Nearest car aerosol colours to Fender sonic blue and surf green?

[Guitarmonkey]

Did you speak to him about it?

And how do you know what finish he used? A pro like Mike Lennon will likely have his own supplier of lacquer.

[DiscoStu]

Did you speak to him about it? I have had a couple of issues (over a large number of guitars where most have been above average) and **** has always gone the extra mile to put it right when the first go hasn't quite been to a standard I was happy with.

And how do you know what finish he used? A pro like **** **** will likely have his own supplier of lacquer.

First off - I didn't name any names and am not posting to bad mouth anyone, so can I suggest you edit your posts?

Guitarmonkey - I personally gave the guy the guitar body AND the Manchester Guitar Tech cans. I drove a long way to do so! He may have mixed more of his own, I just don't know. If memory serves correctly, he ordered more from MGT.

WezV - yes, of course I told him. I was straight on the phone when it arrived! He'd had it for several weeks so I was expecting a perfect job. He said it can't have cured properly but a wet sand / T-Cut should restore it. I did this and it worked, but it just shows that any paint can have problems if not applied/cured properly. I hope this was a one-off problem for the sprayer involved, but the reason I went to great length and expense to get him to do the job for me was to AVOID problems as he is a professional sprayer.

So back to my point about the Halfords type paints - if applied correctly and cured properly they are absolutely fine. Time and control is involved, but for those of us without spray equipment or available resources they can be brilliant.
As for the Sonic Blue, the MGT nitro is undoubtably the most accurate colour. But being nitro doesn't guarantee a 'safe' finish. And those cans of his don't go far! He recommended 2 cans but I'd say 3 minimum.

In the end though, it turned out pretty damn cool:



One final thing- this wasn't a dig at you, Wez. I've been an huge admirer of your work from the start and it was seeing what you'd had done that made me go with the same sprayer. I just got unlucky.

[Ageinggroover]

All this talk about nitro - it's just old fashioned cellulose car paint, there ain't nothing special about any of it. You can buy cellulose in any colour (have to know what it is of course) and spray it yourself. You don't need a pro-gun and compressor, if you've got a car spare wheel and a foot-pump you can buy a Badger air-brush and spray quite happily.

I've been spraying this stuff on motorcycles for years and all sorts of stuff can effect the cure and the finish. With cars and bikes you can pre-heat the job with a heat-gun and then apply the paint to the warmed surface which will flash off the solvent very quickly - not sure how you'd do this with wood.

If you're using a gun then use the air to dry the paint in between light coats. If you're using aerosols then, as has already been said, light coats are the key. Orangepeel can be flattened back with wet and dry when the paint's fully cured and a bit of T-Cut will produce a lovely hard shine.

Incidentally, weather conditions are important. A day like today (wet and cold) will be a poor time to spray in an unheated garage - bloom will likely result, but you can still cut it out

Personally, I don't fret about finish too much - it's going to get dinged anyway, so to some extent you're creating a hostage to fortune

[WezV]

One final thing- this wasn't a dig at you, Wez. I've been an huge admirer of your work from the start and it was seeing what you'd had done that made me go with the same sprayer. I just got unlucky.

I was not taking it as a dig, but obviously i feel somewhat responsible if a recommendation of mine doesn't quite work out.

[Guitarmonkey]

I personally gave the guy the guitar body AND the Manchester Guitar Tech cans. I drove a long way to do so! He may have mixed more of his own, I just don't know. If memory serves correctly, he ordered more from MGT.

The soft lacquer was the clear coat, yes? I doubt any professional sprayer would have applied that from an aerosol can.

[WezV]

The soft lacquer was the clear coat, yes? I doubt any professional sprayer would have applied that from an aerosol can.

he might if he was asked to and wanted to ensure compatibility - because not all nitro is created equal. or it could be any number of factors that led to it staying soft. sometimes hard to get the balance right when doing resprays without insisting everything has a 6 month hang time

Spraying thin coats only gets you so far when every coat you add can remelt the ones underneath

[Ageinggroover]

Spraying thin coats only gets you so far when every coat you add can remelt the ones underneath

Actually, that's not right - the next coat will soften the surface and bond with the one below, but the important thing is that the solvent has (mostly) evaporated from the previous coat - it's all about removing the solvent and leaving the solids behind. What you're doing by applying thin coats is increasing the surface area to volume ratio of the coat and hence allowing the solvent to evolve.

I have had the experience of a fuel tank that was finished with base coat that hadn't fully hardened then having a 2K lacquer (chemical cure rather than evaporative) applied over the top which left the paint permanently soft due to the solvent being "locked in" by the 2K top coat.

[probot]

I've had aersols filled with Polyurethene and sprayed a few bodies with no problems at all.Poly seems to go rock hard really quickly and with some time and elbow grease comes up to a lovely shine (finish polished using 1500 grit and white spirit). I used ISF paints before but recently for work i've switched to using Cromadex (i've not used tried their Polyurethene yet but I prefer their enamels for machine painting)

[WezV]

Actually, that's not right - the next coat will soften the surface and bond with the one below, but the important thing is that the solvent has (mostly) evaporated from the previous coat - it's all about removing the solvent and leaving the solids behind. What you're doing by applying thin coats is increasing the surface area to volume ratio of the coat and hence allowing the solvent to evolve.

I will stand by my comment - If you spray another coat you can usualy wipe right back to wood from the amount of solvent in that new coat. I know that from the times i have tried to remove a bit of dust that has landed duing spraying

[Ageinggroover]

I will stand by my comment - If you spray another coat you can usualy wipe right back to wood from the amount of solvent in that new coat. I know that from the times i have tried to remove a bit of dust that has landed duing spraying

Well, of course the solvent content of the new coat is high so it will dissolve into the coat below, but a basic grasp of mathematics will tell you that the solvent content of the two coats (one dry, one wet) must be lower than that of one coat. Adding more coats to cured paint won't make the finish soft.