RC-4 "The Cole"...

try a fine sand just to get rid of the crap on the top surface...

Hi Stan

Just finished a quick 5 minute sanding with 800 and TO. Great results. Leveled significantly and got the crap out. Did not go thru on any place and now for the first time I saw how much more TO and wet sanding I have left ( quite a bit). I'll do a few more coats and then repeat with 1200 grit and TO. This should give me a decent surface for the final wet sanding with 2000 grit after it has dried about a week or so.

Arzi

sounds good Arzi, glad it's working out

Sand and oil...

This is what it's all about. After the first sanding with TO and 800 I put on a few coats and did TO sanding with 1200. After that another few coats and another TO sand with 1200. Now I did a few coats again and letting the top cure for a week. Then it's wet sanding with water and 2000grit.

Because I was too rough on the flaming with low grit paper in the beginning, I managed to dig deeper in to the wood and now I have to fill those areas with TO and everyone who has done this knows it's a slow process...

At least now I can start on the sides and back with more knowleage. First I have to get rid of some TO that I managed to spill on few spots on the sides. Saw a video about a razor blade with tape to remove high spots on the oil. Might use that or just put on layers and then sand it level. Now I'm gonna do the slurry a few times first and then TO sanding before putting on the thin coats.

Will put up pics when I get something to show.

Oily hello to everyone...

So, i've now put on 7 generous coats of TO on the sides and back. Learning new things about flaming - it sucks... oil I mean! I put one coat on couple of weeks back and now that I started a slurry coat, I did not have time to slurry before the oil went in to the wood. Poured 3-4 times more oil on and it all just vanished in to the wood. Now it starts to buil up but I had some doubts at first. Gonna put on 3 more coats, then let it cure for 24 hours before sanding with TO and 1200 grit for the first levelling.

But another question popped in my mind about grounding the individual bridges. I read that if you have active pups or a preamp on you would not have to ground all or none of the bridges. Now that they are passive, I have to ground one and link every piece together. I didn't think about this before starting the finish so - how have you done this if you have done it? The wire would show between the bridges even though they are only about 2mm apart. Should I put the wire going between screws or just under one to the other - will it conduct when they are painted black?

I was thinking about finding a thin black covered wire, stripping so that the black cover would stay just in between the bridges and then gently tap the wire down into the finished surface covering it with a drop of TO maybe?... I don't know...

Any advise would be welcome :)

As long as the 4 strings are connected electrically somewhere it will be fine. If you are using string without silk at the headstock end then maybe you could wire the machine heads together?

Painting wire black won't be a problem at all as long as the part that is contacting the bridge isn't painted.

Another option would be a layer of conductive paint between the saddles, then put black over that paint between the saddles.

Hi Moody

Thanks for the info. Spent 5 hours in a car yesterday with the family and the got P.A.S.S syndrome ( puke and s**t syndrome) from a bad food at a buffer... So I had a s****y day and night. Maybe I'll get back to the project today.

Had another thought. Put a brass nut on the bass. While it is not the most conductive metal it will definitely be good enough for grounding the strings.

That's all well and good, brass nuts are great, but how are you going to ground the nut?

Hi Moody, what is the grounding issue ? You just need to run an earth wire that makes clean contact with the bottom of the bridge to the control cavity and solder that to the back of a volume pot. If you copper shield the control cavity you won't need to run earth wires to the other pots.
Installing a brass nut will have no effect on earthing the electrics but will sound and play better