carlsim

The thing is, it doesn't look too bad there but the raised paint with sharp edges was particularly annoying! Plus I really liked the picture I found of one of these in a natural finish: So I am hoping it won't look too far away from this when complete! I have no idea how these are finished in the factory - nitro or poly lacquer - wax and buff, oil, natural or heavily buffed but at the end of the day, I have limited resources and skills set but with some help, I am hoping to get to a finish that I am pleased with. Looking at the picture again it does seem to have a gloss shine in the light - hopefully I will be able to get somewhere near that!

If you look closely in the pics you can still see where the white primer is embedded in the grain (the long distinctive patterns). It is annoying but in all honesty, barely noticeable and at this stage I would rather not try and sand more of it off as I have no idea (given ash has quite an open grain) how much I will need to sand to clear it. I guess this is one of the issues with taking a painted bass back to the wood! You can barely make it out and have get very close to even notice it. I'm going to treat it as a special property of the wood! 😀

So after a second coat of tru oil on Saturday morning, the sanding scratches are nowhere near as bad as I thought so I light dry sand with 240 W&D and another smidge of oil and looking much better! I also managed to reduce the primer left in the grain to next to nothing as well. Another bash with 240 slurry, then 400 and 800 should get it nice and smooth before the poly goes on. I must admit this finishing malarky is not easy so kudos goes to @Andyjr1515 for the finishes you achieve - patience is a virtue in this game. Having said that, I'm pretty pleased so far, the colour in the photos is a lot lighter than real life and it is taking on a nice amber-y hue to the colour which is nice. Really pleased with the ash cover as well - it is a bit lighter than the body but there isn't much I think I can do at this stage. I do have some tinted aged lacquer sitting in a box (but this is a nitro lacquer) so may sand back and bash some on there - see how that looks... I have some scraps that I can practice on as well... Anyway... will sort a few minor scratches on the back later and then onwards!

Just had a look at my first dry coat - I am a bit disappointed with the small amount of sanding scratches that I can now see - what the oil has exposed and wondering now if I: 1 - treat it as more of worn look - it is a used guitar after all! 2 - go back to the sandpaper (will need loads as tru oil really gums it up!) it's not terrible, only noticeable in certain light and localised (I think) to the areas I noticed which had the white primer showing in the grain I mentioned before plus another area which will be covered by the scratchplate. As I do a bit more oil and slurry I am hoping that they will fade - or am I delusional?

@Andyjr1515thank you so much for the clear instructions and detailed description. you truly are one helpful BCer! having done my first oil and slurry, I don’t think it is going to need loads of this before I start the poly… I’m going to work up to 800 grit with tru oil (I started today with 240) which should see it nice and smooth ready for the poly. I’m still not sure how glossy I want it but I suppose I can stop when I get to something I like the look of! to be honest, I quite like it now after one coat of tru oil!! But I think I want the extra protection that the poly will offer so will go that route. again, thank you for all your help along the way!

I was really please when I saw the wood. The guy at Xotic told me they use the pretty ones for natural finishes so I wasn’t holding out much hope but I was well chuffed when I had it back to the wood. If I can get a finish anywhere near to @Andyjr1515’s bass in the picture, it will be a successful project!

so, first coat of Tru-Oil went on today and I'm really chuffed with the result so far. A light darkening of the wood which results in a nice, healthy looking lump of timber and the grain is filling and showing nicely. One annoyance, the white / clear primer that is put on in the factory is so deeply embedded in the grain I have reached a point where I just cannot get rid of it. It is very subtle and if anything, adds a slight shimmer to areas of the grain so I can live with it. I cannot keep sanding and sanding as I have no idea how deep I will have to go. Ash has quite an open grain so I think I have to live with that one. A few more coats of tru-oil with wet and dry moving up through some grits and it will be ready for some wipe on poly! @Andyjr1515 I am hoping for a 'wipe on poly tutorial' to appear if you are able to! So it is going well, the new ash control cavity looks lovely as well although is quite a bit lighter than the guitar body - I will try and darken it a bit by keep adding some extra coats of tru oil (any advice welcome here) but if not, a little contrast never hurt did it!

That finish on the guitar with the tru oil and hard glaze looks amazing! do you feel any grain through that or is it completely flat??

I hope so… the control cover is clearly newer wood so I may have to try and get that a bit darker to match as I oil the guitar…

So the sanding continues, getting it smooth enough to start the tru oil next week… but I do like the ash control cover I made! Not perfect, I know the grain doesn’t match (what would be the chances!) and I need to plane about 1mm off the top so it sits flush, but it’s a lot better than black plastic! moving forward finally… another 6 weeks and I reckon she will be all back together!

I might do that. I’m using tru oil though, which is supposed to give better results based on other posts and recommendations from other BCers… the furniture wax, did you manage to buff it up to a shine??

I was ever so grateful for that! Sanding through it with an orbital sander was hard work on back and front so doing the sides by hand would’ve been a nightmare! glad that is done - thank you for all your great advice!

I think I saw them once at a function I did a gig at… they were the headline act!

