ES4-B 1st Build

[Andy40]

...I'm not going to do this for the remaining piece because I am afraid that a power tool could way to easily mess up the top. But the longer I sand, the more tempting the idea...

I think you are right about that.

I just usually remind myself that its gotta stand the test of time, so a number of hours now will pay off in years to come

[fender3x]

Today I finished up the pickup rings and did the dry fit. So, I guess this officially means I am at the beginning ;-)

I attached everything. Posts for the bridge are not all the way in, but showed that the bridge was in the right place. My jerry-rigged tailpiece held the strings in place and didn't look too much like the cobbled together thing that it is. Pickup rings and Dano pickups are in about the right place. The ring being a bit wider than a standard humbucker feels like a pretty good place to put my thumb.

Did not put on the truss rod cover, because I have no idea where it is. Will most likely look for something suitable on ebay. Have also not drilled out the holes for the CTS Franken-pots that it will be using, but I have all the electronic parts now, and when I am not sanding or finishing, I imagine I'll be working on the wiring harness
Not a great pic, but I wanted at least one before I mess up the finish ;-)

[wokkaboy]

dry fit looks great Fender3X, love the pup surrounds.
So what is the plans for the finish stain/solid paint and colour?

[fender3x]

At the moment, I am still thinking I'll go with a stain and Tru-oil. Here's the test my wife liked best on a piece of plywood with maple veneer. Closest thing I could find to test on...



There are a couple of blemishes on the actual bass. One where I added a little fillet on the side of the neck-heel to cover a poor fit on one side of the neck joint. It's on the G-string side so even if it's noticeable, I won't have to look at it much. Also there are three dots where the ill-fated 3-point bridge was supposed to go. I patched as well as I could with maple plugs, but the maple I made the plugs from is a tad darker than the veneer.

I figure I'll put the stain down and just see how it looks. If I can live with it, it'll get stained and finished with TO. What I was hoping for was something close to my first bass, which was an Epiphone Newport that NEVER looked as good as this one...but I the color was cool ;-)

[Andy40]

Nice plans.

Great mods Fender3x, I like that you did them first rather than the other way around....

[fender3x]

Well it's been a while since I've posted, mostly because progress has been slow--or negative. I tried to put on the stain. It went on well on the back and sides. Not so well...but acceptable...on the neck. The front was another story. I do not see how I could have sanded any more lightly on the veneer, but I managed to damage it anyway. There were a number of places where it would just not take stain. Not that I didn't try... I kept adding stain until not only did the front look bad, but I also managed to make the back, sides and neck look like crap too.

I had three patched holes in the top. I had a fillet on the neck. So the best case scenario was going to be imperfect anyway. So I surrendered, and decided to do a solid finish. But it took a while before I could scrape together "enough" time to do the sanding. I did not use filler. I did use Dupli-Color filler primer. That went on reasonably well, and looked pretty good after sanding. There are a few places where just enough grain shows through so that you can tell there is wood under it, but I decided to live with that. What surprised me is that it took quite a bit. I actually used two 11 oz. cans, but it sanded down really nicely. Went down to 800 grit.

I had made a small piece for the bridge, two pickup covers and a truss rod cover out of maple. I did not use filler on those. Instead I sanded the raw wood down to 800 grit, and then put on a few coats of True Oil. Once I could not smell any VOC's I wet sanded that with 400 then 800. Then I painted it with Dupli-Color Perfect Match. I am using (BGM0388--GM Bright Red). Put on 3-4 coats of that.

I had feared this. I don't have spray equipment, and I am not the world's best rattle can painter. So, I had a few rough spots. On my small pieces I had a couple of runs that needed repair. I had a couple of even bigger runs on the bass. They are no fun to sand out. And every place that is disturbed by standing needs to be re-shot. Every place on the bass has 3 coats, some places--where there were repairs may have one or two more.

I finished painted the small pieces, and shot them with four coats of Dupli-Color Perfect Match Clear Coat. The clear coat seems considerably easier to use, but I have not used it on the guitar body yet... so stay tuned.

Once the four coats had hardened for 48 hours and I could not smell VOC's, I sanded with 1500, and hit them with one more thin coat of clear. I could buff them, but they are actually pretty nicely semi-gloss without doing anything. I may leave them as it.

The bass now looks like this:



That stick pointing out in the middle was to give me a handle while painting.

I taped off the binding, but there are places where the tape lifted a bit, and I am sure there will be some scraping to be done. Giving the bass some time to stop throwing off VOC's before I scrape. Will report once I have done that... Sure is red now ;-)

[fender3x]

I thought I was getting close, but I really messed up the binding. The stain job I did colored the binding in places. It was a mistake not to clean that up before starting the new paint job. I thought I would be able to scrape the paint off just like scraping the excess paint off, but it ended up being a ton of work.

I let the paint get fairly dry before taking off the blue scotch pin striping tape. But there were a lot of places where I just could not get a clean edge off the binding. I ended up getting to the wood in places, confusing my primer for the edge. I scratched the good paint in places. I think I have made pretty much every mistake I could with the binding. If I ever try to build a guitar with binding again, I hope someone will just shoot me.

So I am going to have sand and re-shoot around the edges of the entire guitar again. I'll use the pin striping tape. That may be the only thing I did right this time. It did pretty well in most places. I think this time if there are places where it does not do well I may just live with it rather than trying to scrape much. That has gotten me nothing but grief this time.

The tape did not work as well on the f-holes. I got them cleaned up, but the edge around them chipped a bit. I will try one more time to tape them off. If that does not work, I am going to consider NOT scraping them. Just painting them the same color as the rest of the bass

[wazkelly]

Hi mate, understand your frustration and would have been tempted to paint over the binding and hide it forever than muck around sanding back and going again for a 3rd time.

[stan]

you've overcome some real issues here, well done. I've found I can never perfectly mask binding without some effect on the finish. I've found that as long as I don't let it fully cure and don't let it get too thick, then it's not so bad

[Hobastard]

Has anyone ever tried putting something onto the binding like Vaseline or something, that can be easily washed off and carry the stain with it???