Transparent Candy Finishes on Ukes

Tons, but never on koa.The easiest way is to add dyes to clear coats to add a transparent finish. 20 years ago I would have bought prepped candy colors from an auto paint supplier like Sid Moses. These days no one seems to use the old lacquers on cars, which is what I was familiar with (the lacquer, not painting cars). Stains also come in many colors. The advantage of using dyes in the finish (with a clear barrier coat over the wood) is that its easy (but messy) to remove if you don't like the look. Stains in the wood are nasty-to-impossible to change on an acoustic instrument. Color additives are available for most current instrument finishes. Is there anything specific you want to know?
 
Do you want to become a pro finisher? Because if you don't, then just don't go there with this issue. Fuggedaboudit. This is like brain surgery for someone who has just gotten OK at splinter removal. If you don't know how to do this, you're not going to learn reading about it on the Internet. Learning this stuff takes having the balls to screw up a few dozen instruments...and the patience, time, and money to fix them. Sorry, but any pro finisher will agree with me on this.
 
Staining Koa wood with some purple or red clear stain and a highly polished lacquer? That's thirty years in the pen and fifty lashes with the neck of a broken Dolphin. Parole means you have to stay fifty yards away from all lacquers, stains and finishes and you are condemned to own only a Dolphin or an Oscar Schmidt soprano with original strings.
 
Ha Ha Relax guys...a friend offered me some of the leftover from his paint job of his car.while I have no experience
spraying candys, I have an old uke needs refinishing...I was just thinking outside the box of something different,
after I saw some colored ukes....the ukes I was looking at were Kamoa Ukuleles..with the transparent color
finishes....http://kamoaukulelecompany.com/news.php?nid=43 about 4:45 in the video...
 
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I'm with Stan here. I find the Kamoa 700 series to be particularly nice. Ok pink is not my thing but a dark red or transparent black is pretty cool IMHO.
 
The ukes at the 4:45 mark were maple. I've done a lot of transparent finishes and it does take quite a few instruments to get it right. I think I'm on the upside of the learning curve and now am working on technique to spray the tinted coat so it looks consistent and not patchy. The process can be involved. In my woodshop, we used to spray a tinted lacquer on poplar to get a mahogany appearance for a customer but struggled with the variated greens and purples in the poplar and getting them to come out decent. We had a rep come out from the stain company and he instructed us to dye the poplar blue before spraying our tinted lacquer. Who would have thought it but it worked.

I'm not sure how koa would look with that type of finish but I'm not willing to find out. Amber shellac is the most color it gets from me.
 
My ceramics prof preached "truth in materials." Clay should look like clay. But he was pretty amused when I painted the pieces that I couldn't get into the glaze firing. "Ah, room-temperature glazes," he said. But truth in materials stuck with me. Candy colors are a lot of fun over opaque bases. Wood should look like wood. Still, candies over curly maple looks gorgeous. Most pretty wood should be left alone, but every now and then an all-over sunburst will take your breath away, even on koa. Loosen up, guys. But you're also right, its not easy to do.
 
I only have very little candy paint....and I know it's over my head....I'll let my auto body friend paint it...I would probally waste too much adjusting the gun and testing the spray...
hopefully get enough for a coat.....geez..
 
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