Andyjr1515

Yes - any major filling, they recommend micro-balloons.

First coat for top and sides done, using a handy cottage cheese container and sponge brush. Decent stuff to apply - just got to see how well/easily it sands down. I've worked it into the grain and finished cross-grain. Hopefully, that will maximise the grain fill and will also give me a ripple indicator of when I'm down to the level when doing the wet-sanding tomorrow. The epoxy will take around 3 hours until it can be handled and then I'll flip it over and give the back the same treatment.

Aberrations sanded away (leastways, I hope ); Finishing Epoxy arrived; hatch sanded curved and flush; CA hardening reapplied: So nothing for it, time to brush on the finishing epoxy and see if it does the business! It's quite quick curing so I am hoping to get all sides covered over the day. Rubber gloves and squeegees at the ready!!

Visitor stuff all done and so, hopefully, I can start on the home straights! Finishing Epoxy arrives tomorrow, all the 'reveal' coat aberrations are photographed and noted, including stuff that shouldn't have got through the 'pre-paint feel test' like this: But mainly the grain sink like this, which is what the finishing epoxy will be used for to level it all out: Also ordered is a jack plate, that will be recessed into the body - the recess also needing to be done before the final paint job. The hatch will also be final sanded, and similarly epoxied to ensure that it is flush and grain-free before painting both the body and the hatch. And also, the white paint on the headstock front needs to come off ready for its pink make-over. And so, ready for the epoxy arriving, the body is currently being sanded back to the wood, sorting the non-grain aberrations as I go: Most other stuff (screw inserts, hatch magnets, etc.) will be done after painting. Assuming there is some remaining dry weather in the coming week or so, the progress should accelerate a bit from now on

This is a nice bit of wood! I have a good feeling about this project

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

An update: I'll be bringing my 'same woods and proportions as a Thumb but, wisely, a different shape' fretless (more conveniently known as the SWAPAATBWADS Fretless) and 'Kert's' Single Cut Camphor bass - which may have different electrics or different pickups to last time or maybe the same...who knows! I certainly don't will have a Seymour Duncan 2-band EQ with Dimarzio PJ pups and - note the unique chance to buy a 'No Treble' Bass of the Week winner - will be For Sale for a mere king's ransom (other royal ransoms considered too) !

I'll be bringing my 'same woods and proportions as a Thumb but, wisely, a different shape' fretless (more conveniently known as the SWAPAATBWADS Fretless) and 'Kert's' Single Cut Camphor bass - which may have different electrics or different pickups to last time or maybe the same...who knows! I certainly don't

Pretty sure it's OK. Soon find out! I will be doing a small test on a spare block before I commit, but I think it will work OK. That dark grain on the paulownia is turning out to be very much like the grain in ash...and we all know how hard that is to achieve a sink-free result! I'm pretty sure that however much sanding is involved, those grain lines will continue to show unless the filler is something as hard and stable as something like epoxy. It doesn't really matter so much with clear natural finishes because your eye sees the grain and a bit of sinkage looks OK. But that's not the case with solid colours, as @JPJ rightly points out earlier. Could be worse...could be gloss black (a pet hate in the the painting world, as I'm sure @JPJ would agree )

Rest of this week/weekend will be progressively filled with family stuff ("Yes dear, I will try to get that pink off the dining table before the visitors come" ) But before then, I will be able to get this back to the wood and order what I will be using as the grain filler...which will be finishing epoxy. I'll probably use Z-Poxy Finishing Resin, which I have used before in my distant past and should add a touch of further surface toughening as well as allowing me to sand down to a 'proper' grain-free finish ready for the actual finish paint coats.

So, hang on, what's this?? Is it done????? Nah! Nowhere near. This is my sacrificial try-out using the extra tin of primer and shell pink that ordered for this very purpose. Look closer, my preciouses... Yes - it's awful at the moment: But actually in a different way to that which I was expecting. The missed sandings at both cutaways are amongst the sorts of things I was fully expecting . But the thing I was certain was going to be an issue, that the top and bottom curves were bound to be lumpy all over the place, well...they're both fine But the degree to which the grain is still showing, I wasn't expecting so much Some, yes, but I thought that the CA had seemed to have done a reasonable job of filling most of the general grain...but clearly not reasonable enough! Anyway, all of that will be easier to sort than the lumps and bumps that I was expecting - so I reckon it's a win Next step is: a full photo shoot so that I can see 'in the pink' every blemish that needs sorting; sand back to the wood (easier and quicker than you would think); re-sand the bits that need re-sanding; grain fill with something a little bulkier; repeat the CA treatment; start using the cans of paint that I didn't set out to sacrifice in the first place.

Using those first CA coats as 'reveal coats'. I sanded back any dints and cross-sandings I could see and then sis a general fine sanding. Then a (probably) final CA covering. **One thing worth flagging - apart from the PPE and ventilation requirements, the application cloth scraps get VERY hot. I'm talking smoking hot! Smoking hot while stuck to the protective gloves you are wearing!! You have been warned! I reckon this is not a process anyone should try unless they really know what they are doing and have all of the precautions in place...** But the result is, in this instance, what I was after. That wood surface is significantly tougher than before and the surface is smooth and ready for the first primer coats of nitro (and that's another process that no-one should try unless they are aware of the hazards and required precautions ) :

Loads more sanding today - and because the weather was OK, was able to do some of it outside which gave me much better light to look for aberrations in the surfaces. This seemed to be getting there: With a bit more room to focus the camera, it was also easier to get a proper view of the cross-section shape: Even with oblique light, I got to the stage of not being able to see any lumps and so, what the heck, let's have a drop of CA glue on it : I'm really liking this method...this is after just two very thin coats: Just a couple of small scratches I've missed, so tomorrow I will sand those and also do a general light sand all over and give it another coat and see if it's ready for a primer coat of nitro...

