First crack at this...Who on earth do I think I am?! (JB-4 Bass)

[Rufus]

A picture's worth a thousand words...
Attachment 41119

Pardon my crude drawing skills.

Ah yes, I see it now.
I actually made a couple of those cuts today as it was as I got to thinking about what you were saying re: painting the horns. When I next string it up, I'll make sure I take a few photos to show.
The "crude" diagram was most excellent, by the way. got the message across quite well.

Back onto the primer on the body, I took to the body with some 240 grit sandpaper to knock back a bit more of the primer. When(if) the days warm up a touch more here, I'll give it another go and see if I can get it a bit better and a bit more even this time.
(Turns out that the middle of winter in Central Victoria, AU, is not an ideal time to paint!)

[Rufus]

It's been a while.
A combination of getting busy, life getting in the way, and losing a bit of motivation left my project on hold for a while - a few months, in fact.

I had some (much needed) time off work during the Christmas/NY break and made a start on re-starting this project.
I finished the primer coats, and was really happy with how they finished up, and after checking some notes and other people's experiences, I made a start (finally) on the colour coats.

First coat on, and then sanded back.


Hit it with a second coat, and starting to really like this how this colour is coming out so far:


I think I sanded back a touch too far before applying the third coat:


But, I'm okay with it so far. As someone recently pointed out to me about this project, I'm currently working on one of the biggest double-edged swords I'll ever work on - the mistakes and blemishes WON'T matter because I'm doing it, but at the same time, they WILL matter because I'm doing it. In the end, if my daughter takes it to school one day, people ask her where she got it from and she was able to say that her Daddy made it for her - that'll do me I think.

I traced an outline for the headstock and cut it freehand with a jigsaw, after doing one "dry run" with a scrap piece of wood.

You can see it's not perfect, but that just adds to the charm, right?
I also replaced the stock nut with the bone one I ordered.

I'm now in the process of applying a coat, leaving it a week and then hitting it with the sandpaper. After talking with a friend or two who do this sort of thing more regularly than I, I've made an adjustment to my sanding technique, and it should hopefully be a lot better going forward.

For the neck I went to "the big green toy store" (as my dad calls it) and picked up a small can of maple stain and varnish. I'm hoping that's the right stuff!
Am I correct in thinking that working the neck is similar to the body - apply a coat, sand it back slightly and then coat it again?

Plan this weekend is to do the next coat on the body, and mask up the neck ready to go with the stain.

[Simon Barden]

I'm not sure why you're sanding back after each coat. I'd do a very light sand if there's dust on the finish, just enough to knock that off, but I'd only sand back fully flat after each type of coat. E.g. apply several coats of primer and then sand that back flat, then apply several coats of the colour and then sand that back flat.

You really want a full coat of primer all over the body, but you've sanded back so much with the first colour coat on that you've got bare wood showing again. As I said before, you're very likely that a mixture of bare wood and primer will leave the colour coat sinking in over time into the exposed wood areas and not into the primer areas.

If you are leaving it a week between coats, then I can understand the need to sand it to allow the next coat to key in, but you can simply re-coat after the suggested re-coat period. But even then, you don't need to be very aggressive, just enough to scuff the surface up.

There are so many finishes used on guitars by home-builders and most seem to work that I can't say whether your tin of maple stain and varnish (is that a tinted varnish or two separate tins?) is appropriate without knowing more about exactly what it is you've bought. You'll probably want several coats of the stuff on the neck, and if tinted varnish, with each application it will get darker and could end up looking odd?

I think most people would either use one or two coats of a tinted clear to get the colour right, and then use normal clear on top, or else just use a stain and just clear.

If it is a tinted varnish and you put clear varnish on top, make sure it's the same type of varnish e.g. polyurethane and polyurethane, or acrylic and acrylic.

If you are planning to put a headstock decal on, then you only really want clear over that, and you'll need many coats of clear on the headstock face in order to build up enough depth to 'bury' the thickness of the decal and have enough depth to sand back flat without sanding through to the decal.

On a rosewood board neck, it in normal practice to apply varnish/lacquer to the sides of the rosewood board but not the top. And also to the headstock end of the rosewood board up to the nut.

And you've mentioned that 'double edged sword'. I'd spend a bit of time finessing that headstock shape. It really just needs a bit of extra sanding to smooth off a few bumps. It certainly doesn't need to be a perfect copy of an F-style headstock, but I think it could look a little neater, and now is the time to decide to do it.

[Rufus]

Thanks for the tips, Simon.
I was leaving it as long as I was, and sanding between coats because I'd read that in the guide. After reading your post a couple of times, I may have sped up my timeline a bit. I did get finer and finer with my sandpaper - with the view to just "touch" the surface and scuff it a little bit to take the next coat. In the end, I ended up putting on 6 coats of colour, and about the same of clear on the body. I went with about 4 coats of clear on the neck.
Before putting the clear on the neck, I did do a touch more work with the Shinto rasp on the headstock, and tidied that up a bit more, and made it a little more respectable - hopefully you can see that in the photos below.
I hadn't worked with a soldering iron for a while, so that part was a bit daunting to begin with, but I made it work.

Ultimately, I feel like it came up a treat. A few friends who i showed photos of it to were impressed, too.
Lastly (and I feel, most importantly), the "customer" for this one seems to like it, too.

After finishing this one and reflecting on some lessons from it, I feel confident to take on an IB-5, but this time, I'll probably spray paint it with the air compressor I got for Christmas, as well as make a few changes to my process in general.