Painting the guitar body is something of a time consuming. There is a lot of prep work getting the body sanded (the kids helped with this) and in the case of this guitar filling in some of the grain so that the guitar is perfectly flat. It will take over a week to apply all of the color and clear coats and then a good month to let the paint dry hard enough to begin wet sanding and polishing. While the body is drying we will finish the neck and work on the electronics for the guitar.

 

After spraying some coats of "sand and sealer" which is used to help level the body before applying the color, I sand the body flat. This stage is very important. Any small scratch or imperfection at this point will be greatly magnified after final polishing. What might look like a small problem here will become a big one later. It's best to take our time here.

 

 

With the body prep work done it's ready for paint.

 

 

The first coat of color applied. As more coats go on the darker the guitar will become.

 

 

Now I didn't use a primer on this body and I'm really glad I didn't. Our original idea was to paint the body opaque Fiesta Red. But after three coats of the red the body was still show a small hint of dark grain. The more I looked at it, the more beautiful I thought it was. So I decided to stop with the color coats and the guitar will now be a semi-transparent (trans) Fiesta Red.

 

 

 

The earliest Fender Telecasters were a blond color with the a small amount of grain showing through also. Here's an example of a 1951 Telecaster where you can see this. The Telecasters built from 1950-early 1954 are sometime referred to as "blackguards" because in late 1954 Fender started building these guitar with white pickguards. I think maybe we'll call our guitar a "redguard" because of it's distinct color.
 



 

 

After spraying the final clear coats I've put the body away to let the paint cure for next 30 days. After that the kids will help me wet sand and polish the guitar.