Daphne Blue/IBM Jazzmaster Refin. Pic Heavy FINISHED!

[HNB]

Nice! That should look really cool.

[Surfysonic]

Looks great, good luck! Sorry if nobody has answered your wood filler question - I really never bother with that as I primarily refinish over poly bodies.

Also, now that I've got a Vintera II Competition Burgundy Mustang coming tomorrow with a stock pearloid pickguard, I think I'll go nuts and put my Spitfire Crazy 60s Vintage Faded Orange pickguard on my Seafoam green, saturation conflict be damned!

[Spitfire7]

Looks great, good luck! Sorry if nobody has answered your wood filler question - I really never bother with that as I primarily refinish over poly bodies.

Also, now that I've got a Vintera II Competition Burgundy Mustang coming tomorrow with a stock pearloid pickguard, I think I'll go nuts and put my Spitfire Crazy 60s Vintage Faded Orange pickguard on my Seafoam green, saturation conflict be damned!

Haha, nothing wrong with with a little flair and contrast. I think it still looks great! That's for the fun and wild days lol.

[Surfysonic]

Yup, much happier now and even happier I don't do something foolish... like buy another Mustang to match the Spitfire pickguard...I'd likely do it, too.

[Spitfire7]

Oh heck yeah man. All the others have kind of nice classic vibes to them. You gotta have your fun colorful days too lol. Awesome Ren and Stimply. Great collection.

[Surfysonic]

Oh heck yeah man. All the others have kind of nice classic vibes to them. You gotta have your fun colorful days too lol. Awesome Ren and Stimply. Great collection.

Thanks! Sometime down the road, I'll have to put in some orders for a couple Spitfire guards - probably both faded orange of some variation for my AVII '61 Oly White Strat and my Vintera '50s Fiesta Red Tele.

The stock mint pickguard on oly white is really kind of "meh" to me lately. The gold pickguard on the fiesta red Tele is too Iron Man-ish for me.

[Spitfire7]

Haha, I hear ya. Sometimes those can look great, but we gotta give the heart what I desires sometimes and that's why all my instruments have tort haha. So lets do it.

[Spitfire7]

Okay, I nailed this out in a weekend. I think it turned out pretty good and I'm super happy with the color. I kind of get the best of both worlds, the Daphne and Ice Blue Metallic.

So this project is not suppose to be a perfect refin. I just want a new color really. Its not suppose to be mint either. So I am okay with imperfections.

So the first thing I did was dismantle it, then off to the sanding stage with 80 grit. Its nice to see those simulated tan lines again.







I also wanted to fill the deep holes with some wood filler. once again, I didn't care about it being perfect, just a fun project and a decent refin. I didn't care if it still has a ding or dent here and there.










The filler requires 24 hours before sanding and painting so I gave it a night and continued the next day. Looks great. Also sanded down to a smooth finish for the most part.

Now I decided to do all the edges and sides first. I used almost an entire can just on this part because I know it can get so thin on the edges and were there's a lot of rubbing.






Now to hanging it and then starting my coats. I used an entire can just on the front and back. So for the whole body I used two cans and found this to be pretty adequate.

The way I painted was, I would from bottom to top and left to right I would do a nice even slow coat and then let stand for 6 minutes. I had a floor heater going next to it. Then I would do another coat and give 6 minutes or at least until it was semi dry and tacky to the touch. I didn't want it wet, but ever so sticky. Once the final can was used, now onto the clear coat.

I had an old can of StewMac nitrocellulose clear on hand. I painted the clear about 10 minutes after the color. I found that the nitro didn't affect or interact negatively with the Duplicolor paint. It worked out great. I painted the clear pretty much the same way and giving about 6 minutes or so in between sprays using a space heater over the surface. I found it became dry and tacky very quickly. I did a total of 15 coats of clear. More the merrier.





After painting, I put in a warm closest and let sit over night. That next afternoon I found it to be dry to the touch and pretty hard. So now began the fun part of polishing. I used 600 grit wet sand paper by hand to remove the orange peel effect. I then used a 1000 grit wet sand paper, then a 1500 dry sand paper with my rotary sander, then a 2000 grit with my sander and then a 3000 wet sander pad by hand. Once a smooth semi gloss surface, I then polished using scratch out car polish and a car buffer. This took it to a glass like shine. I polished maybe 2-3 times for that perfect shine. Then I took it to my bugger wheel and finished up. This is where the stupid buffer wheel burned through on the bottom eating through the paint. Bummer, but oh well, its on the bottom and this was never meant to be a perfect refin. So now it definitely isn't lol.

Here it is after being sanded up to 3000 wet pad.






Now here it is after the polish.






Now was the time to bring the old original 60s tort guard back to vibrant life. I debated touching it, but I couldn't resist. It was completely flat without any shine, completely scratched up, dull, and filthy. So I took it to the polishing wheel and it made quite the difference bring out the depth and deep deep shine and color. Very happy with my decision. Its absolutely beautiful.

Before

After

Before

After







Now to rebuild. Everything came back together nicely, but that darn shrunken pickguard has always been a tough tight fit applying a lot of pressure to get it on.










And now the final outcome. I think it turned out so great. The color constantly changes. Its hard to capture it. Its much more lighter than the pictures indicate. Its very much a sky blue most of the time, but then a metallic Daphne blue other times.












After some basic setup, this guitar which began its life as a white Squier VM, sounds and plays absolutely amazing!!! It might become a favorite. You can also see it next to the Jaguar which is a Lake Placid Blue with aged amber nitro clear. So its a great color and very happy with the final results. Thanks for watching.

To see how it all began with the original Squier into the aged white project where I learned for the first time, see here.
Squier Vm Becomes 63 JM

[HNB]

Looks wonderful! Great job!

[Spitfire7]

Looks wonderful! Great job!

Thanks man, I learned from the best.

It's pretty fun and easy now that I know what I'm doing.

[Surfysonic]

Terrific job, Mark! I'm definitely going to apply some of your method into my process for a future project. I love the heater idea to expedite things. Other lesson learned for me is that I use way too little of clear and need to apply way more coats than I do (typically three). Congrats!

[N0_Camping4U]

Love this! Will that stawmac nitro eventually check?

[Spitfire7]

Love this! Will that stawmac nitro eventually check?

Graat question, but I'm not sure. If I had to guess, probably not. Usually the checking has to be forced through freezer techniques. Chris HNB, do you have experience with this?

However over 50 years maybe.

I do believe it will start to yellow though.

[Spitfire7]

Terrific job, Mark! I'm definitely going to apply some of your method into my process for a future project. I love the heater idea to expedite things. Other lesson learned for me is that I use way too little of clear and need to apply way more coats than I do (typically three). Congrats!

Thanks man. Yeah the more clear you go the better sanding and polishing you can do without worrying to sand into the color.

P. S. Do not use a high speed powered friction based Polishing wheel without any sort of compound.

[Surfysonic]

Terrific job, Mark! I'm definitely going to apply some of your method into my process for a future project. I love the heater idea to expedite things. Other lesson learned for me is that I use way too little of clear and need to apply way more coats than I do (typically three). Congrats!

Thanks man. Yeah the more clear you go the better sanding and polishing you can do without worrying to sand into the color.

P. S. Do not use a high speed powered friction based Polishing wheel without any sort of compound.

Cool, thanks!