How to: Swirl guitar finish with Magic Marble paints
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- Опубліковано 23 жов 2017
- Swirling a stratocaster-shaped guitar with Magic Marble paints in black/blue/silver. Clearcoated with 2k automotive clear. I'm showing the process and giving some tips on how to get it right.
/ traqguitars - Навчання та стиль
Thanks ! That's the best video on hydrodipping a guitar that I've seen. Beautiful job, well done !
Very well done!! You did a great job!
The body of the guitar looks so amazing!
Instablaster
This video is great. It's really simple and helpful. I did a swirl on my wah pedal by following the steps in this video and it turned out great!
awesome, happy to hear that! :D
Awesome video. You said all the appropriate tips for people new to this painting technique. I recently started painting guitars with the same exact paint/method. If you do this the right way, including the preparation steps, the finish, the clear coat, the buffing...you can put some masterpieces out there. Very exciting
Thanks! It is quite rewarding when you manage to pull it off, isn't in? Good luck!
Neck through! How difficult it's been. Beautiful!
4:33 Excalibur! Love the finish, wish i had a bunch of old guitars to try this
Very helpful hints and your design is killer ! Thank you !
Thanks for this video, very helpful! Also the guitar looked awesome 👍
man, super cool video
the camera at the bottom of the container was gold!
Nice upload!!! An cute assistant, guitar turned out beautiful👍😁
thanks ;)
Thank you for the advice to clear the paint when you pull it out.
it helps if you don't want a double swirl :)
Thank you! So far this is the only video I could find that mentioned the finish
Yea, I also had a hard time finding info about finish compatibility - that's why I had to experiment myself. Figured I'd share :)
@@TraqGuitars I was thinking about using 2 part epoxy. What say you.. Great job
@@jmack619 I use epoxy sometimes as a pore filler. Haven't found/tried anything that you could use as an actual finish. Do you have something specific in mind?
Radically well done!!! Thanks for the details!!!
I thinks this is the best video that i've found so fat about the topic. All of them are just people dipping the guitar in and not a single explanation of what is happening or what possible problems you may face during the process. Well done and thank you!
thanks man, it was exactly my intention to share the lessons I learned after a few (mostly failed) attempts :)
Excellent Job, is really amazing to see your work, that make us so happy as a musician. In the future i will build my guitar of dream with colors special and desing. I already know about you. Regards
Looks fantastic!
Great job man that guitar looks hot
That looks so awesome
By far the best video on swirl painting a guitar! You've been an enormous help in my swirl-endeavours. Thanks a lot! But I do have one question left unanswered: Did you just clear coat over the magic marble paint without sanding? I always sanded through the magic marble paint in no time on my test dummies. But I'm afraid that without sanding, my 2k clear coat won't stick. Can you advise me there? Thx a lot
Piotr Traczyk okay, I'll try it that way. Thanks a lot for your advise!
You'd achieved such a beautiful result with that mix of colors. Do you have any video playing this guitar?
thanks! here's a demo video that I did: ua-cam.com/video/qdi1f9qZTh4/v-deo.html I play it on a few other videos on the channel too ;)
Thanks man!! Nice swirl and video!!
Wonderfull job man!!! 😮 Have you a type if paint and name? Thanks
I bought some magic marble from the fishing rod place called mud hole about 2 months ago I really want to try this but I need a large (wide) container. You should try using Simtec polyester clear of that instead of a clear urethane...the polyester dries 90% the hardness of glass. also it sands and buffs out like a mirror!(use all the grits from 400 to 3000. you can skip a few like I always do) Most of the pro guitar companies use this. They also make a sealer(sanding sealer they call it) in different shades from clear to gray. One of the tricks is using a HVLP gun with a 2.0 tip or a little larger and mixing the hardener in the correct ratio(all of which and can be found on there site) but the down side is you only have about 25 mins to spray your first few coats otherwise it will harden in the gun..(I wrecked a nice devilbiss gravity feed the first time) so just get a cheap hvlp from tcp global its around 25-35.00 www.simteccoatings.com/Productlist.ivnu (get the 27x6 A18 if you do it) also at the bottom of the page is the MEKP Catalyst Rate Chart to mix up small amounts
I don't have equipment or place to spray with guns at the moment, so I'm stuck with whatever I can brush or spray-can on. I did a 2k finish once in the past (Dupont clear I think), indeed it's super hard and easy to sand flat and buff. I'll keep your suggestions in mind though in case I'm able to switch to spray gun at some point. Thanks!!
