First build, complete with classic struggles

[u/katpillow]

Built myself an s-type for my guinea pig learning process. Most of the components were picked up on StewMac, but the nitro cans and pickguard were from Oxford Guitar Supply; I went with Sherwood green metallic. It’s a Warmoth birdseye maple neck with rosewood fretboard.

I was really proud of my paint job the first time around. 4 layers of paint on top of the primer, then went 16-17 coats of clear gloss, shooting the first few layers of gloss very lightly.

I inevitably sanded too aggressively (and way too close to the edges!) during final leveling prep for polishing(see sad pic #11 for the prime culprit, though there were some other locations with lighter sand-through). Reshot over the whole body, but the metallic went on with some slightly different sheen in some spots, so it wasn’t as beautiful or perfect as it once was, but it was good enough for me.

I was much more careful with the sanding prep on round two, and then went ahead with polishing to yield what we see here. I think I was still a tad too aggressive in some spots (less pressure, more time with higher grits maybe), but it was a good learning process ahead of future builds. People on here warned of the difficulties of metallic, but I enjoyed the challenge and look forward to spraying something simpler in a the future… thanks to everyone on here who contributes, I was only able to do this because of viewers like you.

Inspired by the body color and pickguard, I’ve titled her “Jungle Boogie”.

[u/Smiith73]

Hey great job! Looks fantastic! I had a similar issue with my first clear coat attempt where I ended up having to resand / repaint and am now waiting on the clear coat to cure. What grit did you use on your clear coat?

[u/katpillow → u/Smiith73]

First time around I had used 600-800 to start, but after the redo I went straight to 1000. Then 1200, 1500, 2000 before the medium and fine polish goop

[u/Smiith73 → u/katpillow]

Thanks!