Context for the questions:
I am building my first real guitar soon. I have previously built a semi-decent ukulele which plays well, and other random stringed instruments. I’ve been woodworking for a few years, and also playing guitar for around the same amount of time. I decided to marry those two passions and build a guitar. I am building a telecaster style guitar with a P90 in the neck. I am routing and fabricating the body, and wiring the electronics myself. I bought a neck premade. I hope to in the future build my own neck, but for this first build I wanted to eliminate as many things that could go wrong as possible. I have all of the tools and routing jigs to make this thing at least halfway decent. I’ve planned it all out except for one last little bit: the finishing of the body.
I have a relatively inexpensive HVLP spray gun I got a year ago for finishing my furniture projects. It has made finishing a breeze. I’ve almost exclusively used oil based polyurethane with the gun. At its finest setting it gives a bit of a bumpy texture to whatever I’m spraying. I really like the texture, and in all honesty, for a first guitar, I wouldn’t mind a textured finish. I plan on buying a real fancy HVLP spray gun and an air compressor at some point, but not anytime soon. I want to stick with this gun for the build, and I believe it’s good enough.
My original plan was to make the body out of hard maple (yes, I know it is unorthodox and will be insanely heavy) and dye the body and headstock a nice turquoise blue. This original plan had a few flaws. First, the water based dye would be a pain as it would raise the maple grain. Second, hard maple would be annoyingly hard to route and sand. Third, the type of polyurethane I planned on using was the Behr brand, which I do not believe is instrument grade.
I then remembered lacquer is a finish too, and I got really excited. I got even more excited to find out that it could be tinted. If I use some I plan on going with Mohawk instrument nitrocellulose lacquer.
Now finally, here are the questions:
I’ve never sprayed lacquer out of my HVLP spray gun. I know that lacquer works by softening the layer under it to adhere. Do I have a better chance at getting a smoother finish with the gun if I use it? I obviously will practice with the gun before using it on the guitar. Does it spray relatively similarly to polyurethane? Should I not even try with lacquer, and just stick with polyurethane?
I want to do an opaque tint. Which products will give me that property? How much would I need to mix it? If I spray opaque lacquer, should I do a few coats of opaque and then a final few top coats of clear? Are there any big things I need to keep in mind or be weary of? Do I need to do some end grain filling if I use a relatively closed-pore wood like alder?
To smooth the body a bit after finishing, what do y’all recommend in terms of buffing? I don’t have a large buffer, but I do have a 5” random orbit sander and a 6” angle grinder. Which compounds do I need for that? Ideally I’d like to do a satin finish if possible. Should I even spray the headstock? Will it be really hard to keep the lacquer from bleeding over to the side of the headstock? I consider myself generally good at masking.
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