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New Build - Wenge/cocobolo/padauk hollowbody


mhoss32

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  • 2 weeks later...

Okay, so finishing has progressed significantly:

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Polish upon polish upon polish upon polish. lots of polishing. but the finish did come up really nicely. there are a few minor undulations, but the colour is perfect :)

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The bigsby now has its nice new brass string bar done on the lathe, and the holes drilled with a stainless steel guide on the pillar drill, and these are then mounted on the newly polished body!

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The Headstock piece of the cocobolo came out a bit darker than the body wood, but the grain is still gorgeous. I bought some extra thin abalone to go behind the little gold tree of life for the headstock, and made a truss rod cover from some 2.5mm black plastic. i was originally going to do this with some of the leftover cocobolo, but i want it to stand out a bit more so i have somewhere to sign my name in gold sharpie.

this should hopefully all get finished up this week, and I will try and get someone with a good camera to take some finish shots!

 

 

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I'm gonna say it again, the body shape is really really not my style and I don't like it at all, but daaaaaaaaaaaamn that colourcombinations is amazing. The gold with that wood, it's really awesome man. Good job!

Are the pickup-covers gonna be gold as well?

Edit: nevermind, I've scrolled back a page and can see now that they are made of wood. I think gold would have been nice ;)

Edited by Kamiel
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11 hours ago, Henrythe8 said:

I just *love* this shellac finish. Would you mind giving some details, please ? How is it applied, how many layers, how did you buff it to that shine ? 

THANKS ! 

Agreed, some more details would be great. Coincidentally my current build will also be shellac, I just hadn't quite worked out how to do it! Looks great though, top job.

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Shellac is best applied with a rubber, a folded piece of cotton with wadding inside that can be loaded with shellac dissolved in alcohol. It's put on very sparingly over a few days, applied in a random figure of eight.circles pattern so the polish looks like a feint mist flash drying just behind the rubber. It's lubricated with a little mineral oil to stop the rubber sticking. It may take upward of a thousand coats each microscopically thin to get that sort of build up and gloss. You can cheat a little and put the build up coats on with a squirrel hair mop and cut it back before finishing with a rubber bit it never really looks the same.

The really difficult bit is the very end, getting the gloss, you apply it in ever more dilute concentrations, then finally it is wiped clean with a fresh piece of wadding loaded with a few drops of pure alcohol so the rubber is barely damp, that cleans off any remaining oil and leaves the full beauty of the French polished finish.

Not an easy finish to apply, it helps to practice on some scrap wood first and don't expect to get a finish like that one until you're very good at it, whoever did that knew what they were doing

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@Christine your right it’s not a finish for the faint hearted and its definitely a finish that can’t be rushed!!

As you say when your cutting it back to remove the excess oil if you press too hard with the mop you can leave lines in the polish so that’s really good advice practice on a scrap piece of wood first!!

If anybody wants to learn how to French Polish the course I did was brilliant it’s run in Saffron Walden at the Paragon School of Restoration it was about £400 for a 5 day course..........😀

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Thanks for your kind words everyone!

You guys are absolutely right, its a difficult finish to apply well. ive had a little bit of experience with it before and did some practice before having a go at this, but the steps i followed are as follows:

 

  1. sand the surface back to 600-ish all over
  2. i mixed up a 2lb cut of the shellac with methylated spirits. its a pain to get clear methylated spirits in the UK without a permit, but some model railway suppliers do sell it in small quantities. i let it dissolve for at least 24 hrs, with a regular shake.
  3. using the 2lb cut of shellac, i layed down a fairly thick wash coat over the surface, not using a rubber just using a lint free rag. with about 3 hours of drying time inbetween to ensure that it had totally gassed off.
  4. make up a few french polishing rubbers. I use lint free t-shirt cloth wrapped around cotton wool pads for this.
  5. using one of the rubbers, add a small amount of the methylated spirits, and dab a very small amount of fine pumice onto the pad, and begin working it over the surface of the bass. this fills the pores very effectively. you can hear and feel the abraision happening, and then adjust the alcohol and pumice accordingly. this needs to be done pretty slowly, but it leaves a good base for the final polish.
  6. once the surface is filled and flat, i actually diluted the 2lb cut slightly, as it wasn't as thin as i was used to. this was then applied to another of the rubbers, and lubricated very slightly with a drop of olive oil. the polish is then applied in figure 8 motions. the length of each polishing  session can vary, and its best to just do this by feel, but generally each session of polishing was about 5-10 minutes for me. if you feel the surface getting soft then stop and let it dry before coming back.
  7. between sessions it use useful to wipe over the surface gently with a rubber with only alcohol to remove any residual oil
  8. to remove the fine swirl marks after youve done 2 or three sessions, sweep over the surface with the grain with a rubber with just alcohol
  9. once i'd done 5 or so polishing sessions, the pad had started to build up a bit of a crust of shellac, and at this point i began to add some more pressure and added more pure alcohol to the pad to burnish the surface.
  10. once youve reached a good gloss to the finish, a final gentle wipe down with very little alcohol will help to even out the finish.
  11. I let the finish dry and harden for a few days, and then wipe it with a soft rag and some good quality furniture cream polish, just to bring out the gleam that you see in the above photos

and feel free to ask if you want any more info on the finish!

with that in mind...

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Here she is!! in a case with some foam and velvet, where she belongs! needs a proper set up, and some proper photos taking, and i will record some sound clips but these will give you an idea of the final look:

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As i say, needs a proper set up doing, some fret leveling and truss rod adjustments, but at the moment its still a lovely bass to play. ended up very heavy (over 12lbs) but this is a gig bass, not one to take to practice for a few hours.

the preamp is a john east U retro with a passive tone control, and the bigsby combined with the roller saddles and graphite nut dont knock it out of tune when used thankfully! i will get round to signing the truss rod cover with a gold sharpie as well, but as itll be on and off a few times i thought id best not just yet.

The inlays didnt seem to mind the neck being under tension or the first minor truss rod adjutments, so that's more good news. ive strung it with one of my spare sets of optime gold strings, but i think it would benefit from a set designed for a longer than 34" scale.

I hope youve all enjoyed the log, and as i say i will get some proper photos and some sound clips done. but in the meantime it'll be onto the next one!!

 

 

 

 

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Thank you.

Really.

I can't believe the insane amount of craftmanship, and creativity displayed on this instrument. 

From inlays to finish, going through the addition of a custom Bigsby, the choice of wood... I'd say it screams it's quality build, but that would be far too crude as this bass oozes class and originality like Sean Connery in kilt. 

 

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