sounds like a plan Rob. Thanks for the tips on the Youtube searches.
Love how you are the only forumite who calls us by our real name !
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sounds like a plan Rob. Thanks for the tips on the Youtube searches.
Love how you are the only forumite who calls us by our real name !
Lol, I'm an old guy Warren. I don't use Facebook, Twitter, Instagrams etc, and prefer to use real names where I can.
Yeah I know, I'm a fossil. ;P
ROB
all good Rob, I'm a massive fan of nicknames and rarely call my mates by their christian names
Look forward to seeing how the sanding of the epoxy goes - you are going to have forearms like Popeye all the sanding you have already done on the fingerboard !
By the way Rob, think I've asked you in the past, please tell us one of your nicknames ? haha surely you have a few !
Still got the girlie arms mate. lol.
But I am having a bit of trouble with my iPhone. I swear this is true. After all this hand sanding my thumb is starting to get a wee bit tender and more often than not my phone will refuse to recognize my thumb print as a pass key. I'm only about half way through sanding the FB and I still have several hours to spend on the rest of the neck and the bass body. By the time I'm finished I will need the FBI to break into my phone. :D
The one nick that I used to use from ages ago is Westie07.
Westie - because my little care is a Westfield
07 - because it is a replica of a Lotus Super 7
Darn, now my secret is out.
rob
cheers for letting the cat out of the bag Westie !
looks similar to Dave Kings car he races,
You will get there with the sanding mate, you have built what at least a dozen axes with no power tools and one a scratchy !
Do you actually know any of our real names, Woks? :pQuote:
Originally Posted by wokkaboy
Hey DB, I do know most people's real names but much prefer nick names are more personal with your mates.
Some of my old friends didn't know my real name for a couple of years, just knew me as Wokka haha
Looks great Rob and thanks for the tutorial
Thanks Stan, and no probs. I hope that someone will learn from my mistakes.
As the old saying goes "learn from other peoples mistakes, you'll never live long enough to make them all yourself" ;)
After 4 hours of sanding I am now up to 400 grit sandpaper. I think I should have started with 120 grit as I am still dealing with some scratches from the 80.
I started with 80 and 120 dry and moved on to 240, 320 and 400 wet. As I am moving up through the grits I am finding that sanding is going a lot smoother with less stops to clean the paper. From 240 on I have been wet sanding with a little detergent added to the water. I think that has made a difference.
At 400 the epoxy is feeling really smooth and starting to get that glass-like look and feel to it. I am looking forward to getting into the higher numbers.
The fingerboard with epoxy is about 1.5mm thicker than the original fretboard with frets. By the time I’m finished it will probably be even closer. The fretless will be strung much lower than a tradition fretted bass so I’m quite happy with that as saddle and pickup heights will be close to the original heights.
Just a couple of progress pics.
Pic #1 – Finished the rough radius with 80 grit.
Pic #2 – How it looked after 120 grit.
Pic #3 – and after 400.
Before and after Pics
Pic #1 – Before
Pic #2 – After sanding to 400
looking great Westie07 !
It's taking a nice shape and has lost a fair bit of epoxy thickness.
Should look like glass after you get to the higher grits
Hey Rob i have some sanding for you to do... ;)
Westie07. Darn!! :mad: lolQuote:
Originally Posted by wokkaboy
Thanks WARREN. Yeah mate its looking better with each grit. It's still opaque, but already feels like glass, and after I wipe it down with a damp cloth it just shines. Can't wait for the finishing grits.
Hey Tony, I've said it before, its better than therapy. It's now up to 4.5 hours. At their rates I've probably saved myself more than $500!!Quote:
Originally Posted by tonyw
Of course I talk to myself a lot while I'm doing it, so that's probably a bad sign huh. :confused:
haha you have blown it now Westie07, in a few weeks I won't even remember your real name haha
I have been scraping binding all day and still have buckets to go, and yes it is therapeutic for those of us that a little different lol.
I dont mind the crud jobs on guitars they have to be done.
G'day Wok,Quote:
Originally Posted by wokkaboy
About 12 months ago Rob had a pic of his car as his avatar, silver & blue if I remember correctly.
Yep, totally agree Tony. Although I can't say it's my fav thing, I find it curiously relaxing.Quote:
Originally Posted by tonyw
Hey Dave, close but no cigar. Silver and BLACK. But unlike me, you do have a good memory.Quote:
Originally Posted by dave.king1
6.5 hours and I’ve finally finished sanding the fingerboard.
I went all the way to 2000 grit but the glossy finish still alludes me. It is soooo smooth to the touch but it still hasn’t got that “wet glass” finish I was hoping for. But I am really happy as it is now and I am sorely tempted to leave it as is, as it looks really natural.
I guess the 2000 has left some micro scratches. If you look “into” the epoxy it looks matt, but if you look “along” the epoxy you can see the finish and it looks glossy. The light playing tricks on me I guess! But I have come this far so I might as well try some cutting compound, swirl remover and wax later. If I don’t like it I can always scuff it back to how it is now.
Before I do anything else to the FB I want to sand (yay, more sanding!) the neck and the headstock and apply some Tru Oil to the neck (well it is a MM copy, and that’s what they use on their necks). I just want to make sure that there is nothing in the cutting compound that interferes with the bonding of the TO.