Can I ask if you used anything to "thicken" the water so the paint floats at the top? I was excited to try trhis process and when I filled a garbage can with water and was adding the paint to the water, it didn't float. There is the Magic Medium for thickening the water but according to the directions I would need to add a couple pounds of the stuff.
Fabulous!! I see having a go in my future!
Very cool, I’d like to try this with drum shells
This is awesome!!! Great video too.
Jus got a start kit for Christmas, gonna give this style a shot. Great video, just a few questions. What kind of primer did you use on the guitar and did you sand the acryllic paint at all or just the clear coat? Overall great video and awesome paint job.
thanks! the primer was standard automotive primer from a home improvement store. I did sand that, but then no sanding of the color coat and no sanding of the swirl - only level sanding of the clearcoat layers. I might have scuffed some spots lightly before the clear, the swirl paint leaves quite a bit of texture behind, but on the other hand it's super-thin and you'll go through almost immediately if you touch it with sandpaper..
Cool. I may try that on one of my guitars...maybe.
Awesome color choices
thanks :) It took me a while to decide on the colors, but I'm very happy with the end result
Such a helpful video! Thank you
I'm using Magic Marble and getting bubbles in the paint after, the droplets left on the guitar seem to cause it. Do you blow off all the water with the dryer? Have you ever had these droplets bubble up the paint?
Thank you for this informative video! Gonna try this next week :) one question though: Would I have to sand the guitar first or coat it in any way before dipping it into the water? Or can I just dip it in with the original finish my guitar has?
That depends a bit on what kind of finish is there now. Remember that the swirl can be a little transparent in places - that's why I used silver as a base here, because it works with the other colors. (no sanding after the color coat and before dipping). If swirling over an existing finish I'd probably sand the finish a little to have the swirl paint adhere better - not trying to sand it off, but just to make the original clearcoat matte. Haven't tried doing it like this myself though.. :)
Great video
Very good and informative video, was the temperatura of the water important?
Thanks! Looks like it wasn't terribly important, I didn't do any tricks to get a particular temperature. Except pouring cold water IIRC. I think any reasonable "room temperature" should work fine. Might influence the speed at which you have to work a little.
Is the water temperature key? I am wondering if I have the water too hot? I noticed my brand new marbling
paint was happy to sink!!!!
Thanks for uploading this video. I have been having trouble with the paint drying as you described. Any other advice on extending cure time?
not really .. things I found important are 1. use fresh paints and 2. go fast :) You might have some luck experimenting with temperature and humidity, but I haven't done any tests that would allow me to say what is better. Logically colder water/colder temperature should help ...
Absolutely awsome. 👍🏻
Excellent video and perfect result. I’ve tried with enamel paint cause we cannot get hold of marble paint over here. The problem I faced with is the paint turned into thin film on the surface. Do you know why and how to avoid that? May be you’ve have some infos, can you recommend some tips, please?
thanks :) I have zero experience with enamels unfortunately. Did you use borax? That's the first thing that I heard needs to be done, I guess to alter the surface tension of water. If you have done that then I you can probably try playing around with paint quantity and water surface size. Also not all enamels are created equal I imagine ..
yeah, I used borax also. may be I've just to play around like you say. thanks anyway, cheers.
I wanna do it with the "Nevermind" Blue and gray colors, similar to this one
Hey bro are you using oil base paint or water base please let me know thanks
Very nice! Thanks for sharing.
Wow, great job
That is just exquisite!!!
What was your water temperature for the dipping process?
Nice job giving us the underwater view. Very cool.
had a gopro laying around and thought .. why not try a different camera angle? :)
Thats pretty damn cool
What type of paint is magic marble paint? is it enamel, is it acrylic? i can't see on their website.
