Repairing & Painting the Headstock on my Gold Warmoth

[Delberthot]

There's one thing that has always annoyed me about my Gold Warmoth and was something that I did when building it.

When I was trying to increase the size of the gap to fit my JAN III, I made a total arse of cutting it. I ended up having to take it to Jimmy Moon in Glasgow to fix it as I had positioned it in the wrong place meaning that the first 5 notes were very badly out of tune with the rest of the bass.

He did a great job but those chips next to the nut and more recently the holes left behind after changing from a Hipshot string retainer to standard one are getting more and more annoying.

Long before getting the Corvette, I wanted to fill the holes, sand it flat and then paint the headstock black but didn't want to leave myself without a bass. Now I have the Corvette I can take my time doing this.


There has also been one thing missing for me as well and that is a logo on the headstock. I don't care that it doesn't say Fender but I really want something on it to identify it as my bass.

I have everything I need: Filler, Primer, Black paint, Laquer and a sheet of decal paper.

The first thing to do was to remove the strings and neck:






These 2 pics show you the holes and the chipped section right next to the the nut.






This is what it looks like with the strings and hardware removed.





A Full head view






After filling the holes and building up the missing portion next to the nut.





I'm going to let the filler dry for a bit and while I am doing so, have a go at designing a new logo for the bass.

Edited January 23, 2009 by Delberthot

[Delberthot]

I have primed then sprayed the head black and left overnight.

I decided to go with my initials on the end of the headstock as opposed to my second choice which was that of 'f***er Pee Bass'


Found my decal paper and printed it off, cut it out, laquered it, left it to dry. I then soaked it in water and guess what?


I had actually picked up my sticker paper so I thought, f*** it, its thin enough so I've stuck it onto the headstock and began laquering it.

Its looking good so far - I'll post some pics later.

Edited January 24, 2009 by Delberthot

[Delberthot]

I've now got some pics of the painting in progress:


The first one is after a couple of coats of primer - exciting eh?






the second is after a couple of coats of black - I intentionally went for the visible grain look as something a bit different







Here's the logo I chose - its just my initials - please note that this is sticker paper and not decal paper - what an arse I am







This is after after about 5 coats of laquer - the decal/sticker isn;t as raised as it was initially. I plan on doing 15-20 coats so it should be pretty flush by then. Only thing now is that you can no longer see the grain





I should be finished laquering by tea time. I'm doing a coat every 15-20 minutes. I'll then take the masking off after a couple of hours and leave it to cure for a couple of weeks before polishing and putting the hardware back on.

[steve-soar]

Looks great.
Wenge will suck up a lot of lacquer, so you may see some grain.
Very classy.

[Delberthot]

And correct you were.

When I left it to dry it was silky smooth but now its showing just the right amount of grain - not that you can actually see it from the picture.


Thought Id finish this thread off since I actually started another in the gear porn section showing off the rest of it.

The finished result:

Edited January 28, 2009 by Delberthot

[DanOwens]

What brand/type of laquer have you used? It looks great!!!

Dan

[Delberthot]

I got the primer, paint and laquer from Halfords. Just the usual spray cans