I think this says it all, @carlsim Stripping it to natural is possible, with relatively few tools, and a decent natural refinish can be done wipe-on with something like Osmo Polyx. But it is NOT easy. After the full strip down of electrics and components, you will probably find that the rest of the metallic comes off relatively well with a heatgun and decorators scraper. It will be a false sense of security. That white you see underneath? It will probably be an industrial-grade primer-sealer and will be VERY hard work to get off down to the wood. Sanding is pretty much the only way and, I kid you not, that can take days if you are trying not to dig in to the wood surface. And then, as @Bigguy2017 says, you don't know what it's going to be like underneath. If you like Lake Placid Blue, I would personally do what @ezbass suggests: a small amount of thin CA wicked under the raised flap (too much and it will come out through the cracks and set on the paint finish...and that is very difficult to make it look good again) to keep it from lifting and snapping off, a spot of humbrol enamel to hide the white of the exposed surface where it's chipped and then I would treat it as mojo.

And so we're onto the final carve. The paulownia is very interesting wood - some of it is very soft...and some of it is VERY hard. So the challenge, especially because everything is curved, is not for it to end up as a classroom demonstration of "how erosion created the Grand Canyon". And at this stage, much of it is by feel. It is almost impossible, in the sanded state, to visually see the lumps and bumps...but you can feel them. So my first step is very focussed scraping with, sometimes, the gooseneck card scraper: ...sometimes with a single-edged razor blade: ...and a variety of home-made sanding blocks. The variable curve one is useful as I can sand across the grain and the emery rides on, and sands off, the hard lumps of the peaks rather than digging into the softer troughs that a conventional sanding block, sanded with the grain, will tend to do: It will take a while until I can't feel any lumps or bumps any more...but I know, that some will still be there. What I will probably do - before I give it the CA treatment - is then give it a light gloss colour coat to highlight the remaining hills and hollows, then sand that all off, CA treat it and then, hopefully, move onto the final finishing.

Very sad news indeed

Just a few more things to check and do, and then I'm probably ready to do the final carve over the next few days. The mockup probably doesn't look much different to last time, except this time the neck is actually fixed using 4mm S/steel machine-screws: With a neck temporarily fixed in place, I could balance the bass, with all the components excepting only the strings, on the scales: 6lbs 7 1/4ozs - with the weight of the strings and finish to add, but the extra carve wood removal to come off. So sub-7lbs is an almost certainty, and we may even get to the original target of 6.5lbs (6lbs 8ozs to you modern metric folk ). The Centre of Gravity with everything broadly balanced in the right places is just forward of the 17th fret. I get back my own basses from Matt Marriott on Thursday, so I can check how that compares then, but a bass I have in the cupboard waiting attention has the CofG at just behind the 17th, so fingers crossed!

This small hand router isn't used that often, but when it is it's a godsend. Perfect for this job! So this is decently thick to resist warping that you sometimes get with thin covers, especially when the finish is applied: But it's nicely curved and flush Next job is the neck pocket. Oh - and a helpful 1/8oz sanded away...2lbs 6oz with hatch

For the hatch, I have the shape of the body recess but not yet the finished depth...but there are a few things that need doing first: - The hatch will start off quite thick - it will be eventually carved to the same shape as the back. - But the recess will also be deepened so that the bottom of the hatch just clears the pots and EQ And I find it a lot easier just to make the hatch first and do it by actual measurement than calculate it off measurements and hope for the best! Well, that's my excuse, anyway. There is a very helpful piece of offcut that is just the right size that will be used. I cut that to around 7mm as the initial thickness. First is to make a paper template of the outside edge using the highly sophisticated 'paper and fingernail' technique: Using the cut out template, I cut the blank a mm or so oversize and then work my way round, gently sanding the excess away in a long series of try, mark, sand, re-try, repeat, repeat, repeat. I usually do this with a sanding block as it is less prone to overdoing it and ending up with a gap, but for this I need square sides and so am using my little disk sander on 'dead slow': After half an hour or so, I have a hatch that is square-sided and close fitting to the shallow recess: What I will do now is, using a measuring rod through the EQ pot drill hole (the EQ pot is the deepest component), chisel the body recess deeper until the hatch has around a 2mm clearance from where the EQ circuit board end will be, once fitted. After that, with the whole hatch then sitting deeper than present... : ...I will plane and sand the hatch flush, with the curve matching the back profile. Weight sitting at 2lbs 6 1/8oz inclusive of oversize hatch Once that is done, I will shorten and shape the neck pocket and make a start on the final slimming / shaping.

Indeed I am! Here was my kit for the trial - a gasses/vapours repirator, heavy duty marigolds and safety over-glasses. To apply the two coats, I used small squares of cloth cut from an old T-shirt. For the trial wood, I used some paulownia offcut that I planed and sanded on both sides so that I could do a comparison of 'with and without' with the same abuse metered on the surfaces. This was a couple of thumbnail crosses pressed hard into the untreated side: And then turned over and the same treatment on the side that had two thin coats of CA glue applied (around 30 minutes between each coat with no accelerator on this particular trial): Good result!

I know it would make it top amongst equals...but that has to be best yet of this series...

Totally shocked. I've been away most of the week and have only just seen this. Extremely relieved that you and your neighbours are OK.

That's looking very nice