Repainting an acoustic for practice.

[Pixiechick23]

I want to paint the Ibanez bass I bought but I've never painted a guitar in my life so I just bought a cheapie classical acoustic at a boot sale to have a go on.
Plan is to practice on this, then do the same with some other cheapie electric guitars from ebay, cash converters or whatever, Argos, the crappy guitars that nobody buys lol. Then once I'm confident enough and definitely know what I want to go for with the Ibanez I'm gonna paint that.

Let's see how this goes shall we?

[JapanAxe]

I trust there will be pics...

[Pixiechick23]

Of course! Won't be starting for a while yet cause I've got to get the money for the paints and stuff, crappy bills and all that jazz first. But I figured why not get the guitar while it's there nice and cheap? Should be fun! Could also be a complete disaster but eh, that's why we practice on cheapies first, right?

[randythoades]

I have painted a few guitars so I will just say that the hardest bit is making sure you sand off the varnish well and spend a long time with different grades of sandpaper and wire wool to get a super smooth finish to start with, filling any nicks and dents. Then use a decent spray primer and off you go. I tend to use acrylic spray paints from B+Q, Homebase etc and normal artist acrylic paint on the top for my "artwork". Once all done, do about 20 or so coats of laquer (I prefer satin) with a rub down in between coats with super fine wire wool. After that, let it cure for a couple of months and rub it back with car rubbing compound to even out the lumps and give it a burnish.
Be prepared to spend a lot of energy and time with sandpaper. DO NOT RUSH IT.... as with decorating, preparation is everything if you want a good finish.
Most of all...Enjoy it!