H's JBA-4 Fretless

[UpperCaseH]

Yeah Waz, some of it's definitely the TM getting into the splintered bits, but some of it's also poor masking. I think in a couple of places the splinters that didn't come out were slightly raised and caused tiny gaps under the tape. I tried rubbing one of those parts of it with my fingernail and it looks like the worst looking parts are gonna come straight off with a little bit of sanding.

The colour's not exactly what I had in mind (a little light, a little pink), but I'm also glad I didn't go any darker or lighter. I'm hoping it'll come up a bit better after a sand and I'm sure it'll be heaps better once the finish is on. Overall I'm definitely happy with how it's turning out.

I went down to Carbatec today and got the Hot Stuff CA glue recommended by DB. It's a great store with super helpful staff and I'll definitely be going back.

When you way "very fine grit", what do you mean? My plan was to try to run down the high bits of TM with 320 then use 600 across the whole fretboard. Too coarse?

[wazkelly]

Good idea....slow and steady does it as TM is very soft and won't need much work to remove.

Just a heads up on the CA glue.....very toxic smelling stuff and the fumes actually affected my eyes by making them water therefore need to be doing this in a well ventilated place but not too much as you don't want to introduce dust or floating objects into the finish.

DB's thread mentions just 3 coats and as he is a master at doing this that may be so for him but was not the case for me. If you lay a fairly heavy wet coat it takes longer to set and cure but generally comes out more even however the open rosewood will soak up a decent amount on 1st coat. Tended to find that subsequent thinner coats were more fickle and dried in patches rather than an even finish where light sanding back often cut back to the bare FB. Towards the end I was using 1500 and that had too much bite and moved on to 2000 grit.

Best advice is to give it plenty of time to cure before sanding prior coats. From my experience this was at least a couple of days but that was during the mild winters we get in South East Qld and could take longer in colder parts of the country.

Once you have done a couple of coats you will have a better idea of how things are shaping up.

[UpperCaseH]

Sanding done.

Some parts came out nicely.



Other parts not so much, but even the bad bits are heaps better than they were.



At any distance other than these super-super-closeup shots you can really only see the largest flaws. I'm gonna get a brown sharpie and try to very carefully draw fine lines over them in the direction of the grain to break them up a bit.

Didn't get a photo, but I wiped down with a damp rag afterwards and if that's any indication of what it'll look like with a clear fnish, it's gonna look pretty good.

[UpperCaseH]

Located the worst chips, took a brown sharpie and carefully dotted/lined them and then immediately (and gently) rubbed them away from the fret line with a damp cloth, then gave the whole thing a little wipe-down with a slightly damp cloth afterward.



Not perfect, but I think I'm going to have call it good enough because I can't see a way to make it better from here and you can't easily see any flaws from arm's length.

Next up I'm going to shape the headstock.

Debating whether to get the neck finish on before or after the fretboard finish is done. I'd guess fretboard first because then I can easily sand off any glue runs?

[Brendan]

I think that doing the CA top before doing the neck finish sounds like a plan.

[andrewdosborne]

Yes thats the way to go. Mask up the neck first then CA the fretboard

Sent from my GT-I9506 using Tapatalk

[UpperCaseH]

Awesome, that's next then!

In some unexpected spare time this afternoon, this happened:



Gonna use the offcuts to test out what it'll look like with timbermate, and also gonna test out the stain on an offcut next to the body and if I can't get them a similar colour, I'll do the neck and head both in natural.

[wazkelly]

Some really nice grain happening from midway point to the heel on that fret board. Headstock shape looks great too.

The overfilled bits of timber mate will hardly be noticeable. Not so sure about the sharpie marker pen stuff and how that will react with the CA glue. Probably best to test that on a scrap bit of timber to see if it runs/melts/or bleeds?

[UpperCaseH]

Good catch, didn't think about that! I'll test it out first for sure.

I noticed that the fretboard felt slightly uneven as I run my hand up and down it, so I ordered a 12" radius block I found cheapish on ebay and I'm gonna make sure everything's super smooth before I start the finishing.

I'm ordering some Nullarbor Ochre DT tonight or tomorrow. Then I just gotta decide where to go with the neck. I'm going to test the ebony timbermate out on the offcut from the headstock, and if that works out I'll probably go body colour on the neck and head too, although I've got enough DT clear neck stain and finish left over from the tele to do this one too.

[wazkelly]

Never done ebony timber mate on back of neck or face of headstock so cannot comment. Only thing is the rock maple grain is pretty tight already and hope you haven't sanded it yet otherwise not much TM will stick after sanding back once it has fully cured.

Nullabor Ochre DT will look good as the FB has some of that shade in it too.

Any plans to upgrade PUP's? On my J Bass the stock Chinese ones sound reasonably OK but very low in output so I ordered the high end Entwistles and just waiting on the neck one to arrive from UK as PBG site only had a Bridge one. They do have both of the JBX type for $22.95 each which seems good value.