted.I may pick out some other color.I know I can get a lot of nice looking colors with Minwax but just not sure witch one I would like to have.Hmmmm! Well time to start looking again.Thanks to all that took time to reply.It does help.
bagman67
Epic Member
- Messages
- 9,106
Well, you really opened the can of worms when you decided to finish it yourself. The two approaches I described above are not particularly difficult, but all aspects of finishing demand discipline, attention to detail, and patience. Shortcuts are the realm of the production shop, and are not really shortcuts so much as they are alternative approaches that are highly capital intensive and/or demand experienced technicians to do the work. Duffers like you and me gotta suck it up and take our time.
I have always been good at opening up a can of worms here.Last time I did it too me two years to finish and I work on it 7 days a week but it turn out super and my wife love it too.What was it you ask a 1/4 scale model plane.And the cost not even going to say but it was not cheap at all lol.So I am sure this will take a lot of time as well but I don't think it will cost half as much as my plane did. :hello2:
After doing a lot of searching on this matter I have found something that just might work out for me.It's from Minwax and it is called express color the color I am looking at is Emerald Green very pretty I think.But has anyone use this stuff before?If this does not pan out right guess I'll just go with oil base stain I know it will work but it will not be the color I want on my guitar. :sad1:
bagman67
Epic Member
- Messages
- 9,106
The very first image that came up when I did a google search for "minwax emerald green" was on this page of the TDPRI forums - an excellent resource for everything guitar-related.
http://www.tdpri.com/forum/tele-home-depot/301373-whats-your-workbench-today-39.html
http://www.tdpri.com/forum/tele-home-depot/301373-whats-your-workbench-today-39.html
Wow! That looks so good to me.I had good luck today I got some Hunter green minwax water base stain and all the other stuff I need for doing my Telecaster body.So guess you can say I had a very good day here.It's been hard find this color here where I live at but some how I just got lucky am very happy here too. :hello2:
I think my Telecaster will look pretty good it sure will keep me busy for a while this summer.Thanks to all here that help put a little input to my guitar.I'll post pictures of it as I work on it.But it will be sometime in May before I can start on this.
I think my Telecaster will look pretty good it sure will keep me busy for a while this summer.Thanks to all here that help put a little input to my guitar.I'll post pictures of it as I work on it.But it will be sometime in May before I can start on this.
Well I did a test on some maple I have here and I was not happy at all with the water base stain.So the hunter green is out of the picture for sure.Now I got to find some other color I like.I may try a maple stain oil base this time and see how that will look.I got to get this right or I will have wasted a good guitar.The Telecaster thinline will cost 377.00 so I got to get it right.I don't have money to spend to see it go in the trash can.I do have a few part's on order this is going to be a very long build I can see this now not what I was hopping for either. :sad1:
As a general note of philosophy here - it may or may not be ringing a pertinent bell here - but it's a horrible idea to try to "fix" a dyed batch that you want diluted by adding more, and More, and MORE clear stuff to thin it. Dyes and tints can be remarkably pernicious when you least want it, and if you just keep pouring the diluting clear into something, you can end up with GALLONS of stuff that still ain't right! I got lucky and figured that principal out with (small, cheap) batches of fountain pen ink....
You always want to add the tint to the clear in small amounts, testing as you go, and as (I think?) was mentioned somewhere up above, you can control waste by mixing up tiny amounts in tiny jars. You can count out the parts by eyedropper-fulls and WRITE DOWN what ratios you're getting to, testing as you go. If your friendly neighborhood drug store doesn't think you're a junkie, you can probably get some gradation-marked syringes for measuring too - or get them online. You don't even want the needles, just the measuring syringe. Investing a couple of bucks here is FAR superior to making a barf guitar... Umm, like, that never happened to ME, but a friend of my cousin's girlfriend's old babysitter's neighbor read about it once? Don't throw anything out to begin with, because you may even find that a drastically-strong dyed mix in itself can serve as the, say, one-part-dyed to five-parts-clear medium.
But you are almost inevitably going to end up with at least one batch of disgusting grayish dirt color - it's just the way color-blending works, you can look up "color wheel" and see that there's more ways to make icky color blends than there are to make good color blends. Like, one little drop of red into a green batch = gross mud, and one little drop of green into red ALSO = gross mud! Red+blue = purple, and red+yellow = orange, and yellow+blue = green, but ANY combination of all three=barf guitar. It's SO much nicer to throw out 20cc's of that, than 200 or 300cc's! :toothy11:
Oh yes, add-on P.S. here: if you stick with water base dye, one drastic re-boot can be had with... bleach! It'll blast it back to virgin in no time, with the one caveat that you then have to make SURE you get all the bleach off. ALL of it... like, rinse it off right under the bathtub faucet! And dry it off with somebody else's bath towel, and still let it dry in the sun for a whole day too. And rinse it AGAIN... etc. There are similar Armageddon strategies for oil-base dyes too, but much, much stinkier.
You always want to add the tint to the clear in small amounts, testing as you go, and as (I think?) was mentioned somewhere up above, you can control waste by mixing up tiny amounts in tiny jars. You can count out the parts by eyedropper-fulls and WRITE DOWN what ratios you're getting to, testing as you go. If your friendly neighborhood drug store doesn't think you're a junkie, you can probably get some gradation-marked syringes for measuring too - or get them online. You don't even want the needles, just the measuring syringe. Investing a couple of bucks here is FAR superior to making a barf guitar... Umm, like, that never happened to ME, but a friend of my cousin's girlfriend's old babysitter's neighbor read about it once? Don't throw anything out to begin with, because you may even find that a drastically-strong dyed mix in itself can serve as the, say, one-part-dyed to five-parts-clear medium.
But you are almost inevitably going to end up with at least one batch of disgusting grayish dirt color - it's just the way color-blending works, you can look up "color wheel" and see that there's more ways to make icky color blends than there are to make good color blends. Like, one little drop of red into a green batch = gross mud, and one little drop of green into red ALSO = gross mud! Red+blue = purple, and red+yellow = orange, and yellow+blue = green, but ANY combination of all three=barf guitar. It's SO much nicer to throw out 20cc's of that, than 200 or 300cc's! :toothy11:
Oh yes, add-on P.S. here: if you stick with water base dye, one drastic re-boot can be had with... bleach! It'll blast it back to virgin in no time, with the one caveat that you then have to make SURE you get all the bleach off. ALL of it... like, rinse it off right under the bathtub faucet! And dry it off with somebody else's bath towel, and still let it dry in the sun for a whole day too. And rinse it AGAIN... etc. There are similar Armageddon strategies for oil-base dyes too, but much, much stinkier.