Hopefully the fact that it took 6.5 hours of sanding is testament to just how durable this epoxy will be. Again, time will tell.
Pic #1 – After the final wet sand with 2000 grit.
Pic #2 – In its natural environment, hmmm, I kinda like the matt finish.
Pic #3 – The finish is so smooth, I just need to work on the gloss.
I like the satin look of the neck, a nice piece of timber.
That's a massive effort with the sanding, good job. I agree with Tony - the satin finish looks great. I'm a big fan of satin finishes and the fretboard looks great with it.
10,000 thumbs up for that effort mate!
@Tony, Andrew and Frank
Thanks guys, really appreciate the encouragement. Actually the wet sanding was not that hard, just time consuming. Luckily that's the one thing I have in abundance.
Looks amazing, great job.
I wonder that if you are still after that glassy finish, if using auto polish and buffing it up would give you what you want...
looks awesome Westie07, this will be another top notch Westie build !
I wouldn't worry to much about any slight imperfections on the fingerboard Westie as it will get a bit of wear and tear from the flatwound strings
This is rapidly becoming a stunning piece of art
Now that you are officially the Übersandingmiester, I will bundle up a heap of bodies and necks and send them to you Rob :)
You certainly have a pair of brass ones to try out that stuff but also nerves of steel...
Anyway - if we continue with different metals describing your work one comes to mind. Pure gold... :) huge amount of trial and error but in the end you always seem to succeed. Good job Rob! Or was it Westie now...? ;)
Thanks Stan. Yeah an auto polish is probably what I should be using, but I have some Brasso laying about the house so I'll try that. It's what I use on all my guitars and seems to cut pretty finely. I'll then use some swirl remover.Quote:
Originally Posted by stan
Thanks WARREN, I hope it will WARREN!! ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by wokkaboy
But you know me by now, and although I try my best, appearance isn't the main thing. I've read somewhere that epoxy will continue to harden for a week or two so I am hoping that the flats won't chew it up too much.
Thanks Dave. Still plenty of time for a stuff up. lol.Quote:
Originally Posted by dave.king1
Thanks Phil, do I get to keep them?? ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by dingobass
Thanks Arzi, but it won't be as nice as your lovely twin active pickup MM.Quote:
Originally Posted by Arzi
"Rob" will do just fine thanks mate. Just ignore WARREN!
Just another quick update.
Finally finished the neck and headstock. The conversion from 4 in-line tuners to 3x1 (MM style) went reasonably well if you don’t look too closely. The veneer I bought is ultra-thin but does the job.
I must be a klutz when it comes to Tite-Bond, because I either put on too much or not enough. This time not enough and I had to re-glue a few of the veneer edges. I decided to use CA glue on these as I thought it might be easier to use along the edges but I managed to get some on my hands. So what’s the first thing you do if you have CA glue on yours hands? It’s obvious, you grab your newly polished epoxy fingerboard and leave some CA fingerprints on it.
I immediately wiped it down with Acetone but it has left a few small areas of highly glossed epoxy that are quite noticeably against the matte finish of the rest of the FB. So the decision as to whether to leave the fingerboard a matte finish or go high gloss has been made for me. I will try and go for a high gloss and if that fails I will just buff it all back to a satin finish.
Anyway enough gripes, I am really enjoying this build. Next job will be more sanding as I get the body ready. As usual I will exaggerate the belly and forearm cuts and just generally “round off” the edges. Been waiting for about a month to use my new toy. A Japanese Saw Rasp. Woohoo!
Pics:
Pic #1 – The very ‘F’-ish original Headstock.
Pic #2 – Ready for the Veneer with more of an MM vibe.
Pic #3 – The veneer glued and clamped with a roughly shaped caul.
And the after shots:
Yep i always grab where i shouldnt with something on my gloves or hands and stuff my work up.
Still its a nice neat job on that headstock.
Thanks Tony. Yeah, you'd think we would have learnt by now lol.
I was just about to decalre the neck finished but it looks like i somehow touched the back of the headstock when it was tacky, so just a bit of 0000 and gave the whole neck another coat of Poly U, at least i fixed up that nasty looking heel join.Quote:
Originally Posted by robin
Looking good, Robin.
You are lucky... I onced glued my thumb to a Bass neck.
You can just imagine how hard Miss Fe laughed at me when I appeared in the kitchen, sheepish look on face, thumb securely glued to Bass neck......
Then, I discover that Her Indoors doesn't have any acetone either...
It was only good fourtune that saved me from having to accompany The Minister For War And Finance to our local hardware store.
Even so, the guys down there still pay out on me.. Three years later!!
Superglue is pretty notorious for doing things like that, have you ever noticed that the glue tends to work better on human skin than it does on the materials it's supposed to work on, furthermore it tends to want to go where you don't want it?Quote:
Originally Posted by dingobass
Not wrong, Doc..
CA glue was first invented to be used to close small cuts etc on the battlefield, hence its amazing ability to bond skin....
Haha, good one Phil.
Luckily I was only gluing a few dry corners so I was only working with small quantities.