So last time I was writing in regards to the t-style, I was having a spot of bother with the finish/paint job. To catch you up on what I’ve done, I’m writing words and including some pictures! 

Last stop on this crazy train was the first (new) coat of paint after sanding back the previous coats and filling the grain again. Anyways, the rattle can said Scarlet Red, the paint first coat said “nah more like blood orange”, and I was a little worried at that point. Paint talking to me and all. 

With the sides safely masked up I got onto finishing the job of painting the top. I’d masked off the sides by eye, as the tele body has a fairly rounded edge deciding where to place the tape and to get a straight line with it was a little interesting, but I had done this years before on an old tele of mine and it worked out fine, though I wasn’t nearly as pedantic about the quality of the finish with that old one. As I was hoping coat after coat created a deeper and richer red, though it’s still pretty bright it’s less orange and more Fender Classic Vibe"Fiesta Red", so I’m okay with that. 

There is still a bit of shade being cast on the guitar in this photo so, you don’t really get the full eye burning effect.

As you will have probably noticed from the photo above, I kept to it with the natural back and sides idea, natural as in timber showing, it is stained though. This time I did the stain after the paint had dried up some, not cured because, who has the patience for that? The stain went on easily as expected and I was kicking myself the whole time for not doing it in this order from the start. Once the stain was on the guitar was held incredibly carefully until the first coats of clear gloss had been applied. 

Gloss on, good, yes. Pretty straight forward until you start to nitpick at the finish. I’d not really had any troubles with runs or sag in the finish but 24 hours after a few coats had gone on I noticed a strange blemish had appeared/been pronounced maybe by the gloss? Anyways I did want to do a bit of wet sanding in between coats every now and then so got to it with some 1000 and 2000 grit wet/dry. This of course only made the blemish even more pronounced but I figured as I was close to the natural timber still on the back, I could sand back to where need be and do a small touch up with the stain. But then all of a sudden

Basically the stain made the slightest bit of varnish near it into goopy glue so I decided pretty much straight away to wipe off as much as I could as quickly as I could and just, you know, deal with the blemish as a constant reminder not to get ahead of myself. Seriously it was a close thing to me having to sand the entire back down, again. 

I really have no idea what caused the big long mark to appear as it was sanded super smooth and it stained as well as the rest of the body, I can only think it’s some chemical reaction to a trace of something I have completely forgotten about. Anyway, it’s not hard to miss but I think the rest is looking rather fancy. Photo as of roughly 3 coats of misting with the rattle can. 

And yeah, that takes us up to where it’s at as of now o'clock. I have put a few more coats of gloss on but there won’t be much of a difference in the way it looks to these pictures until maybe sometime tomorrow. Then it’s the horrible wait until it all cures before final cut and pollish times.

Orange Red Crimson something something.