Silky999

Slightly scaled down…. i don’t know whether to go for the chrome or walnut control plate Thoughts?? I’m thinking chrome as I am just waiting for some chrome pickup rings to come from the USA to tidy up the pickups cavities. I don’t want to fit a normal pick guard and it wouldn’t fit anyway. The neck plate is just on for a test fitting and I will get a new one for it.

I would absolutely endorse having a go yourself. You can get a decent finish with rattle cans (I started with cans from Northwest Guitars before getting spray guns etc) and sprayed in the garden with the body screwed to a bit of wood as a painting stick tucked under my arm! Admittedly it is more challenging this time of year with the weather 😂. You could always knock up a bit of a backdrop out of some cardboard boxes and spray in the open door of a garage or a shed but definitely get respirator that can deal with Volatile Organic Compounds off eBay or Amazon. Decent protection is cheaper than you think and the VOCs will make you feel like crap if you don’t. Make sure you get either nitro or 1k paint/finish such as polyurethane as 2k stuff(it has a separate hardener) has isocyanates which is as nasty as it sounds and needs decent extraction and a positive pressure respirator to be safe. Body prep is everything and the more time you spend on that such as sanding, grain filling, sealing before you start painting will reap absolute dividends and a better finish I personally find nitro finishes more forgiving than poly as they flash off and dry quicker which is a plus if you are spraying in the open as it means less sanding of dust nibs, dead flies etc 😫. If you do use nitro, it really needs to cure for a couple of weeks after the final coat before you can do the final sand and polish and it can remain quite soft during that time which I learned after leaving what I thought was a cured body on a soft patterned towel. It left the imprint of the towel material in the finish🤬 You can also get some shrink back into pores if you haven’t put enough coats on or sealed the wood adequately. Poly is more durable, needs less coats and cure time but takes longer to dry between sprays and also doesn’t melt into the previous layer in the same way nitro does. I also found that rattle can poly doesn’t go on as well as nitro and I got better results with wipe on poly(make it yourself by thinning normal poly rather than buy it) than spraying it. Practice on a scrap bit of wood first to get the hang of the spraying and it’s is better to spray more thin coats spaced out than fewer thick ones. Hopefully @slowTwitch, that has given you some options and I’m sure whichever route you choose, be it car sprayer, luthier or have a go yourself, you will get the result you want.

A little something for all you short-scale aficionados as I know it can be challenging to find a smaller bass that is not your run of the mill mass produced fare. This body is custom made by me from one solid piece of Walnut. It has been oil handed sanded with Liberon Finishing Oil and finished with nitro satin clear coat. It will have a 30” maple neck with chrome retrovibe lightweight tuners. Pickups will be Tonerider Precision Plus paired with a Bloodstone Guitarworks P bass loom. Hardware includes chrome Gotoh bridge and Schaller type strap lock buttons. I’m hoping to get it all buffed and put together this weekend with more photos to follow. This unique custom bodied beauty will be going on sale soon with an anticipated price of £795 ono including a Fender shortscale gig bag. Drop me a DM if this bass makes your GAS come alive!

My costs would include disassembly, reassembling and basic setup……..I’d feel like I was taking the p*ss if that was extra 🤣 If someone wanted to send just the body then I would factor that into the price and charge a little less…….time is money as they say!

A car place would need the body only so you would have to take the bass apart. It’s also depends what type of finish you would want. A car sprayer would probably use 2k type paint, so paint and a hardener. It’s quicker to apply and also doesn’t need cure off for as long before polishing in the same way nitrocellulose or 1k poly would. 2k is also quite toxic hence they should use proper air fed respirators and decent extraction. They may not do nitrocellulose if that’s what you wanted. So from a luthier perspective, you are looking at stripping the bass to body, taking any existing clear coat off, prepping the colour already on, priming, new colour then clear coat, cure, polish, reassembly and set up. As a rough estimate, I allow poly clear coat 7-14 days to cure and nitro 14-30 days before polishing. Poly consumables - £140-215 Nitro consumables- £150-260 Total Polyurethane Refinish: £350 – £450 (Primer, colour, poly clear, materials, and labour included.) Nitrocellulose Refinish: £400 – £550 (More coats, more labour, longer cure — hence the higher price.) I hope that helps.

+1 to not over-tighten the locking screws(A). I did that on one of mine on my 1989 Ibanez SR800LE and it fractured the saddle. Trying to find another new or used 206/omni-adjust bridge is near impossible so I had to repair using JB Weld. The only other viable option would be a bridge replacement for something more modern. Luckily the repair has held so far and I just leave well alone now.

I have spent the weekend building a larger waist height spray booth from my version 1 as it was a little too small to be comfortable. The dimensions now are 150cm wide x 100cm high x 80cm deep with a 6” extraction fan. Made from 18mm MDF. The front bottom panel is on hinges so I can open it up to be horizontal when spraying to aid airflow and a barrier for floor dust. It is also a handy place to mix paint and thinners. There is also a front top panel so that the front opening is restricted slightly. Extraction is on the bottom left of the back panel with a baffle to hopefully encourage downwards cross flow across pieces. The jig is a Billy Boy. i also upgraded to a used Devilbiss GTI PRO LITE 1.4 CLEAR with T110 air cap which is my dedicated clear coat gun now. It is a massive improvement over my budget guns and the finish results are so much smoother. One of the old guns will be my base coat and the other set up for primer. Air is from a SIP QT 100 litre compressor with 16 CFM displacement and 13 CFM FAD. The compressor is only about 63dB so much quieter and more efficient than my previous one. Finish-wise, I am using nitro paint and clear, 1k polyurethane clear and am going to try some 1k acrylic clear on a future build. It’s too dangerous to use the 2k stuff without a proper air fed respirator and certainly not in a garage attached to the house!

For the Jack, I would rewire to the old Jack if possible

First coats of poly on the Wenge and Elm J bass Paulownia Musicman and Walnut shortscale P bass finished with their satin nitro alongside @HeadlessBassist Walnut J bass that’s is all polished waiting for its graphite neck to arrive.

If @HeadlessBassist decides that it doesn’t work with his pickguard, I will put it up for sale on BC once I’ve cleaned the polish out of the holes lol

As promised…..It really is very glossy lol

I will take some photos….

Potential Walnut control plate finished for @HeadlessBassist walnut jazz bass build. Just waiting for his graphite neck to land and the assembly will begin!!

+1 for Earl Pilanz……got one for my G & L L2000 from him.

I use Liberon Finishing Oil which dries to a hard finish and hand sand it in. Depending how many coats you apply dictates the level of sheen from satin to a good gloss. I then wax, nitro or poly. This wenge and elm is just Liberon and nothing else and was only a couple of coats in at this point.