New starter from UK

Hi Everyone

I am a complete beginner in everything - new to Pitbull, new to guitar building kits, even new to forums, so who knows what's going to happen ! So will be looking for help and advice from you all with everything !
Just bought a RCA-4 kit and looking forward to getting started - read the stuff re sanding and sanding and sanding, looking ahead got a quick question, what do you do with the banding once you start with the stain, does it need to be masked or does it clean off afterwards.

Cheers
Alan

firstly welcome to your new obsession!
I'm just doing my first kit with binding, although you can scrape/sand it clean later, it makes for less work later if you mask it.

The conventional wisdom around here (ie Dingobass's way) is to polish the binding first (with 0000 steel wool) so it has no tooth for the stain to get into the binding. It then it usually fairly easy to sand/polish off any stain that gets on the binding.

Hi Alan,

I'm half way through my first kit, and my knowledge of what to do was basically zero when I started. It's been a fun learning experience though, and it's been great to be able to ask questions here and have them answered by so many people.

What I did with the binding was to mask it, but I didn't polish it first as several people recommended. A fair bit of stain got under the masking tape, and looked pretty messy.

I ended up scraping it with a adjustable blade stanley knife, and using the BACK of an x-acto knife blade to scrape the small areas that weren't coming off with the bigger knife. Took lots of patience, but it came out OK. On future builds, I would definitely try something else (like polishing the binding first) to try to avoid the amount of careful fiddly work I ended up having to do with scraping.

Thanks Guys, pretty quick answers there, well impressed with this forum ! Will take your advice when I get there. Another thing, being new to it all, how do you know when you've sanded enough - I am going to be using a stain not a solid colour.

welcome Alan

Hi Alan, also responded on your welcome thread.

With the sanding if your plan is to show off the timber best to start with 80 grit lightly on face and rear going in the direction of the grain just enough to knock any rough machine marks down and to then sand in the direction of the cuts/machine marks on the edges and gradually increase to 120 then 180 which is about when you should have got rid of the machine marks and can then start sanding in the direction of the grain.

Be careful not to go too hard with coarse grits as that can introduce deep marks and scratches. Once it feels pretty smooth all over on 180 suggest a wipe over with a 'just damp' (not wringing wet) rag as this will show up any glue or filler spots plus the wood fibres will stand up ready to be knocked down again when you start with 240 which is where I would recommend you stop if you want a colour stain to really soak in as the higher & finer grade grits will make things end up like glass and prevent stain from penetrating.

If you want a glassy finish that is easy to achieve once all stain and top coats have been fully cured. Best not to get there before all coats have been done as it will be too slippery for subsequent coats to hang on to so to speak.

Brilliant, appreciate the tips as it's all still very new to me.