That's a great attitude ;-)
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That's a great attitude ;-)
Luckily I think I can salvage it but I did run out of paint. I've noticed these Stew Mac spray cans come out a bit shorter than their recommended spray schedules (or I have a heavy spray hand).
I think im going to sand a few of the unsightly paint globs (there aren't many, I think) and try hitting it with another two coats. What I had in the can accomplished this:
https://i.imgur.com/xwwJe70.jpg
Side view (dog for scale):
https://i.imgur.com/5A0wbIL.jpg
Ha ha, the guitar has a similar colour scheme as the dog!;)
Hey everyone,
I figured I would run a quick question by everyone. Since I had a botch job on my paint, I sanded what I had done on the front to try to eliminate the runs. Was this dumb? I am trying to sand lightly with 400 grit. I ordered and am waiting on more gold paint. With that said - should I sand it totally down and re-vinyl seal it? I am trying to be delicate in sanding lightly, but want to do this right. I am just hoping I can avoid sanding and sealing the whole thing again. Here is what I did to it before asking or researching :-X
edit: for additional context, I wanted to get rid of the small runs the previous paint job had. I scuffed the areas around the runs to try to get the surface more even.
https://i.imgur.com/p5nXvyW.jpg
Hate to bump this for the sake of bumping, but does anyone have any recommendations here? My plan is to gently sand this a little more and respray without vinyl sealer but want to ensure I'm not making a goof. I will repost this question elsewhere if necessary but thought I'd float this question again.Quote:
Originally Posted by LexLuthier
Hi LexLuthier,
I think your plan is reasonable! I would sand gently to get the surface flat, then spray over the top.
Thanks! Appreciate the response (and apologies for pestering the forum here again haha). It seems like it could have been an obvious misstep that would be easy to do and I’m hoping this thing becomes a beloved guitar. You’re awesome (and so is everyone else here)! Crossing my fingers all goes well.
I gently sanded and resprayed. I am so happy that I did. I got rid of the runs and the paint itself pops more than it did before. I forgot to tape up the F holes that started this whole debacle so I am going to spray some black nitro into a tiny cup, tape up the guitar a ton to prevent spills, and gently apply black to the F (diamond) holes with a q tip or something. But for now, I am letting the nitro cure. I am very satisfied with this!
Note: the headstock looks better than these pictures show. The tape residue made it look spotty but its a clean spray (at least I think).
https://i.imgur.com/rWqomKG.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/2a3Vsm8.jpg
Looking good!
That gold is amazing. Your guitar looks awesome!
Wasn't expecting the two tone gold. That is really cool.
cant wait to see it with hardware that gold really comes up nice.
Thanks everyone! Pretty excited about how it is coming along. Tomorrow while the newborn is sleeping I am going to wire the electronics. I am waiting on a custom waterslide for the headstock so I am in a bit of a holding pattern. Can't wait to spray clear on this and get it finalized though!
My next steps:
- put the wiring harness together (two Gibson burstbuckers (BB 1 and 2), some special left-handed CTS 500Ks, orange drop capacitor)
- drop the waterslide on when it arrives
- 10 coats of clear or whatever my rattle cans will accommodate
-cure for two weeks
- install the wiring harness, Gotoh Tune-o-matic bridge and stop piece, nice Grover inlines tuners, bell truss rod cover, strap buttons, black top hat knobs, etc.
My goal is to have this playable by May 10th. We will see if that goes according to plan haha. Thanks again to everybody who has chimed in or given advice!
Thanks! It's actually the same (all pale gold nitro from the same company) so it might be more of a lighting issue, but I did use two different rattle cans of it. I would love for it to look more two toned like the photo though haha.
I have two more coats of clear to go. Pretty excited! That said - my Stewart McDonald spray kit tells me that after ten coats, I should "dry sand" before applying the two final coats. My question, if anyone knows, is: what is that?
From a video I found, it seems that it is just taking 800 grit sanding paper and *gently* sanding the entire body (and neck in my case?) while constantly wiping your paper/guitar to clear dust until it looks smooth and matte.
Is that accurate? Does anyone here skip this step?
I believe my remaining steps would be "level sanding" with dry paper, wiping off, applying two more coats of clear, and then waiting for the 10-14 days to cure. Any insight would be appreciated!
Thanks
I decided against what I was going to do above and wet-sanded the 10 coats of clear with 800 grit pretty briefly. Got it looking mostly matte but there are still some shiny spots. I am happy with the smoothness so I am going to hit it with the final two coats of clear before calling this done.
https://i.imgur.com/qPuHhuO.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/DFPWUIO.jpg
Two unfortunate things - I did not hide the imperfections on the bottom of the body enough. I thought about the water and heat trick, but will be happy with it as is. I am not going to sand it down again to try to hide it with grain filler or anything. I knew about these spots when I first looked at the kit, but thought they would hide a bit more than they did. Still overall very happy with how it looks!
The other unfortunate thing - I cannot spray the final coats today :-(
https://i.imgur.com/d8abVhI.jpg
With that said - I ordered my custom truss rod cover. Can't wait to see it on the guitar. I screwed up my custom watermark so I added a plain branded one I had laying around. Kind of cheesy but I think it looks better than it otherwise would have blank.
I live in a place that rarely rains, so of course it has been raining and snowing nonstop in between spray days. I will follow up once this thing is curing!
It's looking awesome! I love your spray setup. Did you get it finished by your goal date?
Thanks! I am hopefully finishing the wiring today. I tested the electronics before fishing it and there's a buzz so I think I need to troubleshoot the soldering 😬
Your guitar came out absolutely amazing! I hope is sounds great, too!
