Rustoleum re-finish

Hi folks,

I recently undertook a refinish of a Telecaster body that had a non-Tele bridge on it. The original finish was quite nice, but I had to re-drill the bridge and string-through holes and so I decided to refinishing the entire body.

I took a long time stripping all the original finish off, sanded down to 400 or so, and put on a few coats of primer. I chose Rustoleum red lacquer as my color, and have a few coats of that on now.

I've read the other threads, but each project always seems a bit different. You can see from the photos where I am. I need maybe one more coat of the red before I do the clear coat. One question I have is do I sand ( wet-sand) before doing the clear coat? The job shows some modest orange peel. Or do I sand between color coats?

Frankly, I'm not thrilled about the color, but I figure might as well see it through. I thought of changing to black, though. If I did that, could I just spray over the red?

Thanks in advance for all your help. You folks are fantastic!

I would think that black over red would work, but if you get a good ding it might show through.

You might want to knock the tops off the orange peel by wetsanding with 600 or 800. It doesn't have to be perfect just yet, that'll come after many coats of clear.

If you are going to change colors that is no problem at all. You might want to really knock down the orange peel before the new color. We don't care about minor sand-thrus at this point. Just get it smooth and spray on the black.

Personally I like that color, close to Fiesta Red but if you don't like it, don't settle for it. You're going to put way too much time into it to have something that you don't really care for.

You might want to knock the tops off the orange peel by wetsanding with 600 or 800. It doesn't have to be perfect just yet, that'll come after many coats of clear.

If you are going to change colors that is no problem at all. You might want to really knock down the orange peel before the new color. We don't care about minor sand-thrus at this point. Just get it smooth and spray on the black.

Personally I like that color, close to Fiesta Red but if you don't like it, don't settle for it. You're going to put way too much time into it to have something that you don't really care for.

Thanks for the response. Not sure, I might stick with the red after all. It is getting to be the holiday season! Any thoughts on spraying the edges? Seems to be harder to get coverage there.