Spray cans, poplar, help me be as lazy as possible.

[Ace Flibble]

Right, I've had a build in mind for a while now and I'm finally just about getting the funds to do it. Before I pull the trigger on it though, I want to double-check my intentions for the finish.

Being very lazy and also not someone who cares about showing off pretty high-grade grain or whatever, I was thinking a poplar body (solid body Tele) and then using spray cans for well, pretty much everything. I also want to marker pen on a design. A friend of mine works in a Games Workshop and can use his employee discount there to get 400ml cans of white spray paint and satin polyurethane spray cans for me dirt cheap. So I'm thinking fill the grain, spray on a couple of cans of white, scribble on my design, then spray on a few layers of poly and be done.
For what it's worth, this guitar really doesn't need to look top-quality, in fact the more bashed in, rough and scrappy it looks the better, hence why I'm happy to just spray it myself.

The things I'm unsure on are basically how much spray I'll need (especially the poly) or if there's anything particularly disasterious I should be aware of when doing something like this. For example, could one 400ml can of poly cover a body sufficiently or should I be buying hundreds (I want a moderately thick finish on this so it can take a good bashing)? If there really any need to fill the grain of poplar with such a basic finish (and given poplar is apparently quite closed-grained)?
Everything I look up talks about high-quality finishes and sanding back layer after layer of wipe-on poly or nitro and I've yet to find anything explaining a simple finish like this. So yeah, any help is very much appreciated.

 

[Watershed]

One can of color and two cans of clear should be more than enough.
Given your goals, I think your plan is right on.

One can of color, marker it up, one can of clear, call it a day.
You may have some orange peel, is that a problem?

Keep the second just in case, and they are dirt cheap.

James

 

[smavridis]

what gives you orange peel?

 

[Watershed]

A sprayed on finish that isn't sanded back.

 

[smavridis]

so you spray the finish, then wait how long until you sand?

 

[Ace Flibble]

My mate says when he sprays this clear poly on his models, it is touch-dry in about twenty minutes and completely rock solid dry in about an hour. I don't know about other types of clear spray, but I was thinking since this stuff seems pretty quick, I was going to do two or three coats leaving forty minutes or so between each coat, sand it back, do another couple of coats, lightly sand that back for a total of about 5-6 coats + some light sanding just to smooth it off.

Of course it's only now that I'm sitting here typing this that I've realised that by now I could have just gotten a scrap piece of wood and actually tested it already and saved the hassle and risk of guessing it. Gah.

 

[jay4321]

Glad you started this thread. I was just thinking about a Poplar DIY paint project myself. And I'm also a lazy bastard.

 

[Keyser Soze]

Make sure your topcoat wont dissolve your pen work, that would be a disaster.  You might need to lay on a few dust coats of clear to seal off the marker prior to laying down a good film layer.