Renaissance-style Guitar Paint Job

[Queeb Salaron]

Following a thought from this thread, I've gotten an amazing idea that I need help sorting out.

Renaissance artists apparently mixed tiny fragments of glass with their paints to make the colors appear to glow. I was thinking that if this technique were replicated in the painting of other things, namely guitar bodies, what the effects might be.

I'm hung up on the logistics, though. I think ground glass would do a number on the inner workings of an airbrush, so I might have to brush it on. The trick with that would be getting the coating to be even.

Another thought just occurred to me: What if I were to, say, stain the body, and then mix the glass fragments with a clear laquer? Would it have the same effect, do you think?

[aerius]

I know they use mica, pearl, metallic chips, and other shiny stuff in fancier automotive paints to make it shine, sparkle, give it more depth, and colour shift among other things. They spray it on with airbrushes, at least that's what all those custom car shows tell me so I'd think it doesn't kill the airbrush outright, though it's probably not too good in the long run. I think that would be the way to go if you're painting a guitar.

[Queeb Salaron]

Yeah, the thing is I only have one airbrush, and I'm not about to scratch it all up for one paint job. Besides, it's not exactly high-quality. It can't be as high-volume as the brushes they use for cars.

And you'd be surprised how little damage things like pearl, mica and metalflake do to airbrushes. They're designed to be non-abrasive so that they don't damage the body of the car. I don't think there's any way to make glass as unabrasive, though if you have any ideas, I'm open to them.