So… I have been a bit quiet on here, mainly due to the endless sanding and chipping, sanding and chipping. I actually found that I was able to chip the sealer coat of much easier and quicker than sanding (that was slow and hard work) but sliding a sharp chisel under the sealer coat, it just seemed to chip away. This saved me a lot of hassle and sanding around those corners! Finally, I get all the sealer coat chipped off and clear the white base coat to be left with (what I think) is some lovely wood and once oiled and buffed, I think is going to look great! quite a bit more sanding to go, got to clear the white base coat on the sides and the progressively through the grits to get it baby smooth. Then onto the slurry and buff!

Thanks for the advice… I think I cracked it using a small dremel sanding tool and I managed to chip it off with a Stanley knife… no damage to the wood! That was a relief… just got to get the rest of the sealer coat off now… it’s coming off but it’s slow work… with the sides, I have taken to chipping it off with a chisel…. I can slide the chisel under the edge and it just breaks away! Will be slow work though…

ha!! Bit late now for that, all the top coat is gone! More sanding this weekend…

Some significant progress this morning - have cleared most of the top coat (just the sides left to go and had a little experiment of getting through the clear sealer / primer coat - man that was a b****!! So, I got quite excited first off, burnt off the top coat in a small area, a bit of a rub with 120 grit sandpaper and wahey!! Wood! oh wait... nope, that's the clear sealer coat. Hopes of a quick job were dashed. So, I burnt a bit more off around the control area just to be sure there was no damage to the wood itself and I thought, 'Odd - I can still feel it'. Start sanding and then realise that this was the sealer coat. Damn. So I sand.... and sand, and sand some more until finally, I start to see wood. And I am PLEASED! Lovely grain and gives me hope that a strip and a wax was not such a terrible idea after all! Yes it is a lot of work, but I can get through a lot of it with a tougher grit and an orbital sander leaving the finer stuff to hand. Will be a lot of work but the outcome should look good in the end I hope! The control knob recesses will be tough, as will the sides as I would be wary of tackling these with a orbital sander for fear of mis-shaping them. Any advice is welcome on that front! Overall I am pleased with the look of the wood so far, and you can kinda see the grain patterns through the sealer coat so I think it is definitely going to be back to the wood. When I get there I may ask for opinions on finishing as I want to achieve a satin lacquer look - not heavily glossy but with a nice smooth finish. Feel free to chip in at this stage with opinions! Going to try and strip the rest of the top coat from the sides later today and then the sanding can begin!

For anyone interested, i have started a build post where I will document my limited successes and no doubt, a long list of failings before I finally turn it over to someone who knows what they are doing!

So I began the process of repairing the Xotic I have been banging on about in the 'repairs and technical' section... Just spent about 40 mins stripping the bass down to the body and from there you can get a much better idea of the damage. Luckily, there is no structural issues (I was concerned that there might be some cracks in the control cavity but luckily there are none). Thanks to @Andyjr1515 for the advice, I will be starting off tomorrow with a heat gun and scraper around the damaged area to see how that comes away, and possibly a bit of sanding to gauge how thick the primer is! Softly and gently she goes! I will say that if the neck pocket is anything to go by, I could have a nice lump of wood so would be willing to put the effort in if the wood underneath looks good. Will report back tomorrow!

Thanks mate - will start a build diary post and add the link shortly...

going to make a start this week stripping the hardware ready to start on the paint this week... gonna start slowly with the damaged area by hand and will see how that goes, then I may well get a bit more on it with a stripper and orbital sander! @Andyjr1515did you mention that the best approach is to use a heat gun and decorators scraper? Any other advice with getting stuck in stripping the paint? I'm going to try a small area on the back to see how easy it is to get back to the wood (and also to see if it is worthwhile to consider a natural finish...) I will start a new post on the build diaries if anyone is interested to see how it goes!

Can anyone recommend someone to do a re-spray? Just need the top coat and lacquer...

Thanks for all the great advice guys, I'm still at a bit of stalemate with what to do. It isn't my main bass so have the luxury to make it a long term project. I had a more in depth conversation with someone at Xotic and he did say that the body may have small flaws (he stressed the may) but essentially they are all the same wood - they just pick out the ones with the nicer / more distinct grain patterns for natural finishes. Either way, I think it's two options - strip back and re-paint (I will do the prep work myself and just pay someone to paint) or strip right back and see what the wood is like with an aim to wax / satin lacquer finish which I can do all myself. If i get it sanded back and don't like the look of it, I can then look at painting again. I think I am going to sand back / strip off the paint on the front anyway to get an idea of what it 'could' look like waxed, and then decide if I continue that route or just strip back to the sealer coat for a re-spray. The good thing is I got it cheap enough to pay for a re-spray! It isn't a cheapo bass and it plays lovely so I do want to make a good job of it at the end. Better get stripping! The bass, not me!

Thanks for the advice @Andyjr1515 I have spoken to someone at Xotic and they confirm that they use 'paint grade' bodies for painted finishes and in his words, "Save the pretty ones for the natural finishes". I think a strip and wax will be put on the backburner for now. They recommended a complete strip and re-paint if I wanted to fix as they think a match would be difficult but I think I have managed to stabilise any loose layers of paint with CA and clamped them down as it wouldn't stay down whilst it dried. I'm not entirely happy but it will do for now until I can decide what to do. I am going to speak to some paint people to see how good they think they can get a match and then I can possibly look into a repair rather than a full respray.