Painting over a colour

[BassApprentice]

Hopefully a straightforward one, you see all these reliced/vintage Fender types that have say black under gold or sunburst under white.

To do this yourself is it simply a case of taking the clear coat off the base colour and using that as the primer rather than a grey or white primer? 

Ta! 

Edited June 11, 2020 by BassApprentice

[hooky_lowdown]

The bass in your pic would have a nitro finish, which is easy to paint over. Removing poly etc, then painting over is a nightmare, unless you have lots of time, energy and patience.

[BassApprentice]

1 hour ago, hooky_lowdown said:

The bass in your pic would have a nitro finish, which is easy to paint over. Removing poly etc, then painting over is a nightmare, unless you have lots of time, energy and patience

Ah OK, gotcha! Complete strip it is! 

[Maude]

Woah, slow down there 😁.

What are you planning to do, just a normal refinish or are you relicing to reveal the underneath colour?

There's absolutely no need to strip a poly finish off to refinish a bass if it's in good condition. You can just key the surface (not as harshly as you might expect) and paint your colour straight over it, no primer needed. 

If the original finish is damaged then any repairs done will need primer applied, left to dry and then flatted to stop the repair showing in your final finish. 

If you want to remove your fresh finish to reveal the paint underneath as per your picture then things get a little more complicated to make it look realistic. 

If you want to remove the original paint then you can but I see so many folks complaining about what a nightmare it was, not realising it's unnecessary. The only real reason to completely strip is that any new chips may show the old colour depending on depth, and if the old finish is badly damaged. 

🙂

[Japhet]

Maude is right. Don't strip off anything that is in decent nick. Dings and dents can be repaired with car body filler. For small stuff I use a product called Dolphin Glaze which is a really fine filler. Repaired areas need a coat of primer and everything needs to be keyed so that the new paint has something to grip onto - if you don't do this it will flake off. To key the existing finish I use Scotchbrite pads and give it all a thorough going over. Feel free to PM me if you want any more info.

[Maude]

@Japhet

You must be another from the world of bodyshops if you're talking Dolphin Glaze. 🙂

[BassApprentice]

Thanks for the advice. I've repainted bodies before but always stripped it back. Probably won't bother this time! 

 

I'll be painting the wee Bronco (not the Musicmaster) Shell pink so I'll just key up the red and go at it! 

 

[Maude]

It looks to be in good condition so yes just key it up. As Japhet said, the easiest thing to use is scotchbrite (if prefer it wet but it can be used dry) which is an abrasive scouring sheet made by 3M, much like the green part of your standard kitchen sponge/scourer. It's good because it follow the curves of your bass without squaring off corners which sandpaper can do, if you can't get any then wet'n'dry used wet (1000 grit or so) will be fine but go easy on the tight curves, you don't want to rub through or you will need to prime and flat those areas to stop old paint edges showing in your new paint. If you need to fill any chips you'll need a car body filler, actually car body stopper will be best as it's a finer version of filler and will rub down smoother and need less primer to hide it. These repairs will need priming and flatting before painting. There's no need to prime at all if you've not done any repairs, the red will be a good base for the pink colour. 

If you use scotchbrite your old paint will just look matt when done, not all scratched up, this is plenty enough of a key for the new paint to grip to. Just try to make sure it's fairly evenly matt with no glossy areas. 

If any of this is unclear or you have other questions, however silly they might seem, just ask away. 

🙂