Need big time help

Hi all. I’m new to the forum and could really use some help. I have a guitar that’s basically spray painted wood. I don’t know the exact paint that was used but it had a slight sheen to it. Wouldn’t say it was finished though.

The problem is that it’s a little neon red, rather than the deeper, darker red I was hoping for. I just wanted to darken the hue of the color. Almost like adding some black to a can of paint. You’ll see that the guitar has stripes on it. So I don’t want to lose the stripes in this either. I don’t mind if they get a little darker, but it’s the red that I was hoping to get darker.

Here’s what I have tried: shoe polish (didn’t stay), oil based wood stain (didn’t really work or adhere), and tonight I tried minwax water based woodsheen (left it looking a little strange). I attached a pic.Looks like someone shat on it.

My question is this: is there any trick or way to darken a smooth, painted surface? It doesn’t matter if it leaves a sheen or not. I would just sand or steel wool the final product any way. But I’m running out of chances to get this right before the paint gets ruined altogether.

What should I do? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks,
Pete

last thing

I can't or won't repaint it. So that answer, although probably the best answer, isn't an option.:((

If you want to get anywhere with it you will.

My take on it is this. It seems that you have either some emotional attachment to the finish that is currently on there, or there is a value reason why it shouldn't be removed (original finish on a vintage instrument for example). If there is a retained value reason not to remove the finish, then any alteration to it will be just as bad (in fact, what you have already done will have damaged the value). If the reason you don't want to remove the old finish is simply one of emotional attachment to the old finish (which is a perfectly valid reason), then you may to work out whether the attachment to the old finish, or wanting a slightly different hue is more important.

What I would do if I wanted to darken the red slightly, is I would first of all carefully mask off the bits that I didn't want to change. Then, I would spray on a layer of clear finish, slightly tinted with a dark dye to make it very translucent grey (imagine looking like a very slightly tinted window). You would want to test it first - get some timber and paint it a bright red to get as close a match to the guitar as possible, and then test out some translucent black finish and see how much tint you need to add. 2 or 3 coats of a light colour may be better than one coat of darker tint. Try a dark red as well - that may be better than grey/black.

Whatever you do, test it first on some scrap. Once you work out the best way, then apply a small bit on an out of the way place of the guitar (you may find some finish inside the neck pocket of pickup routs - that's where I'd try first.) because you never know how the different chemicals may react until you try it.

Thank you for this response . I have no attachments to the finish so I would like to try the dye. What kind of dye do I use? I have some clear nitro lacquer.

Also I dont have equipme.t to mix clear and then spray. Can you buy tinted finish or lacquer?

Stewmac have tints that can be mixed with clear finish. They also sell spray cans of translucent colours. No guarantee that the spray cans are the right colour or thickness for you though. Absolutely you will need to make up a test board first though and test out what you plan to do to make sure it does what you want.

Good luck

Stop mucking around and just refinish it. It'll be less effort in the long run.

What did you end up doing?

Remember too that changing the finish will change the tone somewhat.