Going to give this a go.
Looks awesome
is this water heated or cold?
Hola cuál sería el secreto para poder hacer ese tipo de trabajo? Probé con pintura acrílica, el agua a cierta temperatura. Y nunca queda así la pintura. Se va al fondo. Se usa alguna en especial?
interesting what you said about using old paint. i think thats what they sell in my country because even the bottles look different and mine seem to dry as soon as they hit the water, wasted about $100 on paints so far because its expensive too a few were even dried out when they got to me. so thinking that must be it. tried putting them in the fridge and water from the fridge and even doing something small is impossible. might have to try the borax/enamel method but that looks easier and its a nice even swirl.wish i could my paint to flow like that.
I never tried the borax method, but people do get very good results with it. If even small pieces are impossible to do then it's definitely something with the paint. It sometimes dries a bit fast, but for ~smartphone-sized objects there shouldn't be any issue at all.
I clicked this because you had your lady holding an electric hair dryer over the water.
not really dangerous unless your standing in the water. :D
Not really dangerous even if you are standing in the water either....
@@holleyciggy That would be some serious multitasking!! Dangerous in Salt water !
Very nice!
cool info...thnx for sharing......so does the water damage the guitar/wood... like as swelling or the neck bending later....?
it's fine, though there is an important detail here. Basically, it's not like the guitar stays submerged for a long time, so doesn't really get wet. The body had primer on it and I think the neck had something too, so they were both essentially waterproof. BUT. You have to watch any holes - the water will get in there, stay there and swell the wood. I held off drilling most holes until after the swirl job (pickguard screws, strap buttons etc). The only thing I drilled earlier was the bridge holes - those I plugged, I think with wax, to keep them sealed. I think I forgot to mention all this in the video :/
Do u need a heater? I have seen videos that do both. Guitar looks sick!!!!!! I want to do this to my Ibanez!
hmm a heater to heat up what? the water? I had everything at room temperature all the time, no need for extra heat. Give it a try, it's great fun!
The bottle of paint used seemed to be an issue with them pouring out so slowly. Any remedy to this or is it not really a big issue? Would putting the paint into a condiment bottle,like a catsup or mustard container resolve this issue? Beauty supply stores have even smaller bottles with small tips on them that may work for a better or easier pour of the paint onto the water surface. If time is critical, then a slow pour from the bottles seems like would be a real handicap. Thanks for posting the video,. It is super interesting to view. I would have thought that you would have made some type of holder that can be attached to the guitar body so that you didn't have to coat the fretboard, as well when using it to hold onto the guitar as you dip it. A typical guitar body is actually fairly heavy to hold onto with just the neck as the source of a handle, I bet.
thanks for the comments. I was too lazy to fumble with replacing the stock bottles, it wasn't too bad with them, though as you say, the flow could probably be optimized. As for the guitar, the neck here is glued to (actually - into) the body, so dipping the neck was the only way to go. With a bolt-on guitar I'd indeed screw a piece of wood in place of the neck and use that as a holder. Funnily enough, I'd say not the weight of the guitar body was an issue, but rather the buoyant force that was trying to push it out of the water when submerged :)
How much paint did you use
Did you have to prime the guitar first? Any kind of wood primer? Looks great!
yea, in general it works best if you have a solid color base (primer -> sand flat -> shoot color -> swirl) because: 1. the swirl will not always cover 100% so you could have some wood showing through and 2. if the surface is not perfectly flat you'll run into issues when trying to level and polish the subsequent clearcoat
Nice finish! How much/many bottles of paint did you end up using? I believe those are 20 ml bottles?
yes, they're 20ml. I think one would be enough for the whole guitar, except you need a few colors :) in other words - if you're getting several colors, one bottle of each will be enough for sure.
I'm trying this but whenever I do, some of the paint doesn't stick and the primer is visible. Am I not using enough paint?
