Surf Monster Telecaster: Colour Coats Take #4

Well, yet another clear coat fail on the Surf Monster Telecaster. That makes 3 attempts so far, although the blue dye job can't really be classed as a "fail". The first coat of acrylic clear onto the Linz Iceberg didn't crack this time, but it did discolour the paint. Damn you to a fiery hell! The verdict on these Ironlak spray paints? They are total fucking shite! Don't use them, don't buy them, don't even mention them in polite conversation. You will be dissapointed - that's an Ironlak guarantee.

And so, it was with a heavy heart and aching arms that I yet again sanded back the basswood telecaster body, applied primer and was ready for colour. On the back of a comment from Sydney luthier Harry Aznavoorian, I decided to give the Montana Colors MTN94 range a try. Given that Harry has had similar problems with the Ironlak (Linz Iceberg too as it turns out!), and has reported good success with the MTN94, the choice was a no-brainer in the end. Thanks Harry!

And so, 2 cans of Montana's finest arrived on my doorstep this morning. I ordered the same colour as Harry (he too is doing a "Seafoam Green" build) - the MTN94 "R-6027: Luminouse Green". The colour looked great on the top of the can, so there was nothing for it but to get the colour on to the body and see how it looked!

The spray cans are advertised as low pressure - and they certainly are. The paint comes out nice and easy and there are no volume issues to worry about. I'll need to do several coats (probably 3 coats at current reckoning) but that's better than the paint going on too thick like that Ironlak shit did.The paint is matt, and actually looks really nice sitting on the body!

All in all I think the new colour looks really great - closer in fact to the original colour that I envisaged for this build. It isn't "Teal" like the Ironlak turned out to be, and it's much closer to the traditional "Seafoam" colour of the 50s and 60s Strats and Teles. Another couple of coats and everything will be great. The photo, unfortunately, does not do the colour justice - these blue/green hues are notoriously difficult to photograph.

Now let's cross our fingers and hope the clear coats go on without incident! I'm having good success with the Johnny Ramone Mosrite clear coats, so let's hope everything will be fine...

Mosrite Ventures Mk II: The Paint is On!

Well today I got the painting finished on the Johnny Ramone Mosrite Ventures Mk II (fingers crossed!!). In the end I put 4 coats of primer on there with a gentle sanding of 800 grit in between each. It would have only been 3 coats, but on the 3rd coat a mosquito got stuck in the primer and had to be extricated. Here's how she looked with the primer dry and ready for gloss.

With the body nice and clean and smooth after the primer, I was a tad hesitant to go ahead with the gloss. Nothing like taking a beautiful surface and marring it with some spray fail like drops of paint, insects or dust. Anyway, I had to bite the bullet sometime! And so it came to pass that, after two coats of gloss acrylic, with absolutely zero mishaps (phew!), the body came to look as it does now.

Do the photos really look any different?? Well, believe me they are ;). Two perfect coats of acrylic gloss white and now ready for clear coats. Yet another chance to mar the surface, but a chance which I'm going to have to take! I'm going to let the gloss acrylic cure for about a week before attempting clear coats to avoid any issues with cracking and so on.

Anyway, she's really coming together now. The neck has 8 coats of Tru-Oil and is feeling nice and smooth. Two more coats with 2000 grit wet sanding in-between and I'll call that done. Stay tuned punk rockers!!

Surf Monster Telecaster: Seafoam v2.0

The first coat of seafoam green went on to the Surf Monster Telecaster v3.0 today. The primer levelled out nicely with 800 grit sandpaper and the first coat of seafoam green (in truth Ironlak 'Linz Iceberg' from Ozgraff) went on without a hitch. Looking at it now I'm really glad I went back to my original vision for this Tele.

This time around the Ironlak didn't splutter and drip like last time and I was able to lay down a nice thin, even coat. The secret was a finer spray nozzle - also courtesy of Ozgraff. The original supplied nozzle on all the Ironlak cans was ridiculously high volume, and I believe that this led to the coats being way too thick the first time around. I guess a high volume jet is just what the hoodies down by the train tracks need to realise their singular works of art, but it's not so good for creating nice even guitar colour (at least in my hands).

I've just about convinced myself that the the cracks in my first clear attempt was due to the paint underneath being way too thick (and therefore not dry or hard enough). I could be wrong (I'm certainly no expert) but this time around everything feels more normal; more like previous builds. I guess we'll see how it finishes up, but I'm quietly confident everything will turn out well. Famous last words!!

Surf Monster Telecaster: New Spray Colour Arrives

After a few days testing and considering the "Studebaker Green" I had previously ordered for the seafoam green telecaster build, i decided that I really wasn't happy with it. The colour was too blue for me and I wanted a touch more green in the mix. And so it was back to OzGraff to choose a new colour.

What I ended up with was 'Linz Iceberg' from the 'Ironlak' range of spray enamels. Sounds kinda seafoamy I guess. The colour on the can is a little more aqua that I was hoping for, but I'll have to see how it looks out of the can. We can never get exactly what we want it seems! This will definitely be what I end up going with however - there won't be any more changes again, I can't afford it!