Allan wrote:The pigment I mentioned earlier arrived today. It's not quite the color I expected but then I did have the option to order a color sample chart and decided to go ahead with ordering based on what I saw on the confuser screen. I am gonna use it anyhow.
I went out as soon as it came. I put a little nitro into a bowl and added just a pinch of the pigment powder, gave it a stir and slapped it onto a piece of scrap which had been sort of sanded a bit. Now, I didn't work too hard at smoothing out any possible clumps in the color medium and I didn't make a slurry of it with thinner before adding it to the lacquer as recommended. I simply put a little into some nitro and stirred it up with a glue brush then slapped it onto the wood. The next thing I did was to go out shopping with my wife. When I checked it on my return it looked good so I gave it another coat with the same mix. Checked again later and it looked even better. If nothing unexpected happens over night I will be making a good mix tomorrow and trying it out on the guitar. I do hope this works, I feel really good about it right now.
Bent, this is all happening with the old lacquer I mentioned before. I am struggling to remember when I actually bought the stuff but I know it is well over two years in the can and possibly three. Goes on like it should and seems to dry just like when it was new.
I'll let y'all know how it goes tomorrow. (weather permitting)
Regards, Allan.....
Powder you say! I redid a 1966 Fender Mustang, actually that what got me started working with nitrocellulose lacquer. I purchased my pigment from Stewart Macdonald. By the way, if you didn't know already you can get just about any Luthier supply you would need to build a guitar or repair, I get mot of my stuff from them.
http://www.stewmac.com/ there is also another place to buy refinishing supplies, and that is Guitar ReRanch.
http://www.reranch.com/
You can even find tutorials on how to do this.
My pigment was a liquid, and depending on the quantity of lacquer, depends on how much pigment to put in for the desired color. No muss no fuss, and especially no clumps or lumps.
I seen where you said you had spray equipment. Man, as easy as it actually is, just go to Home depot or Lowes or what have you in your area, and buy a half gal or gallon of Lacquer, and a gallon of thinner and experiment.
It takes very little time to figure out what is meant as a dry coat, wet coat, a wet coat is just nothing more how heavy a coat you can lay down without it running.
In actuality, for a solid body steel, in my opinion, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between nitrocellulose lacquer and plain lacquer after you were done.
Rocky