Hey guys, I am trying to paint an old strat, I have completly stripped it down. But I need to know what kind of paint to use. Acrylic, or what.

I would go Nitrocellulose to get that vintage look. Nitro also allows the wood to breathe and that will effect your tonality in a positive way.

TJ

Hi Ryan: I've done many different finishes including nitro, waterbased acrylic and urethane. Damned if my ears can hear a difference between them, or even how thickly they're applied, though as a general principle I tend to put them on as thinly as possible. They each have their own characteristics as far as application and wear are concerned.

If you have your own compressor and spray gun then nitro or acrylic are probably the easiest to work with in their distinctly different ways. If you plan to use aerosols then all of those finishes will do fine, though you may have trouble finding traditional guitar colors in urethane.

For nitro in aerosols consider using either Behlen, Stew-Mac or ReRanch products. For acrylic you can just choose from the vast selection of car paint at your local automotive store. And for urethane look out (or Google) for Plasti-Kote products.

Another option that we've recently been discussing a lot on the Forum is a wiped on oil finish. Forum user AndyBigHair is currently running an excellent thread that includes oil finishing at various stages through it's course:

http://www.fender.com/community/forums/ ... highlight=

An epic thread with all kinds of added goodness.

Also, if you really want to get tricksy, check out Forum user Twelvebar's thread on doing a Candy Apple Red finish. Very cool:

http://www.fender.com/community/forums/ ... hp?t=43114

Both of those threads include information than you won't find in any book. If you do want a book two places to look are the chapter on finishing in Dan Erlewine's Guitar Player's Repair Guide, which frankly will get you a long way down the road; and Guitar Finishing Step-by-Step, by Dan Erlewine and Don MacRostie. That latter is the bible on this stuff, though you might find it an information overload if you are new to guitar finishing.

Good luck - C

Well so far, I put 2 thin coats of white as a base and primer, and so far so good. Tomorrow I am going to spray a hunter green on it.

Thanks for your guys help. I will keep you posted.

Just use nitro. Its easiest to spray but the whole letting the guitar breath thing is bs

I'd use plaid paint-looks great! Seriously though,when I refinished my '65 Mustang after the previous owner had stripped and ruined the original paint I used just a simple spray can Candy Apple Blue lacquer and it went on great and still looks good after almost 35 years.First you spray on a primer then a silver-flake base coat then a transparent blue lacquer and finish off with a spray can of clear lacquer.It's a tedious process but the results are really eye catching.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.