The first step was to disassemble the guitar and rough up the original black finish to give the new finish something to grip onto. I used a random orbital sander with a 100 grit pad for the front and back, and 220 grit wet and dry paper for the contours and edges. I then wet sanded the front and back with a block and 220 paper. This is what the body looked like after that:
I then sprayed the body with a good heavy coat of Camger flat white nitro primer - which not only gives a good surface for the color coat but also helps fill in small scratches in the under coat.
Once the primer dried a few hours, I wet sanded it to smooth out the body, with 320 grit wet and dry paper. This removed some of the primer coat but not enough to warrant a second primer coat, especially since the body looked quite good. For the color coat, I used a can of Duplicolor acrylic lacquer in "Dark Blue", which is a dark metallic blue. I first just lightly coated the edges and then the front and back - and set the body aside for 15 minutes to let the solvent flash off.
Then over the next half hour I built up heavier coats of color until I had complete coverage on all surfaces. This is the body drying after the initial color coat - looks pretty good already !!
Once this coat dries - I plan on wet sanding the body with 400 and 800 grit paper - and then applying one more color coat if there are any sand throughs. If there aren't, then I will move right to clear coats - I'll probably put at least 3 or 4 clear coats on, before a final wet sanding, compounding and buffing out.
UPDATE 3/13/07
Finally finished putting this strat together, with a Dimarzio pickup added at the bridge position. A few pics of the completed guitar.
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