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The Kit arrived Thursday (day after Thanksgiving).. unboxed and getting ready to do mock build to check out everything. Looking to do a Transparent Blue Color to show the grain of the Ash. This is my first (of serveral) COVID lock down projects for this winter, haha.
Enjoy!
JimC
So I have been making good progress, but taking my time to get it right !
- Body drilled for Bridge, Pickguard
- Neck holes drilled
- Body prepped (sand (400), raise grain, sand (400, 600))
I took some time to design some headstock shapes on some mock ups just to visualize what it looked like prior to cutting the actual headstock, this was a very good idea because it helped me figure out how to best cut it. I repeated the mock up a few times with the last one being in maple (same as the headstock) so I could get a feel for how it would cut. I was trying to avoid "burning" the wood when I cut it because that would require more extensive sanding. Here is the finished product....
Attachment 38514
I want to do a transparent Blue body color, I have read a lot about doing transparent finishes on Ash... and found a lot of different methods and suggestions. I decided to buy a piece of ash and cut out some test panels to try different approaches to see which one gave me the appearance I was looking for... and to see what pitfalls I might encounter, I am trying to minimize the probability of having to sand it back and start again.
Attachment 38515
I haven't settled on the final approach but I am thinking it will be like this
1. Prep wood: Sand (400), raise grain, Sand (400), Sand (600)
2. Stain with Dye: Black Dye/EtOH ruboff/light sand (600)/Blue Dye/EtOH ruboff light sand (600) or (Blue Dye/EtOH ruboff light sand (600)) X2
3. Seal coat (waxless varnish)
4. Grain filler... looks like it takes at least 4 - 6 coats until surface is flat (at least for my test panels)
5. Clear coat (nitrocellulose): I may do the first layers with the CC dyed blue depending on how deep the blue color is of the body. I want a deep blue but I want the grain to show through.
6. I intend to finish the back of the neck and headstock with a satin clear coat (I like the feel) and my possible pain the edges of the head stock a blue color that matches the body.
I am trying my best to be patient, but I am excited to get this Bass together and start playing it!
Yer off to a good start!
Well done - I love the headstock shape. I also admire your preparation and testing.
Very much looking forward to this one playing out.
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So the "test panel" finishing is taking quite a while... learning a lot of things not to do. The most difficult & time consuming part is doing the grain filler. I am using clear grain filler from StewMac (waterbased), in order to bush it on (as instructed) I need to thin it slightly with water, just enough so it will flow. I am finding it is taking about 8 -10 coats/sand back to get the grain filled and the surface smooth. I was intending to dye the wood (blue) however, it is really easy to sand through the grain filler and create a light spot in the color. I prepped an undyed panel and grain filled it (5 coats of grain filler, much easier because no worry about messing up the color on a sand through) and put the dye in the clear coat... however the color is much different and the grain is not as distinct. Below is a picture: Left - natural wood, grain filled, blue dyed nitro clear coat X 4. Right - Blue dyed wood, grain filled, clear coat X 1. The left panel is actually more of an Aqua color but that doesn't seem to show in the picture.
Attachment 38602
My original intention was to get a color more like the deep blue on the right panel with the grain more prominent. I have a couple of other test panels in the works which have more lightly dyed blue color in the wood (but not as saturated as the right panel above) and I will check how the look with blue clear coat over them.
Well it's been awhile since I last posted... I struggled to apply the finishing schedule that I had worked out on the test panels:
Sand
Stain - Ethanol wash / sand back (remove stain from surface)
Seal
Grain Fill
Sand smooth
Clear coat (transparent blue, followed by clear)
The problems came at the grain filling stage... I knew it would take 5+ coats of grain filler to fill in the "grand canyon" grain of Ash. What I didn't consider was how difficult it would be to sand around the contours of the body (vs. a flat piece of wood). Despite trying to be very careful i started to get sand throughs that left "light spots", especially around the edges... I eventually gave into the mistake and sanded the front and back all the way back to the wood... this did look nice (deep grain remained dark blue). It looked like faded denim, I like it, although it wasn't the look I intended.
Attachment 39675
I decided to build a spray booth in my workshop so that I wouldn't fumigate out my family when I started the painting/clear coating, that took a few weeks to complete. Now that that is finished I have started to apply (colored) clear coat to the body. The clear coat is Stew-Mac ColorTone Nitrocellulose Guitar Lacquer (Modern Clear Gloss) w/ Angelus Blue Dye in it (300 mL of lacquer to ~ 2 mL of dye). I am using a $15 spray gun from Harbor Freight... cheap but it works pretty well. The pictures below are after ~ 10X coats of colored lacquer, no sanding yet. You can still see the "grand canyon" grain (ggrrrr... did the grain filling do anything?). I anticipate it will take at least 30 coats before it is smooth. The plan is to do ~10 - 15 with colored CC then switch to strait CC. My objective is to have a dark, transparent blue.
Attachment 39676
Attachment 39677Attachment 39678
despite the hiccups in the process, I am liking the result!
So... I finished the body & neck finishing work in June 2021 (~ 35-50 coats of nitro on the body, 10-15 on the neck/head stock)... then let it "dry" for 2.5 months. Finish (wet) sanding with 1000 grit, then 2000 grit, then 3M Finesse it II polish to a high gloss finish. One mistake I made... I failed to cover the drilled holes in the body and water got to the wood there and caused cracks in the nitro finish extending from the holes (most of them are covered by the scratch plate and bridge, so no real issue once assembled). Next time, dry sanding only... or wetsanding with kerosene instead of water (a tip I discovered online). In the end the finish looked decent (but I could do better...) I do plan to get some finer polish to remove some of the "swirls" but for my first build I am pleased! Assembly went fairly smooth, neck, electronics, tuners, bridge all installed nicely... I really like the Blue, white, and chrome! Can't wait to set it up and get playing it!! Check out the pictures and let me know what you think.
Attachment 41909Attachment 41910Attachment 41911Attachment 41912Attachment 41913
A really nice colour and I definitely like the headstock shape.
It's just crying out for a logo of some sort though IMO.
30 coats of nitro is probably rather excessive, though if a lot of those were sanded right back flat, then that's not too bad. The more coats you put on, the longer the lower coats take to dry fully, and the finish can remain soft underneath and deform and raise ridges around the scratchplate.
Some people say nitro never really dries until it's at the stage where it starts to crack, though I'm not quite sure how true that is.
I was using Meguires Scratch X 2.0 as my final polishing compound, but after a suggestion from another forum member, I've switched to the Micro-Mesh Micro-Gloss Liquid Abrasive on my nitro finishes. Relatively expensive but I think it's worth it. It really gets a great shine and does seem to remove almost all noticeable swirls.
Don't forget to fit the strap buttons!
That looks awesome! frankly I like the cracks in nitro finishes, after a half-century they are rather becoming on 1950's fenders!
The colour is lovely and the headstock shape very smart. I agree with Simon; a decal would be great.
I have found the Harley Davidson Scratch and Swirl Remover to be good at getting marks out of acrylic finishes (so probably Nitro too), and with patience, poly when cured. Funnily enough, most things at HD cost a fortune, but their cleaning stuff is very reasonably priced. they have a spray - a bit of a supercharged Mr Sheen - which is just superb for cleaning guitars and costs about $12 for a big spray can, cheaper than the equivalent top end car products.