Well I watched this video and enjoyed it, your approach to talking how you did it worked for me, it was cool. But the thing is its interesting to me because I am a drummer and have been for a ton of years, don't ask how old I am, lol okay 68, but what really also caught my attention was you actually play guitar and it seems were in the same boat kinda, I paint drums and guitars as well but never dipped like you did, which was cool, but I clicked on the other video I watched with the Brian May lead etc and really like that as well, lol so I guess this drummer will subscribe so I can see you do more it was very cool. So thanks and have a good one, maybe we should jam sometime, lol later.
thanks man, I've been playing long before I got into building actually :) appreciate the kind words. rock on! \m/
Hello, what kind of paint is that?
Świetne video! Przymierzam się do "marmurkowania" od dłuższego czasu, ale po tym filmie zrobię to pojutrze :)
Pozdrawiam!
dzięki! do dzieła! :D
I want to hydro dip my Ibanez Jem. The colors I want to use is blue, white and black. The guitar is white. I want the base color to be white. Should I sand guitar with 220 sandpaper then primer guitar white then hydro dip with the magic marble paint. BTW. Your guitar hydro dip is the best one I’ve seen so far!!!
thanks! You have a few options for the JEM - Ideally you should probably try to get rid of the factory paint, but that can be a PITA, they're usually very hard. You'd need a heat gun and/or some chemicals. On the other hand I wouldn't be surprised if just sanding the clearcoat evenly (220 should be fine) would get the MM paints to stick. But your idea is probably the best compromise - sand the clear, shoot white primer over that, and swirl.
Cool video and good job. And what kind of varnish should be used to cover such paints?
It depends on the chemical compatilibity of the varnish with the swirl paints. For example when I tried nitro I got some crackling, but nitro over a "blocking coat" of shellac worked. I'm afraid the only good answer I have is "test on a scrap piece of wood"..
@@TraqGuitars thanks
Love it!
What paint did you use for the chrome color? I really want to make sure the paints are compatible with that so I don't get any bad results. Thanks!
I haven't really had problems with putting Magic Marble over stuff. Here the silver is typical hardware store acrylic automotive paint. Compatibility can be an issue once you go to covering the swirl with clearcoat. You definitely need to do some tests on scrap for that
1:12...reminds me of a scene from Breaking Bad. Lol. Very nice. Thank you for sharing.
lol that's exactly what I was thinking
great work !!! I'm a luthier and I try to swirl or marbeling on guitars, I bought the pebeo marbeling paints, and I got a formula ready for the paints to float easily, but when I apply the paint or background on the guitar and do the dip, the designs run and don't stick to the piece ! I've been trying for almost a year, please what base paint should I use to make the swirl stick to the guitar? thank you very much
hmm that's odd actually, I never had the paint run, even when testing on bare wood or plastic. They tend to stick very well to most surfaces. I do use a solid color primer to have a perfectly flat surface, I use acrylic (I think) automotive primers from the supermarket, nothing fancy. Have you tested on things like (clean) plastic? If it doesn't stick, I'd think there's something wrong with the paint that you're using..
I'm so hypper , cuz this guy is way to chill
Que tinta vc usa para fazer essa pintura? ?
Great vid - did you use borax in the water for this? Nearly all of the otherones I have seen add borax for the surface tension.
thanks :) you don't need borax with magic marble paints. A lot of people use enamels and in that case - yes, you need to add borax.
Did u use borax, also what was water temp.
When you say you put on a coat of shellac did you brush or spray that on and what product did you use..
I wasn't a pre-made shellac, I dissolved shellac flakes in alcohol myself (bough them from some luthier supply online shop). I sprayed it using a can that I can fill with liquid then compress the air using a car/bike pump. This wasn't the best solution since the atomization was poor and I got crazy orange peel in the shellac layer that I then had to work around ... Maybe a preval sprayer would have worked better
Type of paint and primer do you use thanks
Love the vid
I used automotive aerosol paint (I presume acrylic) for both primer and color underneath the swirl
Brilliant.
It's a wonderful job ! I'll do it on me Telecaster Thinline. However, what kind of clearcoat did you use: nitrocellulose or polyuréthane ?
