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 ;-)
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