carlsim

You can see a bit more of the satin sheen coming through here…

So switched over to 400 grit W&D today with the tru oil and there is a distinct change in smoothness and lustre. Still not shiny and from the pictures, it’s doesn’t look much different but it is definitely less patchy and feel much smoother to the touch. 
Going in the right direction that’s for sure… 

using tru oil is definitely a fool proof way of getting a nice finish. I look at it now and really like the way it looks, the poly will just add a bit of extra gloss and protection! 
All hail the Tru Oil!

Just now, Andyjr1515 said:

It's looking very good, @carlsim.   I reckon by the time you've finished you will be pretty close to the above

 

Ref the tinted nitro lacquer - if you're going to try that, test it on some scrap first.  Of all of the fussy, shallow and petulant finishes that don't like mixing with finishes not of their social standing, nitro is the worst by a country mile!  

I tried it on some scrap as you mentioned and it was bloody awful!! More yellow than anything else so I won't be going that route! To be honest, it does contrast a little but I can live with that and sure looks 10 times better than the black plastic one some ham-fisted sod put a hole in so they could access the gain pot on the pre-amp!

14 minutes ago, Richard R said:

Double post

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! 
 

2 hours ago, Maude said:

What a lovely piece of wood. I like big, wide grain like that. 

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??

2 minutes ago, benh said:

I actually prefer the contrasting grain of the cover! Great job 🙂 it's going to look great when oiled.

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!

20 minutes ago, PaulThePlug said:

@carlsim

If you havent started with the danish slurry... can sometimes go patchy and a bit sticky...

I've just rubbed the danish of the neck of my P bitsa...

And gone Rustoleum Furniture Wax... soooooo nice..

Recommend ya give it a go on some scrap... to compare the two

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??

17 minutes ago, Andyjr1515 said:

It's looking good!  Lucky break that it would chip off

 

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!

19 minutes ago, Richard R said:

Slurry and Buff:

Slurry and Buff are a double act comprising a young farmer and a male model. Slurry plays the piano and pretends to be somewhat laviscious and drunk, Buff sings the songs wearing a tux but no shirt.  Their rendition of "I've got a brand new combine harvester" has women of all ages go weak at the knees.

Bookings now being taken for the Christmas season.

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!

7 hours ago, Maude said:

Mmm, nice wood! 😉

 

For the recessed knob holes (pack it in), do you have access to a pillar drill? 

Just thinking out loud here, but if you had just the right size flat wood drill bit you could run it in a the recess to take the paint off the sides and bottom, although they do tend to have a slight arc to the cutting face so would cut the circumference of the hole slightly deeper, but it wouldn't notice once the knob was fitted. 

They don't tend to cut cleanly though so it might not work. The better woodworkers here will hopefully advise. 

Possibly, if removing the blue cleanly proves difficult, just paint the recessed holes black, then sand across the top to get a clean edge. It all depends how much is visible with the knob fitted. 

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… 

46 minutes ago, Richard R said:

Leave the sides and curves blue, it looks really cool like that!

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!

Just now, Andyjr1515 said:

Hi

That's what I have found to be the most successful.  There are challenges - it needs to get pretty hot to soften enough for the scraper to get the coating off, but you have to avoid scorching the wood underneath.  So I find sweeps across a small to medium area to slowly warm it and not holding the heatgun static in one place too long.  Take your time at the edges and cutaways for the same reason.  

 

Also care with the scraper - don't dig into the wood.  Again, patience is your friend here.

 

Given that the pieces are so easily cracking away, you might find that the top layer actually does come off fairly easily.  For the sub layer of primer, don't use the heat gun - move onto sanding block/orbital sander.  It's hard work - take a couple of days over it so you don't have to rush and dig in or sand something you don't want to!

 

And yes - we are all very interested how it goes

 

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!