The Electra Forums

Hi I read somewhere on these forums about the paint of Westone guitars being Toyota car paints, does anyone know the details of gloss(shiny) black paint?

my guitars have a few knocks that go through to the wood and I would like to touch them up.

Cheers

Yes, I've been using Duplicolor auto touch-up paint. Are you talking about black on the headstock and neck, or on the body?

For the former, use Duplicolor generic 'flat black', it's exactly like that weird satin black that polishes under your hands over time.

For the latter, use generic gloss black, it's pretty close, and then as with any color body paint, I'd suggest drop filling with super glue- the bodies pretty much had a top clear coat, though it's not quite apparent, you see it in heavy dings where the color & clear layers flake apart slightly. The super glue will meld with the clear body finish, then you sand it out with 800, 1000, and 2000 grit sandpaper and then rub it out to a shine with 3M auto hand rubbing compound.

By 85-86 the Westone body colors (at least for black and white, and supposedly others) were an aircraft epoxy, and so all bets are off for sure matches, but I bet the same approach would work.