Thanks !
thanks :) if it's a thinline with an f-hole I'd be careful, the water is going to flow into the chamber, potentially creating a mess. Concerning clearcoat - my experiments show that nitro reacts with the magic marble paints in some way. Can dissolve or crackle. I used nitro once but whith a barrier coat of shellac in between. Here I used 2k clear from a spray can, that's actually acrylic. Polyurethane should also work but I'd test on a small scrap piece first.
Thanks a lot. I will then build a "simple" Telecaster rather than a Thinline. I love this swirl effect above all. Concerning the clearcoat, i'll try the poly. I'll tell you if it worked ! A last question: when you take the guitar out of the water, did you have bubbles on it ? If it was the case, what did you do to remove them ?
great, do let me know how it turned out! Re bubbles - if the paint is fresh there is little to no bubbles or the paint gunking-up in places. I don't think I had any, when it dries it anyhow flattens out mostly. A word of warning however - you'll have to have quite a bit of build with the clearcoat because "flattens out" doesn't really mean clearcoat-quality flat. When you go to levelling the clearcoat you'll see a lot of unevenness from the texture in the swirl. I'd probably level one of the coats completely, sanding through in the high spots, such that the subsequent coats go on a really flat surface. It will be up to you to play around with this :)
So, was painting the guitar silver before you dipped it necessary, or could you dip it without priming it?
I would at least prime it and sand the primer level. Here I also sprayed a coat of silver on (the primer was grey), the reason being that Magic Marble paints don't give me 100% opaque coverage. And since silver is part of the swirl, if some of the paints fade out to silver it doesn't look bad. As a bonus, the slightly-translucent blue becomes blue metallic :)
Hello, i wanted to ask if you used any wood primer before painting this ?
yes, you need some sort of level surface, in the past I just used gray (automotive acrylic or nitro) primer that I sanded around P600, this time I shot a base coat of silver and put the swirl on top of that (no sanding of the silver!)
Very very nice
Excellent 👍
So do you seal the cavities and all the holes in the guitar prior or do you just let it get waterlogged
good point. I try to seal what I can, the cavities are painted with primer and I try to make a little holes in the guitar as possible before dipping. Those that I do make I try to seal with wax to keep water from going in
I tried My first Hydro dip on old Peavey Foundation Bass. Gray base coat. Used Majic Marble paints and, well needless to say, Back to the drawing board. Didn't get full coverage and the magic marble bubbled. Any suggestions? Did bubbling occur due to water temp? Rain water,... should not have been a bigg issue.
hmm the paint does create a slightly uneven surface sometimes, especially if it's a bit old. But I don't think I've ever seen something I'd call "bubbles". They formed already on the water surface? I don't expect any chemical incompatibility at this stage, this can be a pain when clearcoating (some lacquers cause the magic marble to wrinkle and crack), but not during the dipping
Fantastic!!!
Do you have to use an abrasive on the swirl before clear coating so it will adhere or can you spray clear straight onto the swirl?
I had zero problems getting the clear to adhere, the only thing is the swirl sometimes has some texture and you have to somehow get rid of it for the clear coat to be flat. The swirl layer is super thin though, touching that with any abrasive is risking sand-through. So the best way I found is to first shoot just a little clear, level that (possibly going through to the color in places) and then build the clearcoat. But I can't say I have a good process for clearcoating down.
Is it possible to use acrylic paint to achieve the same pattern effects?
Yes - the "other" method of doing this (that I know of) involves altering the surface tension of the water using borax and painting with acrylic enamels. I haven't tried that myself.
also is there any other prperation used for this metod? such as borax etc?
nope, with magic marble paints you don't need borax, this is cold water straight from the tap
Did you get the multi-scale bolt on neck off of another guitar, or does someone sell them aftermarket?
the neck doesn't bolt on.. look closely :) it's a neck-though (almost). I didn't buy the neck, I built it. You can see pictures from the build on my facebook page for example :) I don't think I saw multiscale necks being offered standalone for sale..
