Fabric Stencil Guitar

I patched up the neck and body that were mangled in my last project, (The Skateboard Guitar) and experimented with spray paint and the idea of using fabric as a stencil.

I used Dupli-Color Truck/Van/SUV paint, which I believe is a lacquer. I'm not sure if the chrome is a lacquer, but it seemed to be compatible with the black and clear on a test piece of wood.

Using this type of paint is good because it dries quickly, so you can add new coats within a half hour or so, but it takes months to really cure and harden, which means after doing the clear coats, it has to hang somewhere for a month or two before you can wet sand it to a shiny mirror like finish.

I'm at the waiting stage right now, I will let you know how it turns out.

The chrome isn't supposed to be clear coated, so it turned out kinda gray. I almost wish I had used red or purple or something, but that will have to wait for the next project.

Here is the body from the skateboard guitar. I have filled in the big hole in the front of the body with 2 blocks of wood and wood putty. The wood putty didn't work out so well, and I ended up using Bondo auto body filler to get it right.

At this stage I wasn't sure what this was going to turn into, but I went ahead and sanded the blue paint off, down to the factory paint or sealant.

After painting it with primer, all the remaining flaws really stood out, and I added more bondo, sanded, added more bondo, sanded, primered, more bondo, more sanding. This was the most time consuming part of the whole project.

If I had started with a used Fender or Squier body, I could have just roughed up the finish with 400 grit and sprayed primer and been ready to go.

When I got the Idea to use fabric as a stencil, after finding a suitable piece of fabric, I tested it on cardboard.

This didn't turn out so well, but when I inverted the colors in Illustrator, I realized it would look better to use black as the base coat, and spray a thin layer of silver through the fabric.

Looking back on it now, I'm not sure what would look better. It would look cool either way. Using silver as a base coat would be awesome, but the clear coats would dull it to a gray. It would be funny if I made another identical guitar, but with the colors reversed.

The black paint I used was much easier to work with, as it dried quickly, I could sand it the next day to get it flat. The silver paint was just harder to work with.

Here is the body after many coats of black paint and quite a bit of sanding with 400 and 600 grit wet sandpaper, to get it flat. The repairs are almost invisible at this point.

Details on wiring the pick guard can be found here.

The line around the filled in area on the back would always reappear though, and I don't know if it was due to temp changes or water getting in when I wet sanded it, so I filled in the string holes before continuing.

It really wasn't necessary to sand the black this smooth, I could have just sprayed it on (once the repairs weren't showing), and gone on to the next step, but at this point I was considering just leaving it matte black, and I was curious to see if I sanded it smooth, then left it for a week, whether the repairs would start to show again as the paint cured.

The one big mistake I made here was sanding through to the primer along the edges on a couple spots. That meant more coats, more waiting, more sanding, more coats, more waiting.

The important things I learned here are that it's better to build up many light coats. Be patient. Taking shortcuts usually meant screwing something up which would set me back a week. Be very careful sanding the edges.

After this I gave it a couple light clear coats, so that if I screwed up the silver pattern, I could sand it off with less danger of going through the black to the primer or wood.

Here you can see where I masked the sides.

When I later removed the tape, it pulled up a quarter sized chunk of paint. I think I should have been more careful removing it. Using a better masking tape would have helped, and I also suspect there was some chrome paint left underneath that didn't bond well with the primer.

I think it would also look really cool to have the body be black with a white or light colored stripe going around the edges, where the masking tape is now. Maybe next time.

When I did the test strips, I had the fabric taped down on all sides, but it made it too hard to remove smoothly, and the paint was already beginning to dry and stick.

So here you can see I only taped it down on one side, so I could flip it off in one smooth motion within seconds of spraying it.

The trick to spraying through this stuff was to do one or two quick light passes. Any more would make it build up in spots, which didn't look good (this happened in a couple places on the body).

Here you can see I'm about to spray the body.

I was a bit nervous after all the prep work, I didn't want to screw it up. I only had a limited amount of fabric, and wasn't sure If I would get more than one chance.

I sprayed one or two light passes from one angle, then again from the other side. It still went on too thick in a few spots.

I did spray it lightly enough that was able to reuse this same piece of fabric for the front. A few of the test pieces I used got clogged up with paint.

For the front, I sprayed over the pickguard and pickups, so the pattern would cover the whole front of the body.

Now all I need to do is add clear coats, WAIT A FREAKING MONTH for the paint to cure, wet sand, polish, put it all together and see what it sounds like.

Still waiting to get to this step.

Still waiting to get to this step.