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I actually had a friends mom paint an old chinese Strat.  Came out great, in fact I would have never noticed the error she made unless she pointed it out (the color of the pick-ups was painted in the wrong order, but only because they were re-installed in the wrong order).  

MKR,

She did great work I honestly have no earthly idea what she did or used.  I guess if you have a “Sonic Blue” strat, or around that color, then you would not necessarily have to sand it because George left the back of his unpainted, so my guess is he did not sand it.  It was 80 dollars for all of it I believe, and I know she had to take it apart because of the intricacy of it all.  

I could ask about it for you, and see what she says? 

MKR said
That’s great linkjws.

So i have a couple of specific questions i’d like for you to help me out with.

1. what paints did you/friend’s mum use? I know George used Day glo paints. I have also heard good things about testor/tamiya paints (the ones people use for model cars and such).

2. How much prep work did it involve? as in taking guitar apart/sanding/etc. I would think that george himself didn’t do that much. I’d probably take off my pickguard, but that would be about it unless you would say otherwise.

3. what kind of finishing laquer/varnish was applied at the end. brand name or something specific would be useful.

Hey MKR sorry it took so long but I just got ahold of my friends mom.  She finished up another guitar for me and I had the chance to ask her about a few things that I remembered.  Unfortunately she doesn’t remember a lot of details but this is what I got from her.

1) She was not sure on the brand anymore, but she said she used acrylic paints.  They stick the best and are very vibrant.  

2) She had a friend disassemble the guitar completely.  She then sanded it down by hand (because the guitar was not the base color of George’.  It was some weird green color).  After that, she applied Kilz brand primer. She said that the paint sticks to this much better than the bare wood.  To get a more true result, she painted the whole body of the guitar a shade of blue close to the “Sonic Blue” that was on George’s and John’s strat.  She believes she worked from the inside out, but she did attach the pick guard so she had a guide as to where everything needed to be.  She also didn’t paint over layers.  My guess is so that the yellow and lighter colors remain unmixed and therefore more vibrant.

3) After everything was done, she applied a clear coat of laquer.  She isn’t sure what brand, but she did say it was a spray on.  

I hope all of that helped you in some way MKR.  She said she would love to do another, but knows you probably want to do this yourself.  She said overall its a good project, the biggest trick is getting all those lines to match, and making sure the shades are correct.  Let me know if you need anything else and I’ll try to get more answers.