Update: soooo close. There are some imperfections in the paint (a spot or two where I over-sanded. A spot or two that I used a q tip to touch up some exposed binding) but I am calling that an accidental relic job. Tomorrow I am going to do a setup. I am still waiting on a custom truss rod cover. With that said - I am super happy with it so far. It also has some strings that I need to de-buzz and I need to fine tune the pickup height, but I am incredibly happy with this for my first build:
https://i.imgur.com/Gs3oo6y.jpg
I will follow up again once it's fully set up, fully polished, and the truss rod comes in!
Looks stunning..
Always great to see another lefty in action.
Thanks! Haha, being left handed was my impetus to try to build one. Tired of choosing between like 3 models and 2 colors for each guitar company on the market.
I am not left handed, but its a similar impetus for me. It's a way to get an instrument that just would not otherwise exist...or that I would have had to have made. The two basses I play the most are like that. One is a P bass, but with a jazz profile neck and a super-light paulownia body. The other is an ES style bass, but with a Fender Jazz style neck.
That rocks! I have a J-bass and am obsessed with the neck profile compared to the P bass. I always thought the best of both worlds would be a P bass with J neck. Jealous!
Looking great.
+ similar for me. Also, getting an instrument I can afford!Quote:
Originally Posted by fender3x
1+Quote:
Originally Posted by Trevor Davies
Me too. I love the p-bass sound and simplicity, but my hand loves the J neck. Until this current bass, my favorite neck was on a G&L ASAT. Similar to a Jazz C but with a flatter radius. I have to say that the custom ordered PB J neck feels just a good.Quote:
Originally Posted by LexLuthier
Thanks! I'm really pleased and it sounds great.Quote:
Originally Posted by Trevor Davies
That is awesome. My baby hands need the slimmer, faster necks haha.Quote:
Originally Posted by fender3x
It was a long journey that I procrastinated far too long with - but I present one of my favorite guitars (currently own an american and mexican strat, an epi les paul custom, fender acoustic, ovation from the 70s):
https://i.imgur.com/Zl3gEJb.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/z5ViPKI.jpg
Admittedly, even though I worked hard to get this how I wanted (and there are certainly imperfections!), I am shocked by the playability. This thing feels great. I did not do any work on the fretboard and very tenuously inspected the neck prior to gluing. I thought the action would be stiff and off. I got it feeling great. The frets might get some love in the future but I finally got the neck set where I love. The intonation is almost perfect. I am so happy with this thing.
I think it looks wonderful in person (even knowing where the imperfections are), and I learned a ton of skills transferable to my other guitars. I have to give a shout out to my gently used burstbucker 1 and 2s, left handed CTS pots, nice orange drop caps, etc. But the real reason this thing plays the way it does it because of the community here.
I want to thank everyone who helped (and there are a ton!).
In no particular order: Simon, Trevor Davies, Fender3x, VH2580, ElleBrooke, and heck even Colin2121 - thank you. The words of encouragement and advice were nothing short of amazing and absolutely necessary. I hope I can help someone here some day!
Well done! It does look great! Also, wonderful that it plays well and that you are very happy with it.:)
Looks great. Like a store bought one.
Always a pleasure to see another lefty in action.
You are inspiring me back into action.
It is amazing what putting a guitar together can teach you about getting it to play right. Years ago I bought a cheap Chinese bass (an SX) as a platform for experimenting. When I got my first kit, and used the SX as a test bed for the setup I wanted to do on the kit guitar, figuring that I could not hurt the SX too badly. Not only did I not hurt it, I got the SX playing so well that I have been upgrading it ever since. It now plays and sounds great...and I have further mods in mind ;-) I got advice about every part of the setup here. It's a good formula. Work slowly, get advice, try what you've read about...if it works voila! If not come back for more advice.
I think you also have to credit the folks who developed these guitars. The bridges and truss rods on Fenders and Gibsons are mostly very easy to adjust with very few tools. I often think this was a big part of Leo Fender's genius.
You picked one of the higher degree of difficulty guitars and got a great player that looks awesome. What could be better ;-)
I forgot to thank McCreed! I'm sure I'm forgetting others, too.
But yeah - I learned so much from this and it took the fear out of setting up my other guitars myself. I was always scared off from messing with truss rods especially (not sure why, somebody once told me they are easy to strip) and now I feel like I could marginally tackle nearly and setup or basic repair. This was a lot of fun. might want to strip and refinish my mexican strat and replace the pots for fun next.
That's sort of how I started. I had a bass that was worth too much to mod, but not as good as I wanted it to play. I found a good quality "player" bass that I modded a little, then a cheap bass that I modded a lot. Then a kit to fill a niche. All of which prompted thoughts of "well, what do I really want, and how close can I get to it?" and "I wonder what niches I still have to fill...?" The trick is scratching the itch while not risking divorce ;-)
Haha - yep. I would love to build three more guitars - a Les Paul Junior with a single P-90, a telecaster, and a Tom Morello copycat. Gonna have to balance that with keeping the wife happy lol. She was a saint through this. I have office paws and don't have a lot of handyman knowhow so this took me longer than it should have. Gotta love paternity leave!Quote:
Originally Posted by fender3x
Well done. Looks, awesome. So much to learn fro your build diary
Sent from my NE2211 using Tapatalk
Thanks! It was a lot of fun, and I asked perhaps too many questions, but I am excited to see how yours turns out! I've been following your thread with great interest!