Zebra Wood body to sand or not to sand?

[Simon Barden]

I've never worked on one of these bodies, and I have no idea how they treat the wood to get the really dark lines, but seeing as the striping extends quite happily into the pickup and control cavities, I don't see how the 'finish' can be simply sprayed-on or surface deep.

But, I'd suggest sanding the bottom of a pickup cavity to see what happens before attacking the main body with sandpaper. Better safe than sorry.

You sand to achieve a particular aim. Typically there are tooling marks around the edges of the body on the end grain, and you want to remove those. You also want to get the top and bottom of the body as flat as possible and remove any dips there may be.

Starting grit size depends on the depth of any marks. I normally have 80, 120 and 180 grit paper to hand. Deep marks and I'll start with 80 grit, and then move up to 120 and then 180 after that. If 80 is taking too long, then I'll use 60 or even 40, and then quickly run up to the finer grades. But I'll probably start with 120 for lighter work. There are no set rules, but if it's taking too long to remove marks, then you're probably using too fine a grit.

Always sand with the grain (if possible), especially when using coarser grits. The grain direction is obvious with those zebrawood bodies.

If you are applying a clear finish, then you'll spend most of your time getting the finish flat and smooth on the sides . Don't go overboard on really fine grits on the body as you'll simply have to repeat the process with the finish. You just want the top and bottom body surfaces flat, and the sides nice and smooth and mark-free.

Rub the body down after you've finished sanding with a cloth and turps, or a turps substitute like white spirit, to remove loose dust on the surface. Not water, as this will raise the wood grain and you'll need to sand that off (and then you repeat the whole process ad infinitum).