yorks5stringer

Back in September's Bass Guitar Magazine there was 'Nominate the coolest Bass part and greatest bass player' voting form along with the promise to 3 winners of a Jackson Dave Ellefson signature Bass. Having voted myself, last month's BGM was full of pages of copy based on the Votes (and spurious Birthday Wishes) but no details of the lucky Competition Winners. Come today and my January Edition arrives and still no information about the lucky winners.....yet there is another Competition to nominate your best bass, amp or effect released in the UK with a Dapper FX unit as the prize. My question to BGM is how long does it take to draw 3 winners and include their names in your Magazine or do I smell a Rat (FX Pedal)?

Had a bit of a disaster. I ran out of clear lacquer to finish off the body, it was covered with a full can of colour and looked rather nice. Rather than get it from my usual supplier (£12.99 a can plus £6 postage) I found another supplier who sold it for £10.99 delivered and it arrived the next day. My former supplier did the cans with the nozzle loose, so you just inserted it and were ready to go. However this supplier had a safety seal under the nozzle which was pre-fitted and there were no warnings about it. So I shook the can, clipped on the handle and set about spraying noticing that it was a very poor spray. Inexperience made me continue in the hope the lacquer would melt into the paint but all I did was cover everything with orange peel and cos the spray was too fine, took the nozzle too close to the work. This melted some of the colour coat in places there are now areas of lighter colour than others. Hoping a further coat (after drying) would help (having now sorted the nozzle flow) I put it on this morning but the shaded areas are still showing. I'm guessing leaving it to dry after virtually a full can of clear and rubbing smooth/buffing to get rid of orange peel/dust nibs isn't going to help with the shading and I need to start again with the colour coat? Is it OK to shoot more colour over streaky colour/orange peel clear or should I rub it back to the old poly beneath or is there a middle ground? Also if I went with a different colour (lighter blue) would that be an issue? Needless to say the suppliers of the can with the non-mentioned safety seal will not accept any responsibility......

There's a guy flipping Harley Benton deco Basses for more than Thomann sell them for as Perfect at the moment. He uses the Thomann photos of perfect ones and makes no mention that they are Decos. He's not breaking the rules, calls them 'New Other' but it leaves a bad taste in the mouth as he's being economical with the truth.

Or those pickups with long bars in them.....?

Hence the term 'His knibs'?

Thanks for that. So use a whole can of colour and ditto of clear? Does one need to flat the colour before putting on the clear or will the clear 'melt' into colour coats? Also, I've put on 7 coats of Amber onto the neck. I have a new decal (cough!); do I need to flat where the decal will go before building up the coating with clear and then flatting to remove the 'edge'?

Mm. wonder if my coats are too thin, maybe keep going until I run out of paint?

Another example of not to believe what you see on Youtube....I watched a demo of a well-known NW Company spraying a guitar body with 3/4 coats of nitro and then saying he would do a further 2 coats of clear gloss. So I decided I was going to do the same: 3/4 coats colour and 2 clear, let it dry and then flat and buff. However I noticed this morning that I could still see the scratches through the paint from my scuff coat, so based on Norris's message above decided to flat off 'in between'. Did that very gently and then shot a couple more colour coats and hey presto, no more visible scratches from my initial scuff coat through the nitro paint! Thanks! So tomorrow will do 2 coats of clear gloss and then hang it up till the New Year! Have been Amber Tinting the neck too, got a run which I only saw this morning from last night, so rubbed it down with 1200 and then shot a couple more coats over that now bare area, let it dry then continued with front and back of the neck and its healed in nicely with no trace of the run. Thought it best to do it early on rather than build up layers over it which will just have to be rubbed back down.

Weird how advice differs on what grade to scuff with. I originally read someone say 200 grit, then later 400 which I went for. Harley above suggests 600-800 as does Norris. Certainly I could see the scratches even though I went over with 600 grade. Hopefully as I'm going over poly the edges will be fine.

Great, good to know. So to recap: Scuff coat again over body and neck with 600-800 grit w&d Shoot a couple of coats of clear gloss over headstock, then shoot Amber Tint coats, then finish with clear Gloss. Don't bother putting primer on body ( as covered in good quality poly, no imperfections) and shoot coats of LPB followed by clear Gloss. Obviously will observe timing between coats and leave things to dry a couple of week before final polishing

Replies crossed, no imperfections, it's a new Bass that I have taken apart ready for Spraying. Using Rattle Cans with a handle and proper mask. Another question I had to reshape the headstock from Harley Benton shape to Fender shape. This meant losing some of the original clear coat on the headstock where I re-shaped and where the decal was. I'm thinking shooting a couple of coats of the clear Nitro first just to seal it before going onto the Amber Tint as i don't have any clear primer?

What if I now go over the 400 grit with 600-800 grit and then just shoot coats of Nitro?

I have a Sunburst Poly finish body that I am going to paint Lake Placid Blue with Nitro. I've scuffed the poly with 400 grade w&d. Do I need to shoot a coat of primer over first before doing the Blue Nitro? I'm pretty sure the Nitro will adhere, its more about the Blue colour covering over the Sunburst: should I just keep going with coats until I get a nice solid Blue? I've got clear lacquer to go over after the colour coat too. I have got a can of Primer also so it's no problem doing it, but don't want to add extra complexity if not necessary Thanks

15% discount till Monday too: edit 20% if over £100

Now ordered the paint so will start a new thread when it arrives and I commence the (re)build!. Thanks for the suggestions.

Black Friday was invented in 1975 by Donald Fagan and Walter Becker (R.I.P). Even they would be surprised how it has taken off across the world?

I'm moving away from the Paisley ( the black one was a material cover ) as you only get one chance at' bursting' the pink sides and I don't want to screw it up as to do it again would mean stripping the paper off and starting again.....

Just got a Bridge Jazz Bass pickup from Tomas. Well packed and photographed too, a good idea. Great comms. and deal with him with confidence.

Just had a similar quandary with our local pub that has recently re-opened. I popped in for a meal and mentioned I played ( I know the landlord from his last restaurant) and he asked if we were free on NYE. I contacted the rest of the Band asking if they were free and their fee expectations. Drummer ( who used to run a pub but went bankrupt) would not shift from £2000 so ruled himself out. As luck would have it(!), it's a tiny playing space so we will run as a 4 piece. I went up to the pub, discussed what sort of sets they wanted ( and we are not a party band) and settled on £500. Next day he offered us a staff Christmas party gig too so we're doing them, both for £750. Now frantically learning some more up-tempo material as we are a bit laid-back and do weird american mid-west stuff that no-one has ever heard of!

So Gibson own Philips the Dutch electrical brand?