Harley Benton Jazz Bass kit build

[Simon Barden]

The bobbin sander has arrived. Not ridiculously large, but too tall to fit on a lower shelf in the garage, so it will need to sit on top of one.



Didn't come with any instructions. It's not rocket science to put it together, but some would have been nice without having to chase some up on the web. At least all the other parts were there. Works well.

[McCreed]

That was quick! IIRC, you only ordered a few days ago.

Have you investigated to easy/difficult it would be to mount a larger DIY-made table on it? I think that would make working on larger pieces, like bodies, easier.

Now go make us some "man glitter"!

[Simon Barden]

Amazon deliveries in the mainland UK are very quick, especially if delivered by Amazon themselves rather than by post or courier. Amazon Prime is normally next day if ordered before 5pm, though there is a growing tendency for two days as demands on them during lockdown have increased considerably. Non-Prime orders are normally 2-3 days. But most online ordering from UK web sites generally takes only 1 or 2 days to arrive.

I don’t think I’d have a problem with most guitar bodies on the current table, though maybe a long one like an Explorer or Explorer bass would be more difficult. The table at the rear is about twice as long as at the ‘front’. But the table is steel, so it would be possible to drill and tap holes in it to bolt on a larger wooden table. You’d just have to rout a hole and an indent for the various round plastic rings that allow dust to be sucked diwn through them.

The unit has mounting holes on its base so it can be bolted down for stability, but I didn’t have any issues doing the end of a guitar neck on it yesterday in a free-standing mode.

[McCreed]

That's good to know if I ever decide to upgrade to the Aussie version that Cliff posted. Thanks!

[Simon Barden]

Well this all went horribly wrong after going right for so long.

Got it all sprayed up nicely, and in the process of getting the finish superbly flat, sanded through on a couple of corners.

No problem thought I, I'll just touch it up with a brush, then another couple of coats for good measure.

Except those coats then bubbled up in places and the finish all went soft.

Ended up stripping the paint off the body and having to start again. That entailed having to totally clear out the garage yesterday, remake some clothes drawers that are used to store tools as the runners had collapsed so they wouldn't open so I couldn't get my tools out, and throw away enough stuff so I could get to the drawers without having to move other boxes of stuff. It was 32°C yesterday.

Today I used the heat gun to strip the paint off because it was now so soft that it instantly clogged up any sandpaper. Even putting the body own on a towel left imprints in the finish. The heat gun and a scraper did most of the job, before the sander could then finish off 70% of the body, with the last 30 was done by hand. It is 34°C here today. I am rather sweaty!

Was going to post some photos but that can wait until its cooled down!

[blinddrew]

Damn that's frustrating.

[McCreed]

I definitely feel your pain Simon. I've had to start over again after the "last coat" before... frustrating.

I can also relate to your garage scenario, or at least the principle of having to complete jobs 2 & 3 before starting job #1!
I've lost count of the number of times a "5 minute" job turned into half a day!

Oh well, maybe something really good will come out of it.

[dozymuppet]

I feel obligated to post this again

https://youtu.be/AbSehcT19u0

Sent from my Pixel 4 using Tapatalk

[Simon Barden]

Here are the photos.

Started stripping back with the belt sander but the paint just clumped up and clogged the belt paper (60 grit) so I stopped and moved over to the hot air gun. The white is some more primer/filer I used to try and build up the areas that had bubbled and sanded back to wood. You can see how the soft paint has amassed on the surface:



This was the other side after laying it down on the towel to sand the rear. You can see the pattern the towel made as the finish was just so soft. Even though it had generally sanded down very well and was flat and felt quite hard. The base colour had been drying for over two weeks, before I sprayed more on top, and that had then been drying almost two weeks I think my problem may have been using thinners with a retarder in and thinning down too much, and so getting too much retarder in there:



Body stripped back to wood, with no trace of the original factory sealer coat:



A very thinned (no retarder) first light coat of blue to get the finish into the wood:



I've just sanded this back flat after leaving it to dry for a couple of days and dealt with any deeper sanding marks this highlighted. I will do another thinned coat later today once it's cooled down a bit as it's 30°C outside ATM.

[Simon Barden]

My compressor is playing up. Turned it on to spray the next coat, ran for a while then the note changed and it kept running and running. Warily I went up to it, but the pressure gauge didn’t increase any more.

So either the pressure cut-off switch isn’t working, or there’s a leak and it can’t increase the pressure to the point it will switch off.

So something else to look at. If I can’t fix it simply, I may just get a smaller, quieter compressor. The current one is overkill for the mini guns. I bought it to match the full-sized gun I bought to start with, which is overkill for guitars.