New body finish

[cobias]

I haven't been on here in a while. I looked for the answer to this question but didn't find what i was looking for. I am going to do a Warmoth custom strat build soon, and i wanted info on finishing.

The body will be alder. I want to put a silver or " blizzard pearl" finish (like the fender finish) on the body. Being that silver paint leaves almost a rough texture to the finish, is there anything different i have to do in the clear coat process ?  Will sanding the silver finish take out any of the sparkle ? Also, i noticed on the fenders "blizzard pearl" finish it looks like it has a satin clear coat to maintain that aluminum look. Is that the case ?

I am building this project for myself but the idea for the guitar is so cool that i want to put it up for sale out of curiosity. So,i want to do this with rattle cans but want the finish to be relatively high quality/durable.

Also, i noticed that some rosewood fretboards come a little light colored. Is there an oil or wax that will darken them up ?

A link to a pertinent discussion or some ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thanx in advance !       

 

[line6man]

Also, i noticed that some rosewood fretboards come a little light colored. Is there an oil or wax that will darken them up ?
   

Rosewood usually gets darker when you oil it, but why not just order a dark Rosewood fretboard? You don't even have to pick a board from the gallery, IIRC, Warmoth offers regular and dark Indian Rosewood standard grade pieces.

 

[anorakDan]

It's never a good idea to directly sand a metallic finish, especially silver. What happens is you dislodged some of the metal shards that make the paint metallic, and scrape them across your painted surface, leaving you with visible scratches, and a room full of cuss words.

You really need to sand and polish your clear coats. Give your project it's color coats. Let them outgas fully, then lay on the clear. Clear the living daylights out of the project. When you think you've layered on enough clear. Let it dry and give it the same number of coats again. You want a pretty impressive depth of clear so you can level the surface without touching your color coats.

That's of course, presuming you want a great. professional looking finish.

I'm sure there are others here that have a greater depth of knowledge on this topic than I. I know paint on model cars. Haven't tried a guitar yet. Be sure to show us in-progress pictures. We love pictures here!

 

[scartozi]

Fretboard.....do you want it to retain the look of rosewood only darker? If you want an ebony look use Fiebing’s black dye, you can get it at Stewart McDonald and works excellent, I've used it on a couple rosewood fretboards to give them an ebony look.

 

[QehQeh]

It's never a good idea to directly sand a metallic finish...
You really need to sand and polish your clear coats. Give your project it's color coats. Let them outgas fully, then lay on the clear. Clear the living daylights out of the project.

Good advice. You NEVER sand any metalic or pearl.
I haven't seen the blizzard pearl in person, but it looks like it's a silver metalic base with a white pearl over that. And it's not satin. I think maybe the pearl makes it look like satin in photos but there's a guy on youtube showing off his new guitar and it's gloss.