I wonder if it was actually orange peel, or if maybe you had some incompatible finish materials there?

Sometimes if you mix different media, like acrylic, and Nitrocellulose they can react. I have seen where the finish looks curdled, like cottage cheese, and others less drastic where it looked lumpy.

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I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

Ah - I hasten to point out that body on the other thread is by no means my first effort. And I have a good amount of paint related experience in other areas too.

I would most definitely not be sharing my first guitar finishing attempt in public! A festival of woes, that one was...

Also, this morning I have gone back and studied Dan & Don's Guitar Finishing: Step-by-Step volume. I will sheepishly admit that I seem to have only skimmed their chapter on sandpaper previously. Now I come to read it carefully I see they do explain the different systems for grading: smacked hand, Ceri, for not paying enough attention.

However, through the rest of the book they do skip around very freely between American and European grades of paper. You have to pay extremely close attention to be on top of what they are talking about at any particular point.

Still, it seems as far as finishing is concerned I have been using the approved grades all along - much as Twelvebar describes. Where I have been deviating from Don & Dan is on prepping: they recommend CAMI 320 grit for that, whereas I've inadvertently been using P320, which would equate to about CAMI 260, according to their table.

I'm not noticing dire consequences of that - but maybe they'll show themselves in years to come...!

Twelvebar, I'd call myself "moderately experienced" at guitar finishing. But that don't mean I think I know all about it. Gonna have many, many questions for your finishing thread!

Cheers - C

As someone that works at a body/paint shop I can tell you the only thing that touches our paint is P1500 or P2000 followed by 3M Ultrafina 3000.

Hi YZFJOE: tell me, as someone who works with automotive paints all day long, what's your view on mixing acrylic and nitrocellulose in different layers of the job?

I ask because I bought my pale blue nitro lacquer from an automotive supplier. They also sell what they call "clear coat" to go on top, which they describe as being appropriate on top of cellulose, acrylic or any other automotive paint.

I made strenuous enquires as to what type of clear lacquer this was, but after studying data sheets and consulting the maker's website they were none the wiser. All they could say for certain was that their clear coat was isocyanate free...

I don't care to mix different types of material, so I aquired my clear nitrocellulose lacquer elsewhere, to be certain. Be most interested to hear what a professional with these paints feels about it...?

Cheers - C

All of our finish materials are matched and proven to work with whatever basecoat/clearcoat application we happen to be painting. We definetly do not mix or crossover one type to another. While I'm sure some combinations can and have been used the results are not predictable and that is something we cannot afford in a production shop when color match to existing finishes will make or break a job for us. The biggest concern I would have In your situation would be peeling. If the two coatings, base and clear, are not compatible you could end up with blistering and eventually peeling of your finish. Hope this helps.

Ninja-

I hate to say it but a lot of orange peel on nitro strats is the result of improper sanding. Sorry! Nitro is so prone to re-melting that if you do not CONSTANTLY wash your sand paper off you will re-melt the dust and form the little bumps that cause orange peel.

So, try again and wash constantly.

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Custom Shop '59 Strat with John Cruz Master Design Pickups
Vibro King
Fulltone Clyde>Deja-Vibe>TS-808>TS-9>Boss Tuner

The paint is acrylic CW. Im really at the end of my tether now. I re-stripped the body and sealer'd it again last night. Went to the shop this morning and bought some primer made by the same people as the paint, even logo'd the same. Got 2 layers of it on by 4pm. Applied a minimal paint coat at 8:30pm, you can see the primer through it. Its still orange peeling.

Time for the bin.

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No no and no

Oh damn, I'm sorry I thought this was the nitro strat project

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Custom Shop '59 Strat with John Cruz Master Design Pickups
Vibro King
Fulltone Clyde>Deja-Vibe>TS-808>TS-9>Boss Tuner

Niema problemu mate, ive done similar on more than one occasion.

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No no and no

Whoa, don't chuck it (again) yet!

Ninja, I am bemused as to what is going wrong here, but as with most things guitar related there's seldom more than a few possibilities.

One idea: could your problem be temperature related? It has actually been pretty mild for the time of year the last couple of weeks where we are (around 9 C / 48 F, I think), but if you are working at outdoor temperatures maybe that's cool enough to interfere. Does it say anything on the tin about temperature?

Or. I hesitate to ask this because it sounds rude. But could you simply be spraying too thick, or with the aerosol nozzle too close to the surface? Is that paint puddling and then drying lumpy - again, maybe due to cool temperature?

That seems very unlikely: I feel a gentleman such as yourself knows perfectly well how to handle an aerosol. I just mention it so's we can eliminate it from our enquiries.

Next: regardless of the label on the tin, there's possibility of incompatibility with these paints. I just made a surprising discovery on that...

Cheers - C

I haven't slung it out yet. I'm spraying outside with the can warming in a bucket of warm water. Last night i got a partial result by wet sanding the primer to a glass like finish and passing a colour coat over very lightly with the can 2ft away from the body. I just clouded over the primer. Bought the body inside and hung it to dry on my specially patented bit of wire strung across the cupboard under the stairs. I done that 3 times during the course of the night. Looking at it this morning its better but still slightly textured. I'm going to attempt to flatten it a bit tomorrow. However it goes tomorrow night its getting clearcoated. Im getting sick of it.

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No no and no

Sick of it - I know all about that! I carefully didn't show all the tedious little corrections and such I had with the bod on my thread! While people were saying "where's the next pictures?" I was busy struggling with ticklish little hiccups in the process - but you need to keep in mind, it's all fixable.

Don't worry much about that speckly surface to the color layer. Just get enough paint on, so's you can then sand it smooth with, say, P600 or P1000 prior to applying the clear coat. Nay probs...

BTW, I do like your patented drying wire. You may be getting an interested phonecall from Fender about that...

Cheers - C

Oh, another thought. If this is automotive acrylic, do you actually need a clear coat? Can you not just buff up the paint, after a decent drying interval?

Enquire of the writing on the tin, or ask the manufacturer. It would cut down on your misery...

Cheers - C

actually Niki, smoothing the primer properly can eliminate a lot of orange peel problems down the road. as you are using an acrylic, this may be really important. acrylic is so much harder than nitro lacquer so it is harder to knock down. the later layers don't melt,or 'burn in' like nitro.
So with nitro your orange peel will exist only in the topmost layer, but with acrylic if the orange peel starts deep in the finishing process,(primer,) it might be pronounced enough(big enough bumps,) that you could sand down through your clear before eliminating it. i think this might be part of why poly finishes are so thick. if they need smoothing, they might need a really thick layer to survive the sanding/buffing process.(conjecture on my part.)

as an aside, as a brit you guys should have super easy access to some of the best Nitro products for guitar projects:

http://www.behlen.co.uk/

it's their products that i plan to use for most of my upcoming projects, the ibanez being the exception, i need to use an acrylic based product to do the finish i want to try for that, but the following 3(so far hehe,) i plan on using their 'stringed instrument lacquer' and associated products. i will be mixing my own colour tones and tints.

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I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

Indeed - you should see the cupboard full of their products I have!

Strangely, though that company is US based it seems easier and barely any more expensive to buy their products in the UK. I purchase direct from them at their website, which as far as I can see you can't do on the American counterpart:

http://www.hbehlen.com/

Curious.

Cheers - C