Painting a headstock - matching with the body

Hi everyone!

Here's the thing,

I'm currently doing a guitar that I like to call a MusicFender...It's basically a Music man type body, that I designed and CNC'ed with some modifications like 3 SC instead of the Humbuckers and other stuff, together with a fender neck.

Now, I have fallen in love with Music Man's Dargie Delight color (It's basically a metal flake green, extremely funky!)

I'll be finishing the body with this color, but i'd like to do the matching headstock...Since the neck was already finished when I bought it, is there a way of doing a proper job just without removing all the finish?

I mean, can you give me some ideas on how to do a proper masking, in order to have a nice clean line beetwen the color at the headstock and the rest of the neck that's already finished?

If you can't figure out exactly what i'm asking, let me know. I'll post a few pictures later this evening.

Thanks a lot for your help!

Salut!

One thing that I have done, though not on a guitar, is to use automotive striping tape in order to establish a very accurate line flush with the flat surface's edge and also at the nut. I am assuming you only want to paint the top surface of the headstock and keep the rest natural. The rest of the part ie. the neck, can be masked with standard low tack masking tape. Tape halfway over the striping tape. At this stage spray a light clear coat over the tape's glue line and let that dry. This will keep the color from creeping under the tape. Make sure the clear is compatible with the actual color coat.
If the head has a decal, remove it and lightly sand the flat surface to 800 wet. Plug the tuner holes so paint does not drip to the other side. Spray the color coats 2 or 3 should be OK. Then clear coat with sanding wet 400 or 600 between coats.

Let dry and remove the normal tape, then carefully pull the striping tape. Pull it downwards away from the separation line. Test this method on some scrap until you get a feel for it.

Finally, wet sand and polish the newly painted surface. Be carefull when you get near the edges where the top surface of the headstock meets the (vertical) side as the finish may be fragile at that location.

Good luck

+1 on pinstriping tape, it will adhere to the concave curves better than 2" masking tape. Just tape the hell out of it, Paint, and I like to remove the tape when the paint is sort of wet so I don't get any cracks or tears in the new paint. If you paint before you apply clear, you can even sand the edges removing bad paint lines or drips before you clear to get a perfectly flush edge.

You will likely want to clear the whole headstock after doing the color (front, back, and sides) to avoid any sand throughs on the edges. If you get a sand through there, your color edge will be very uneven.

I took my color just over the corner round onto the sides.

I used the regular blue tape and had to make some corrections. I would rather have had the pinstripping tape.