Custom Paint Your Guitar!

Are you happy with the color of your electric guitar? If you’re not have you ever thought to custom paint it?
It took a lot of consideration for some people to strip down their guitar and I don’t recommend it if you’re not comfortable with the idea, however if you have an old electric guitar to experiment with and you can take the risk of damaging it then you can try this idea.

Custom paint jobs are expensive. A good guitar custom paint shop can charge you easily $200 for a simple coating work, and the more complicated the custom design the more expensive the cost will be. I find it ridiculous to send a cheap guitar to this shop because the paint job price is more expensive than the guitar price itself. If you don’t know how to custom paint your guitar there is a good tutorial you can buy, and when you master the work there is always a possibility to make this custom paint guitar as your side job. A good guitar painting tutorial will cover everything needed to paint your guitar including how to select a good combination of paint colors and how to do airbrush custom paint as well. Many guitarists are inspired by custom motorcycle paint jobs so they want to see some airbrush custom paint works done on their axes too.

The first thing you have to deal with is removing the existing finish on the guitar. You can do this with the help of a heat gun and a metal putty scraper. Other tools such as belt sander and or oscillating sander can be used to remove the old painting. Be careful with the belt sander, if you you accidentally make the surface of the wood slightly uneven,don’t attempt to even them out with the belt or oscillating sander, this will be better done by hand later. In my opinion using the heat gun and scrape is safer for your guitar because they don’t change or damage the guitar body.

Be very careful with your guitar pickups. They have to be removed and depending on the guitar design this job can be tricky. You may need screwdriver set and soldering iron to remove them and sticky labels to label the wiring.

Once the old paint is gone you will need to some sandpaper works on the guitar body. Use the coarse grained paper to even out any steps or imperfections and also to remove the old paint that may remain in curvy places such as the cutaways. Once you finish with the coarse grained paper use the medium grained sandpaper followed by the fine grained paper. Sand the guitar body with the fine grained paper until your fingers can’t feel the bumps or even the wood’s grain anymore. Wipe off the dust with a dry cloth and wet sand the wood with a high grit sandpaper to provide a better surface to paint. Let it dry before you proceed with painting the guitar.

You will need to buy primer (normally acrylic lacquer), base (color coat) and also clear to paint your guitar. The whole guitar painting process is not difficult provided you follow the guitar painting instruction. If you want to know the work details please click here to continue.

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