You said these colors aren’t completely opaque but I’m wanting a black/pink swirl. should I primer black? I thought white so that the pink would be more vibrant but I don’t want to see any of the white really with the end result.
different colors cover differently, I don't think I ever tried pink. In general the colors will just slowly fade, so the pink might grow whiter and the black can go to light gray.. Gray primer might be a good compromise actually. It does depend on your technique, you might end up getting perfect coverage, I got a pretty good result with the strat, in the past I had to dip twice from both sides... Anyway, the standard advice works: prime something smaller and dip that and see what comes out :)
What kind of primer did you use? I've tried doing this a few times now using the magic marble paints and it comes out all smudgy and looks like total crap. I'm thinking maybe its the type of primer I used?
I used standard automotive acrylics from the hardware store. I tried gray primer, then I decided silver will form a better base so I shot silver over the primer and dipped that (that's what you see in the vid). Have you tried for example clean plastic? That should work perfectly fine. I did some experiments with aerosol caps, plastic spoons and other small items before starting with whole guitars
HY. Great job! could I ask what is in the water? tap water, nommineral water? any extra add. For the colors, do you suggest a special kind of color (resin, car color ).. any special company you trust in to use their range of colors? thanx a lot.
I used the "magic marble" brand paints - those work with ordinary tap water :)
thanx a lot. I will try!
Can we use marbu marbel paint. Magic isn't available in my country.
I never tried buy if I were you I'd buy some Marabu and check. I suspect it's the same thing or very similar
Hi, first thing thank you so much for the video! I tried to do it myself at home but without success ... The colors did not look over the water properly ... (I used: Americana Gloss Enamels Calypso Blue) Did you use anything in the water or the colors are not good?
Hey! If you use enamels you need to add borax to the water. Or so I've heard - I never tried that method myself. But they won't work with just water. Magic marbles do, but that's a different kind of paint from enamel.
@@traqq tnx bro 🤙
What product do you put in the water so the paint doesn't mix?
with these "magic marble" paints you don't need to add anything. They work with ordinary tap water
awesome video!!! how long did you let it dry before doing something?
thanks! I think I left it alone for 3 days or so, to be on the safe side. The swirl paint is touch-dry after an hour from what I recall.
awesome going to give it a try very very soon. bought the paint and all now i just need to prepare the guitar. i'm advised to keep on the orginal coating and such as the marple magic sticks to everything :)
It should stick .. some light sanding of the existing coat wouldn't probably hurt, but you might be able to dip the body as-is. No experience with that though. Good luck!
@Traq Guitars, a nie mogliscie zrownoleglic jeszcze x2 :D? W sensie lewa i prawa? (chyba ze prawa trzymales kamere :D ?)
teoretycznie można by ale aż tak się nie spieszyliśmy :) tak trudniej by było celować i zmieniać kolory
Awesome video!
I have done the same method but have noticed white dots appearing on my object as it’s drying (I’m hand drying it in my room) any advice on how to prevent this?
hmm, white dots? what's causing them? are they holes in the paint (that would suggest the body is contaminated with some oils or silicone) or something else? Clumps of paint? (that can happen) Do you dry it with something or just hang to dry? I just used the hairdryer to get the water off and then let it air dry for a few days...
i did the scratch plate off the back of my guitar so maybe it was dirty? i primed it without cleaning it before hand. and i meant "hang drying it in my room" lol. and yes i will use the hair dryer to get the water off sooner next time! thank you for your advice, apologies if i message you for help alot haha you are clearly a pro at this!
I'm not really pro, just tried a few times :) but do ask if you have more questions. I'm guessing it might have been contamination in your case. For a small scratchplate I'd just redo it, it's not much of a pain (redoing a whole gtr body IS :P) and you gain experience that way
messaged your traq fb page :)
I have experimented with this with good and bad results. Do you have recommendations for water temp/air temp/humidity?
cold water
Water needs to b 80 degrees
Qual ė a tinta que você utiliza? Pode me informar onde comprar ? Eu sou do Brasil, sou Luthier meu nome é Robson Mello.
Agradeço se puder me ajudar, obrigado.
Oi. Tentando google translate para responder em português :) A pintura chama-se "Magic Marble". Não tenho certeza se está disponível no Brasil, mas deveria ser, em lojas de artigos de arte ou similares .. boa sorte!