Metal Flake Tele project SPARKLE! SPARKLE!

[leftyjay]

i've been on a metal flake kick for about 2 years. i originally asked Fender what they would charge me for a custom shop lefty tele in the metal flake of my choice. they estimated between $2200-2600 and an 8-10 month wait.

forget that.

i decided to get into painting my own guitars. started with lacquer and moved up to a spray rig out in my shed. read just about everything i could online. the motorcycle painting forums were a big help. now i use automotive urethane paint when i flake. i have a paint supplier down the road that supplies for most of the autobody shops around here.

anyway, i've painted 10 metal flake guitars over the past year. this is my brothers boys guitar. it was his first electric guitar he every had. its nothing special. we replaced the pickups and wiring years ago. we then replaced the cheap tuners and nut. filed the frets, and it doesnt sound or play that bad. but it was well beyond banged and dented up. i told him if he ever wanted me to refinish it, i'd be glad to. he wanting something that will stand out from the rest. i sent him to big daddy roth flakes website and let him pick his color of flake.

needless to say, he went with finkster green, which is a very halagraphic green flake that looks closer to a neon/lime. definately will stand out on stage under the lights.

i went with mazda spirited green metallic base to go with the flake


he sent me his guitar and i started stripping the finish off. heat gun and putty knife did the trick. 30 minutes later, i was sanding smooth.



sealed the body and primed it yesterday morning



base coated later in the afternoon. yeah, this is definately neon green.


now i have to decide if i want to flake today or wait till tomorrow. problem with florida is, you never know what the next day will be like in the weather. i checked with the local weather. humidity is holding at 55%, so i decided to flake.

i use house of kolor intercoat to mix the flake in. its like a clear base coat that locks the flake down.
this is probably the step i enjoy the most. this is when you get to see if the flake will pop or not.
needless to say, it popped!!!



only thing is, once you flake, you only have a few hours to clearcoat it or you'll have to sand it to adhere the next coat. you dont want to sand metalflake. so you spray 3-4 coats of clear so you'll have a barrier to protect from messing up the flake.

so, i started at 9am. and i finished the last coat of clear at 9pm. what a long hot day, but it came out pretty good. i'm sure he'll be happy when he gets it back.

heres a quick video of the guitar body out in the sun. you can see how halagraphic this flake is.



i'll let it set till the weekend, then i'll flat sand the front and back to smooth out the finish. then i'll spray another 4-5 coats of clear. it'll look like glass by that time. buff it and polish it. put it back together.

[leftyjay]

figured i would post my sparkle tele family. i do have a red sparkle strat also.



Left to Right...rothragious red...twisted purple...kamen blue...agent orange...bong water green...rich gold

i also have videos of each of these guitars after they were finished.

[MWaldorf]

wow!

[GattonFan]

+100 on Mel's remark ....
Dennis

[oipunkguy]

beautiful work jay! that green reminds me of a color gibson has done on some custom guitars called iguana burst, but on that color it darken up along the edge. personally I'm not into the sparkle thing too much, but actually spraying the finish is probably my favorite because it's so fun.

question for ya, I remember reading that you need to use a different spray nozzle that's wider to get the sparkle to go throught the gun, is that true? and if so where do I find them?

when I did a pink sparkle finish for my brother's strat copy, I didn't have a spray system yet, so I used rattle cans and poured the sparkle onto the guitar using a salt shaker! I used fender's burgundy mist mettalic as a base coat, then I sprayed the guitar with a ton of clear to have something for the sparkle to attach to (i did his in nitro) and then poured the flake on the guitar. It felt like I was back in kindergarden, pouring glittler on elmer's glue lol. After I did 4 "coats" of sparkle pouring onto each section of the guitar, I began to clear coat it. It took a ton of lacquer to clear coat the guitar to get the finish thick enough to be able to level it out by sanding, and then buff it out to a shine. a lot of work, but I was really happy with the results.

I hope I didn't highjacked your thread too much. thank you for sharing your pics.

[olrocknroller]

Takes me back to my latter hot-rod days...or was that daze? Don't matter; those tele's look awesome!

[leftyjay]

oipunkguy, i bought all my guns cheap at harbor freight. they are so inexpensive, that i bought a gun for each color to eliminate contamination of the other flakes that you cant get out of the gun.

i use the $24 siphon gun. its got a 1.8 nozzle. the standard size flakes are 1.5, so i have no problem spraying them. i throw some hex nuts in the cup so i can keep it mixed as i go.

i have a 2.0 nozzle gun that i use for priming. and a couple guns that have a 1.4 nozzle for base coat and clear coat. none of these gun are expensive. i think the most i ever paid for a gun was $30.

i tried the detail guns, but they are basicly desposables. use 1 or 2 times and throw them away. they run about $10 at HF.

[leftyjay]

OK, here are a few of my favorite sparkle guitars i painted.

[leftyjay]

no need to post them all as embedded videos since they take so much room.

also, these guitars were taken with just the lights of the ceiling fan (3 x 40 watts bulbs). on stage with regular stage lights, they look 300% sparklier (if thats a word)

heres the orange sparkle guitar link...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx3WpB-L5ug

the rich gold sparkle link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Bcni0LFVSI

the dark green sparkle link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fw_tsWHH3Uw

[leftyjay]

as far as how long it takes for me to flake a guitar....

i can strip and prep the body in one day.
next day i can prime, base coat, flake, and do the initial 3-4 clear coats.
let it set 24-48 hours
flat sand the clear and lay 4-5 more semi-heavy clear coats.
let it set another 24-48 hours
then wet sand and polish and put it back together
you can play it as soon as i essemble the guitar.

usually completed in 8-10 days

i've found that if i rush the project any faster, i'll get a little orange peeling after about a month. not a big deal if i do. just take the guitar apart and wet sand with 1000-1500-2000 and repolish. that takes about 1-2 hours.

the last 3 i've done still look like glass after 6-8 months. the others i've re-sanded and polished. i have no doubt they'll stay shiney for their lifetime.

it takes warmoth 6-8 weeks to paint a solid color and they use urethane as well. then they tell you that the paint is soft, so be very carefull for the next couple months. the paint still sank into the wood because they didnt prep the wood correctly. the purple sparklecaster use to be a olympic white tele that warmoth sprayed for me.