hand painting w/ brush and acrylic paint

Seiche · Post by **Seiche** » 10 Jan 2012, 11:20

hey guys,

today i started finishing my first box because i got tired of having to buy boring solid-colored boxes that are pricey and the all aluminum look gets old pretty quickly.
I don't have any experience and most guys spraypaint their enclosures, but as I live in a flat without a balcony i don't really have that option here. So i tried handpainting the enclosure with a brush with what I have at hand, which is acrylic hobby paint.
I sanded the box and then applied the paint with a brush without a basecoat. Now the paint streaked a bunch, which at first i didn't like but then i tried to work with it and get a pattern that might look cool. After doing the box and letting it dry, i applied a clearcoat of acrylic hobby paint with the brush. Then another. It looks better than expected (to me) but before I go on I have some questions.

- Should I (wet-)sand the clearcoat before applying more of them? How fine should the sandpaper be for that?
- I there any disadvantage to doing it this way? Will the finish crack easily or flake?
- I wanted to go for a BJF kinda look (i'm doing a deep blue delay), so the labeling of the knobs etc would be handwritten. Should i use a brush or a marker for that?
- how would one go about getting a solid coloring on there that is covering? How about a transparent but solid color?

Here's what I got so far (go easy on me)

: I went with wavy because the name "deep blue delay" reminds me of water and waves

: I like that the aluminium shines through which gives kind of a metallic, shiny look

Seiche · Post by **Seiche** » 11 Jan 2012, 23:33

i guess i will try using a basecoat next time and thin the acrylic with water (i read that's possible) to get thinner layers of paint.

I've been looking at some BJFe pedals to get a better idea of the font and style and the old ones look much more shabby than the Bearfoots, which i prefer the look of by a long shot. I heard Donner made a special font that he screenprints the pedals with to make it consistent and whatnot.

Anyway, I was thinking what fon color would go with the color of the box? I reckon black or white, with white being what i will probably use. I would drill, paint and then apply another 2-3 clear coats and call it a day.

decora · Post by **decora** » 18 Jan 2012, 07:29

looks cool and maybe faster than spraypaint if you have a bunch of boxes to finish at once. will give a try, thanks for the idea!

Seiche · Post by **Seiche** » 18 Jan 2012, 07:39

decora wrote:looks cool and maybe faster than spraypaint if you have a bunch of boxes to finish at once. will give a try, thanks for the idea!

thanks for you input. obviously this is a work in progress.

i painted a box with basecoat underneath yesterday. looks pretty cool, although it was a little difficult because I had drilled the holes before and they would fill with paint. I'll try to post some pictures later today, the basecoat makes it look way neater. also i used two coats of paint.

Seiche · Post by **Seiche** » 23 Jan 2012, 10:54

: dpd_clone.jpg (48.9 KiB) Viewed 2410 times

: dpd_clone2.jpg (40.17 KiB) Viewed 2410 times

: gold_enclosure.jpg (34.41 KiB) Viewed 2410 times

: gold_enclosure2.jpg (37.22 KiB) Viewed 2410 times

BaklavaMetal · Post by **BaklavaMetal** » 31 Jan 2012, 18:11

color looks great!
don't like the letters though. u used brush or marker? by looking at it i would say brush.
but coloring is great, will steal

cheers!

Seiche · Post by **Seiche** » 31 Jan 2012, 23:05

BaklavaMetal wrote:color looks great!
don't like the letters though. u used brush or marker? by looking at it i would say brush.
but coloring is great, will steal

cheers!

yeah i used a really small, fine brush. tried to go for a BJFe look on the lettering, since it's a Björn Juhl design, kind of an hommage i guess. I like it though.

skylark44 · Post by **skylark44** » 01 Feb 2012, 00:41

I actually like it Seiche...the different swirls do remind me of waves. Try using a combination of a base color, and silver...that would make the patern stand out even more

. (I like to use automotive spray-paints, because they come in really cool & unusual colors, especially the Import colors

). Nice job, keep it up!

decora · Post by **decora** » 01 Feb 2012, 15:20

Turned out good! White lettering on blue works. How about using stencil next time for lettering? ...tedious though.

second box look cool too. is that gold acrylic?

Seiche · Post by **Seiche** » 01 Feb 2012, 15:58

decora wrote:Turned out good! White lettering on blue works. How about using stencil next time for lettering? ...tedious though.

second box look cool too. is that gold acrylic?

I have thought about stencils, but they are tedious and hard to align straight, etc. I think I will go with decals for the lettering in the future.

yes, the second box is finished in gold acrylic.

: JBFF.jpg (20.22 KiB) Viewed 2349 times