First Build - JBA-4

[Simon Barden]

Yes, definitely a great look.

[juz]

The finish is mirror!

[Mathew]

It's coming up the way I imagined, but better than I expected. The finish is mirror-like, and looks great (in my opinion) with the matching purple/black headstock and rosewood fretboard. The only thing I'm not happy with are the screws I used to mount the Tonerider neck pickups. I'm thinking I may not have put the screws in straight, so I may run into trouble adjusting the height of the pickups. We'll see.. Just waiting on a capacitor upgrade to arrive, and I'll get the wiring done, the bridge on, and start setting it up properly.

[phrozin]

Wet sand done. Was terrified about sanding through clear coat, but as it turned out, I was fine. Micro Mesh pads were so easy to use! It's not perfect, but I'm happy with it. I've polished it with Maguires Ultimate Compound, and I can still see a few fine scratches from the wet sanding. But I'll get some Scratch X into it after lunch and see how it comes out.

I have some Dunlop 65 Guitar Polish and Cleaner. Is this suitable to put over the top? Or is there another polish I should use to finish after Scratch X?

Attachment 43509

if you done lacquer normal car polish will work best I use this will be your best bet

https://www.supercheapauto.com.au/p/...id=SCA01010202

[phrozin]

If the neck doesn’t feel smooth, then it probably isn’t. I’m no expert when it comes to satin finishes, but it will definitely need sanding if it feels rough.

You have two courses of action as I see it. 1) Simply sand back until smooth (maybe P400 or P600 depending on how rough it is) and then go up the grits to P800, P1200 and P1500 etc until the feel and look is how you want it to be or 2) sand back until smooth and then spray one thin coat of satin clear on as the final coat. If when dry, that still doesn't feel right or smooth enough, then you'll probably have to revert to method 1. It will depend on how well your can of satin clear sprays as to how smooth the finish will feel.

You aren't trying to put a shine on it, so you don't have to wait for the finish to harden too much before sanding back, maybe a couple of days rather than a couple of weeks.

when I'm doing the neck I don't use matt I put clear on it and sand it with 2000 w&d then 3000 and just leave it like that matt feels a bit Naf Fender does it like that as well that's where I got it idea from

[phrozin]

delete some of your pm's Matthew its full

[Mathew]

Deleting now... Thanks.

[Mathew]

'Purple Thunder' is finished!

What worked:
The look is precisely what I set out to achieve, with a black burst around a deep purple centre and a headstock to match.

What I could have done better:
I was paranoid about sanding through the clearcoat, and there are a couple of very small spots which could have been sanded flatter before wetsanding.

What exceeded my expectations:
The separation created by CA glueing and clearcoating between the purple dye and black burst created wonderful depth in the body. The grain appears to fan out from behind the black bridge, which looks amazing behind the parallel strings. The purple edge around the pickguard looks like a subtle neon halo and really brings out the purple in the body.

If I saw this among a range of bass guitars in a shop, this is exactly the one I'd buy. Oh - and it plays beautifully!

[Trevor Davies]

Great work. Very nice colour combination.

[FaustoB]

Great work! Looks amazing.

I like also how you kept updating the first post on this journal , with a summary of the steps and products used, great idea.