Swirl painting a Carvin 6 string Bolt

[Alcmiller]

Hello SS.org, you are a beautiful website full of a beautiful community

I am about to attempt a swirl paint job after countless hours of research on the topic... The subject of my experimentation: A Carvin Kit 6 string guitar. Alrrriiiggghhhtt

I've got some proto run throughs today I did on a 2x4 Tell me what you think of this.

The initial mix:

First results.. meh:

Second results? the sex:

Please please please let me know what you guys think!

 

[musikizlife]

Pics aren't working for me....

EDIT: they work if opened in new tab!
Looks sick, very marbly looking. cant wait to see more

 

[Verity]

You already know how I feel, but I love the second one!

 

[Alcmiller]

Pics aren't working for me....

Sorry mate I did an uber fail at uploading- had to reupload them ^_^

 

[Alcmiller]

Updates hurrah.

the guitar that I haven't gotten to show off yet:

Stripped:

Hating my life sanding:

This is why you sand correctly and well enough even though you hate it the FIRST time. The primer failed...

Resanded and reprimed:

hanging to dry:

Now just to dip and clearcoat.. Will be doing the swirl tomorrow morning. I'll keep you posted. Until then, Cheers!

 

[ivancic1al]

Lookin good so far, I'll be interested to see how the swirl turns out. best of luck!

 

[s_k_mullins]

Looking forward to seeing the end result of this project. Good luck dude!

 

[Khaine88]

Indeed, loving these swirl threads, hope it goes well man!

 

[nojyeloot]

I like that black and yellow. Reminds me of one of Rob Jarzombek's that he did.

 

[Alcmiller]

Hey that looks a lot like what I'm going for. I'll just be getting more white under there. I hope it looks okay with the pickguard too.

I'll keep you all posted, thanks for the good wishes.

 

[Alcmiller]

So I swirled today. I will be keeping it but for the record, I wish I had more blacks- they unfortunately didn't spread as well as I had hoped.

My paints and set up:

After the swizzirl!

Hanging up to dry:

I took a video of my swirling so I'll upload that to youtube after I edit it a little.


The blacks unfortunately sat very heavily and clumped up together moreso than the yellows. If I did it again I will thin out the blacks a little bit more but for now, I am pretty pleased with the results.


What do you think?


Ps. I'll take much higher resolution pictures after it's clearcoated and assembled.

 

[musikizlife]

That, looks insane bro, love the color choice too. Gunna look mighty fine with pickups in it!

 

[Khaine88]

Fuck dude, that looks wicked! the yellow, black and white looks fucking great

 

[MikeH]

Looks good.

I think the contrast of the solid pickguard will really set it off.

 

[Alcmiller]

Thanks everyone! I'm mad stoked about this.

 

[technomancer]

Looks pretty cool

 

[KoenDercksen]

Awesome dude

 

[Alcmiller]

Word. A video of the swirl for your entertainment. Let me know if I'm doing something extremely foolish and wrong!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43wyVZfhM4k

Edit: Is there a way to embed videos?

 

[Alcmiller]

Well. As promised, here are the final pictures. As with most DIY projects, this was a great learning experience.

Thick paint led to drip and buildup in spots:

Front:

Back:

With the owner:

Other various Boo boos:

So like I said it was a great learning experience. Looking back on the whole project I know there were some things I could have done differently with the swirling process and I don't believe that I let the paint dry long enough before I applied the clear coat (hence the cracking paint). I took the back of the bridge out all wrong and chipped the hell out of the back of the guitar too.

But in the end, I'm fairly pleased with it and I'll probably give this guitar another dip to retry in the summer when I've got more time (I.e. not on the time restraints of spring break).


As always, let me know what you think/suggest. I value your opinions highly.

Cheers!