Dora the EX-4plora

[Rabbit]

If I was more skilled I would have done something special with mine. Maybe on the next build.

This has been my first time doing decals, and I haven't got much experience with painting timber. Most of my painting has been on metal.

I started the process of polishing the back of the headstock. I don't want a high gloss on the back. I need to use another polish meant for hand finishing, cause the one I have is for a machine, and I don't want to go that far on a headstock. The pic kinda show the pearl :



The front worked out well I think. will look better once it's been level sanded and polished. I was a bit worried that the tail of the bass clef was a bit low. I put the washer for the tuner centred over the hole and it clears the tail by enough.

[wazkelly]

That looks good.

Sent from my SM-A520F using Tapatalk

[Rabbit]

Ok, fingers crossed, I think the neck is done with exception of the holes to connect the neck to the body.

I did have some tear out when drilling one of the holes for the tuner, which I think I managed to sort of fix with re gluing the piece , which was still attached by paint and clear. The dyed bone nut is now on, along with tuners and truss rod adjustment cover. The frets have been levelled, re-crowned and polished.

[DarkMark]

That decal idea is brilliant, just brilliant.

[Rabbit]

That decal idea is brilliant, just brilliant.

Thanx!

Originally I was going to to a standard bass clef with a bit of dimension, with a few drop shadows thrown in to make it look like a 5mm thick clef floating above the surface. Then I came across a kind of tribal clef that caught my attention. At the size it was it was a perfect fit. Looking at it a bit longer, the head kinda looked like a tribal dragon, so I turned the image intro a vector. Then I found an eye image that I was happy with, turned that into a vector, re-sized it and flipped it horizontally. It still looked like it was missing something, so I found an image of a tribal dragon that would work, then like a sadistic child with a butterfly, I proceeded to rip one of it's wings off. It was turned it into a vector, re-sized and grafted on to the clef. All the vector were grouped together and resized so print size was correct for the headstock.

[McCreed]

I agree. Very clever (clefer???) design.

[Rabbit]

So...on to the body. First, I gave it a quick sand to remove any tool marks ext, then I used a UV cure polyester grain filler to fill the grain. I used 2 coats. after sanding back with 400grit, it felt realy smooth. I thought it was the perfect foundation for the primer. Unfortunately, no... you could still see the grain. I sanded the whole thing back to bare timber (I'm not quite fed up with it yet to call it wood), and tried what every man and his dog (Pit Bull and other breeds ) and smeared it with a slurry of Timber Mate. I was somewhat sceptical about the likely hood that covering the body with mud was going to help, but an army of other builders, both amateur and profession can't be wrong, right?



It was at this stage a tiny voice inside my head was saying that I should just clear coat the bloody thing and call it done! I ignored this and pressed on. after sanding smooth with 400 grit, I once again had a nice smooth surface ready for primer. I wiped the body wit a tack cloth before shooting the primer.:



Oh look, a black explorer, like no one has done that before . But let's face it, a matt black explorer looks killer. Sadly, as I feared, the grain showed up again. It looked like the coats were also a bit thinner that I thought they should be to allow for sanding that smooth, so I gave it a light sand and threw on a few more coats just on the front and back, the sides are fine. Since I hadn't sanded back hard, I was expecting this.....



This afternoon I sanded the front smooth and some of the back without sanding through the primer. I'll finish the sanding and priming tomorrow... it was just too hot for sanding and I didn't want to get sweat dripping onto the body . Experiments with an idea I had for the front upper horn have also been coming along, I think I'm on the right track .

[Rabbit]

And the curse goes on and on it seems.......well maybe not. I did some sanding with 800 grit, then I used a grey scuff pad and after spending some time and wiping with cloth and tack rag I had a smooth surface on the primer. After spraying base, there was no sign of the grain!

So base coat:



and a little something something on the side:



Next is a little something something on the back and some different something something on the front.......

[FrankenWashie]

I know your pain Rabbit. I think there are many who do.

[Lappa]

This base coat looks amazing!!!!