Spraying a guitar ?

baldy

I want to re-fin an old Yamaha RGX I have.
Could I use car aerosol paint & then finish with clear lacquer & do I need to completely strip off the old poly finish ?

GoldenEraGuitars

For best results, strip the old finish and level the surface/repair any dings. You can then seal, prime and paint your body before moving on to the clear coat.

Emp_Fab

Just out of curiosity....  would you then flatten the clear coat and then buff it up with rubbing compound to get the best finish ?

baldy

Fortunately there are no dings just some light scratches & a couple of chips on the head stock which are not into the wood just the poly.
The guitar is presently black. I was hoping to get away with keying the surface, priming then colour then lacquer.
Obviously if it does have to be completely stripped back I will. 
This is it as of now 

GoldenEraGuitars

Emp_Fab said:

Just out of curiosity....  would you then flatten the clear coat and then buff it up with rubbing compound to get the best finish ?

Well, there’s more to it than that but yes essentially it’s getting your clear coat built up, wetsanding and buffing

GoldenEraGuitars

baldy said:

Fortunately there are no dings just some light scratches & a couple of chips on the head stock which are not into the wood just the poly.
The guitar is presently black. I was hoping to get away with keying the surface, priming then colour then lacquer.
Obviously if it does have to be completely stripped back I will. 
This is it as of now 

You can do it that way too. I’m a professional painter and guitar builder so my way is to get the body back to the wood and proceed from there. 

baldy

This is only a cheap guitar & all I am hoping for is a colour change & "reasonable" finish.
I am filling the single coil routing & trem cavity with timber & altering it to an H/H configuration & swapping the trem for a string thru body & fixed bridge.
Just deliberating on the guitar colour now & depending on that the hardware colour.
Pups are likely to be an Irongear Hot Slag & Rolling Mills set in black or zebra.
Might do the guitar in a garish neon colour as Mrs baldy won"t let me hang another guitar in the living room so it will be living in my back bedroom when not being played.
Any idea where I can get the larger Yamaha head stock decal than it has now ?
This one 

Corvus

You can sand and go straight to colour, then clear. One thing with overspraying is any dinks & scratches show the old colour through loud & clear.

1k rattle-can primer has no magic properties and it's redundant if yr putting colour over an existing paint base. Though one use is in a strong colour change, say going from black to yellow. A white primer saves needing tons of yellow to get colour.
This paint isn't designed for building up, it cracks & crazes if you lay too many coats so don't go too mad with the clear.

The decal, if you're OK with an image editor there's prob something that can be re-made from a web image. Re-tracing or altering. Like I made a Gretsch logo based on an image but altered it, Gretsch kept changing it over time. Then do the decal paper thing (laser's better than inkjet if you can get to one).