Prep for Paint

I wanted to spray a tinted clear coat over the face to the guitar. I masked the sides as I had before and used a pizza box to make a cardboard mask for the back of the body.

I didn't know how permanent the tinted lacquer would be if it got on the plastic binding so I cut thin strips of the 3M green tape to mask the front edge of the binding. The green tape was very flexible at that width and clung well to the thin edge.

The binding edge masked.

The mask for the back of the body was cut from a pizza box.

With test fitting I found that the neck was a very snug fit. I did not want to make the fit any tighter by adding paint so I masked the slot for it. I also masked the cavities for the pickups.

The body masked and ready for paint.

Off to See the Gibson

The images online of the Seafoam Gibson Les Paul varied dramatically in color. I'm sure the guitars varied some amount, and there was a lot of variance in the photography. Also, heavy-handed digital processing of the images surely had a huge effect on the colors.

A friend and I decided to go to Guitar Center to look around. I wanted to see if I could catch a Seafoam Les Paul in the wild. They had one in stock so I took a few photos. The seafoam was greener than most of the photos I had found online. The back was a darker wood than many images I had found. The colors on the Gibson website was pretty accurate for this model.

Sanding the Dye

After the dye had dried, I began sanding to hopefully get a subtle tiger stripe effect and to minimize the problem of the dye not penetrating. At first I was careful to lightly sand in the direction of the grain using 400 grit paper. I quickly discovered that wood is a lot tougher than styrene plastic, with which I am used to working.

Before sanding and after - the top has been sanded and the
bottom has not. 

I started using more course paper, more pressure and sanding across the grain to see any results. After quite a bit of sanding the raw wood started to come through. The whole time I winced at the idea that base wood would start to poke through.

Extra sanding was applied to the areas that did
not take the dye well with dubious results.

The blotches where there was no dye remained. I did quite a bit more sanding to try to lessen them with some success but they were still obvious. Perhaps they would fade even more under the tinted clear coat.

Sanding complete.

I could already see that the paining scheme was starting to deviate from my plan. The dye was more pronounced than I had anticipated and it was clear that I was not going to achieve the subtle seafoam look of the Gibson Les Paul. Being completely inexperienced I was not delusional about my chances of getting it right on the first try, but it was about this time I started to think of this project as a prototype with a second attempt after this one.

Dying

I mixed my dye solution and applied it to the guitar body with a folded paper towel. The wood sucked up the dye rapidly. I wondered if I should not have diluted the color with more water than I did. I figured most of the dye would be sanded off.

The guitar body with dye applied. While it looks very blue,
 it became more green after it was fully dry.

I immediately noticed a big problem. The veneer was repelling the dye in many areas near the binding at the edge of the body and in a thin stripe where the two pieces of veneer met in the middle of the body. This was the first time I thought there was a problem that I would be be able to fix. I had planned to sand the veneer down to achieve subtle grain popping pattern and then spray a tinted clear coat over the top. I might be able to sand enough to hide the areas where the dye did not penetrate.

The splice between to two halves of the maple veneer.

Areas along the edge of the body seemed to be contaminated
with glue and repelled the dye.

The worst example of the dye not penetrating.

If there were signs on the raw guitar that the dye would not take in these areas, I completely missed them. Perhaps glue got on the surface and was wiped off, or maybe too much was used and it soaked through the paper thin veneer. I couldn't know for sure but paying $28 extra for the veneer only to have it be so marred was disappointing.

Preparation for Dying

I'm tempted to make a joke about being sure my will is up to date, but I won't.

Realizing how incredibly thin the maple veneer was, I was reluctant to sand it before I applied dye to the guitar. I knew I was going to be sanding after applying the dye to create the grain popping effect, and I feared sanding through. I did end up lightly sanding along the grain with 400 grit using a small sanding block.

The ragged edge at the neck and cutaway.

I also gave the ragged edge of the cutaway some attention. I used the sanding block to even up the edge. The guitar body tapered right at the and of the cutaway but the binding remained straight. Because of this the binding gradually rose away from the surface. I scraped the binding with a No. 11 X-acto blade until it and the guitar were even.

Sanding the cutaway edge.

Scraping the binding to make it even with the body.

I wiped down the guitar with denatured alcohol to remove dust and fingerprints. I then masked off everything but the face of the body. I used 3M green tape for concrete. It was really sticky and holds a tight edge. I did not want the dye to get past the binding onto the sides. I was all ready to apply the dye.

3M green tape

The sides of the guitar masked.