swirling | Forums

[toiviservo]

I've almost finished my first water marbling of a guitar. I just need to wait a few more days for the paint to fully cure so I can clear the hell out of it and wetsand for a final clear. Been a bit of a learning process. For those that are interested I don't recommend using metallics (if you really want flake in there make it your basecoat) even though they appeared to float it seemed to let a slight bit of water be on the surface, just enough to give me some bubbles full of water that if i had avoided I could probably clear it sooner and not be stuck with what will probably be a pain to smooth out just right. This one is a mini guitar as I tested this and a keyboard to make sure I get it right before I move on to my real axes

[majorerickson]

Very Cool! Thanks for sharing the pics and the advice.

[crispyfunk]

right on that looks cool , please be sure to show us the other guitar when you get it done too thats cool looking

[Pancho X1]

Did you strip it down before repainting it? I have an old Ibanez that I want to refinish but am a little gunshy to start ripping into it. any advice would be appreciated.

[Funk-n-Stein]

Got any better pictures? I'm interested in what you mean by water marbling, but it's really hard to tell from that picture. Looks pretty cool from what I could tell although personally would have liked just the black and white without the red and blue. I'm impressed by anyone that refinishes their own guitar though - I'd be too scared to screw something up.

[toiviservo]

Originally there was a friend of mine that was dying to paint his so I told him I'd help him figure it out instead of just taking a stab at it with his, hopefully he gets his paint colors and i can try on another one this weekend for more pics and trials.
Yeah I had to take it all the way apart, I would have done that regardless but for the painting method I was going to need to submerge the entire body under water. So after completely disassembling it I then had to sand everything down and primer and seal it. In this case the white was the basecoat. And the black, red, and metallic blue were floated on top of a mixture of borax and water in a 39 gallon trash can at ~80°. If you enjoyed doing chemistry labs and crap in high school you'd probably appreciate the organic effect of the finish enough to be worthwhile but otherwise for refinishing a guitar simple spray paints and frog tape is efficient, that was all I did on the head stock, I ain't going to lie this took patience as I had to dip the body twice and wasted a fair amount of time and money because the first attempt the paint wasn't tacky enough when i tried to push through it and i got a runny brown mess :/

[toiviservo]

I ordered a couple tools from stew Mac before I ever took apart any of my guitars further than removing the neck and pickups and such because I didn't want to cause problems I couldn't address myself, a string radius gauge for getting everything the optimal height for a new neck I installed on one( probably unnecessary but I'm slightly paranoid) and this awesome little string action gauge (its a metal credit card sized thing with all the markings on it for getting the neck relief, pickup heights and basically anything set by micro measurements).

[toiviservo]

This is the only other pic I have currently of that body's painting process

[toiviservo]

But water marbling and swirling and some other word that starts with an e that i forget are all really just the same thing you have a vat of water solution that you can float the paint on top of and cause swirled or marblish designs to push the body through so it adheres and stretches as the body pushes through.

[Funk-n-Stein]

Ah - cool, that second pic gives a better idea of how it looks. Thanks!