neepheid Posted Wednesday at 09:36 Author Posted Wednesday at 09:36 Last night I was braver with my flatting, and I got it pretty much flat. Unfortunately, I sprayed a couple of coats over the top and it's gone a bit orange peel-y. Very frustrating, I've done the same thing in the same way for the past 3 nights. I think I'll blast a couple more coats on it tonight before band rehearsal and see if it levels out a bit, after that I guess I'll just have to buff it out. Pain. 89_2007 project headstock lacquer flattened.mp4 1 Quote
neepheid Posted Wednesday at 09:37 Author Posted Wednesday at 09:37 43 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said: 'Test in inconspicuous area of the garment' We're well past the testing stage now! Quote
Hellzero Posted Wednesday at 09:55 Posted Wednesday at 09:55 As your paint dilution and viscosity could be discarded, the orange peel effect appears when you're too far from the surface or too many passes (the paint is not dry enough between passes) or when there's a draft, or all of these. Quote
neepheid Posted Wednesday at 10:20 Author Posted Wednesday at 10:20 9 minutes ago, Hellzero said: As your paint dilution and viscosity could be discarded, the orange peel effect appears when you're too far from the surface or too many passes (the paint is not dry enough between passes) or when there's a draft, or all of these. Must be the environmental then (am spraying in an unheated, uninsulated shed, so save for wind whatever's going on outside is happening inside also). I'm using the same timings as before, as instructed on the can (3 minute shake, 2 coats 5 minutes apart at 6"/15cm distance, 15 mins touch dry, 24 hour cure), so I left it 15 mins between double coats and that was working fine for the past two nights. I know men cannot be relied upon 100% to know what six inches looks like, but I'd like to think I was in the ball park most of the time... Quote
Hellzero Posted Wednesday at 11:45 Posted Wednesday at 11:45 My late father would have had the exact answer in no time as he explained me why, once (he wasn't pedagogical at all, so only once), why the orange peel effect appears, so as all, but the environment has been excluded, it was certainly too cold that night compared to the other times. Quote
neepheid Posted Wednesday at 11:55 Author Posted Wednesday at 11:55 Ach, no matter, probably blast a couple more coats on that, then flatten back, then polish. Should be fine. Was just annoyed because it had been going on smooth and great until then. 2 Quote
neepheid Posted 8 hours ago Author Posted 8 hours ago Left it for a few days, then did a proper flatten and polish - 1500 > 2000 > 2500 grit wet sanding followed by Meguiars Ultimate Compound for the final polish. First time using Meguiars and wow, I'm sold. The compound plus a microfibre cloth and job's a good 'un! Not quite the "sheet of glass", but for a first go by an absolute beginner amateur who has never done anything like this before in his life, I'm pretty pleased with the outcome. It looks... intentional? Looks better than this IRL. The camera does lie! So, as you can gather, it's all back together again. Gave the fretboard a drink of lemon oil which it greedily accepted. I can happily proclaim the outcome of my first ever full fret level and crowning to be a success - no high frets, no buzzes, very happy with that! It's playing pretty damn well, took a setup like a champ. Truss rod on this super cheap neck is working great - obviously it was pretty slack from when I was doing the fret level, so when I put a fresh set of D'addario XLs on it it bent like a banana. No matter, a full turn on the truss rod and it was back to straight - actually too straight for my liking so I loosened it about an 1/8 of a turn and then there was a sliver of relief - just how I like it. Nut height feels OK to me - I'm no expert but I'm whizzing around the low frets no bother so I guess it's good. There are only some minor things to sort out now. The rotten bit at the bottom/back of the body. I'm not wedded to these amber speed knobs. I get quite a bit of touch buzz off the pole pieces of the Warman pickup and because it's fully epoxy potted, there's no way to earth them from the back, so unless I've done something wrong in the wiring, I'll have to do the old "lacquer/nail varnish on the pole pieces" trick. And because some of you care about these things, it weighs 3.7kg/8.15lbs on the bathroom scales. It's not a heavy bass by any means, but it has enough heft to keep me happy. 7 Quote
Richard R Posted 8 hours ago Posted 8 hours ago Multiple Wows!! Looks great, but I agree you need to swap the control knobs. Black and grey to match the headstock? 1 Quote
SpondonBassed Posted 8 hours ago Posted 8 hours ago (edited) That's looking good. I imagine you will have a lot of fun tweaking things like the knobs (as mentioned) and the control cavity cover. I had a chuckle to myself when I saw how the G string obscures the view of your "deliberate" mistake of leaving out the line in the note's tail. Did I see you had managed to fix it in an earlier image? Why not make a feature of the rotted part? Maybe a bit of faux gold filler to make it stand out. Transparent coloured fillers can look good too. Wire brush the rotten fragment out to leave an interesting texture and wah-hay! Edited 8 hours ago by SpondonBassed 1 Quote
neepheid Posted 3 hours ago Author Posted 3 hours ago 4 hours ago, Richard R said: Multiple Wows!! Looks great, but I agree you need to swap the control knobs. Black and grey to match the headstock? Thinking black and chrome will tie it all in nicely with the large pole piece pickups and the chrome hardware. Anyway, they're ordered, so we'll see if I was right later in the week! 2 Quote
neepheid Posted 3 hours ago Author Posted 3 hours ago 4 hours ago, SpondonBassed said: That's looking good. I imagine you will have a lot of fun tweaking things like the knobs (as mentioned) and the control cavity cover. I had a chuckle to myself when I saw how the G string obscures the view of your "deliberate" mistake of leaving out the line in the note's tail. Did I see you had managed to fix it in an earlier image? Why not make a feature of the rotted part? Maybe a bit of faux gold filler to make it stand out. Transparent coloured fillers can look good too. Wire brush the rotten fragment out to leave an interesting texture and wah-hay! It will be fun to have a play about with these minor things, but I'm mostly looking forward to road testing it with the bands later this week! Sounding good in the cans, but it's not the same as having a thrash at war volume with a full band. I did fix the little gap in the logo, ultra fine Sharpie and a ruler, then more clearcoat on top. The rotten part is super low priority, but because it'll be nigh on impossible to fix it invisibly, you're right - I might as well make a feature of it instead. Cool ideas, had a few others, will mull it over. 1 Quote
neepheid Posted 3 hours ago Author Posted 3 hours ago (edited) Well, a quick update - I've sorted the touch buzz on the Warman pickup. My mistake, I bunched together the main pickup ground with the ground of one of the coil ends instead of it going to "chassis" ground. Separated them then soldered the braid to the copper shield and that sorted it. Weirdly enough, there's touch buzz on the bridge pickup, but only when it's out of circuit (well, it's not truly out of circuit because it's still connected to the blend pot), which is pretty odd. No matter, I don't ever rest my thumb there so I'm not super concerned about that. Edited 3 hours ago by neepheid Quote
Hellzero Posted 1 hour ago Posted 1 hour ago I also think that making the rotten part obviously obvious (voluntary redundancy) is the thing to do... 1 Quote
SpondonBassed Posted 59 minutes ago Posted 59 minutes ago 4 minutes ago, Hellzero said: obviously obvious (voluntary redundancy) Good one! A doff of my hat to you sir. (You can collect your redundancy payment on your way out... heeheehee) 1 Quote
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