My first pitbull, IB-5 five string bass.

[wokkaboy]

Sam I'd get some auto car polish, Meguiars products always work well.
In terms of curing hard to say, if the weather is cool might be worth waiting a bit more than 2 weeks.
Stick a fingernail in an area that will be covered by a pup surround to test the hardness is a good way of knowing when its ready to polish

[Tindrrel]

Sam I'd get some auto car polish, Meguiars products always work well.

I have some "Polyglaze Cut & Polish" from a time some number of years ago when I tried fixing some scratches on my car.

I recall using this on the LP that I sprayed with auto clear acrylic.

Perhaps that will do for this TO finish as well. Guess I TO a bit of pine and let it set, then try it.

[wokkaboy]

should be ok to use Sam, but be careful if its a few years old, I'd try a test piece in case. A fresh bottle/jar would be more reliable

[Tindrrel]

Getting closer. After a few attempts at the tru-oil top coat needed sanding back because I let it run or similar errors - I think I've gotten the hang of it.

Also, a wet sand of the neck with tru-oil as the lubricant has given me the smooth coated neck I was hoping for. Just need to clean up the face of the headstock a little.

[gavinturner]

Hey Sam, just be careful cutting and polishing the TO. You can do it, but the TO coats are so thin it is very easy to polish through. I have found thinning the TO with mineral turps 50/50 is a good way to get a nice even final coat.

cheers,
Gav.

[Tindrrel]

I think the last few coats, which were applied just by hand rubbing a thin coat over the body have come up pretty smooth. I'm not sure I want to cut it now.

[Tindrrel]

Pretty happy with the neck finish, removed the masking tape from the fretboard.

Sanded the sharp edge of the clear coat where it met the tape until it wasn't noticable mock playing. (I wonder if there's a way to avoid that.)

Gave the fretboard a wipe down with lemon oil.

Installed the bone nut.



Slight exposure of the rosewood underneath the nut as the old plastic nut was slightly wider. Hopefully won't be all that noticable with the truss rod cover installed.

[wokkaboy]

Bone nut looks great Sam. On the home stretch

[Tindrrel]

Wanting to progress this a little, while sorting out the finish on the body (which I think is clean enough, just need to wait a week before giving it a polish, no cut); I decided to install the machine heads.

In hindsight I would have aligned them like the left picture, but I had already pre-drilled the holes for the machine head screws back when I thought I wanted the keys to all be parallel.

So what I've got is the picture on the right. Something to remember when working on the IB-6S.

[Tindrrel]

Gave the body a sand and polish. Working up from 600 through to 2000 then using a Fine/Finer/Finest liquid polishing kit.