Fender Classic 70s refinish

[LawrenceH]

So, it has taken me ages but finally my refinish of my Mexican Classic 70s is (nearly!) done.
Started off a shiny, pristine black. I know what you're thinking - almost as boring as sunburst!
[attachment=63972:DSCF1107.JPG] [attachment=63973:DSCF1117.JPG]

Naturally, I had to do something about that. I tried sanding for a few minutes until I got completely bored of it, then decided more drastic measures were necessary. As I mentioned in another thread a while back, I found the most effective way to strip the bass back once I'd hacked into it with a chisel enough to getstarted, was by using a paint scraper combined with a powerful hairdryer! Better than a heat gun in some ways as it made the polyester more plastic but didn't competely melt it into that disgusting sticky gunk.
Point of no return:
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Forging ahead:
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[AndyTravis]

Ace, what colour are you going for?

[xilddx]

Bloody hell! So the heat and scraper method actually works! That's the most useful photograph I think I've ever seen! Thank you

[LawrenceH]

[quote name='AndyTravis' post='1024511' date='Nov 15 2010, 12:22 PM']Ace, what colour are you going for?[/quote]

Wasn't really sure to start with - definitely fancied candy apple red, but for a first go that one felt a bit ambitious - plus red translucent tint isn't readily available at Halfords! Left the decision in the end until after sealing and priming. Will reveal all as the thread progresses, along with the many mishaps, to force the curious to keep reading I realise there's people with proper spray set-ups on here who consider a refinish trivial, but I found it an absolute b****r to get right with spray cans and hopefully my experience will offer some pointers for fellow beginners.

To get the paint out of that pointless routing hole so I could fill it, and to scuff up the pickup cavities, I used a Dremel sanding bit from B&Q - basically a little rough stone that you put on the end of a drill. First couple of mishaps were when my slightly unwieldy drill and my ineptness led me to scuff the wood near the edges, but no matter as I was using wood filler to smooth things out where the chisel marks were anyway!
[attachment=63993:DSCF1134.JPG] [attachment=63994:DSCF1363.JPG]
So lacking the tools to make a proper wood plug, I ended up filling the hole with Ronseal wood filler, in a couple of goes with a night in between layers to help it dry better. I also filled the pickguard screw holes (bodged to fit another pickguard by previous owner so I wanted to start fresh) and a couple of dings, unfortunately I don't have any pictures.EDIT: Yes I do, here:
[attachment=64010:DSCF1368.JPG]
Next I used an acrylic sanding sealer (Chestnut is the manufacturer). I tried spraying outside first, which was a disaster - even the slightest airflow messed things right up. So at the suggestion of my remarkably tolerant wife, I bought one of those mini plastic greenhouses for growing tomatoes in, to act as an indoor spray booth. And I pinched a couple of 3M masks from work to try and minimise the amount I poisoned myself.

Edited November 15, 2010 by LawrenceH

[xilddx]

In terms of finishing, I have used the Halfords type acrylic and compared to Tonethech Luthier Supplies Pre Cat Nitro Rattle cans, it is not very good at all. I am a complete amateur at refinishing and I got a great finish with the pre cat Nitro. £15 a can. You can wet sand it after 24 hours, well I did, and get a lovely glassy finish quite quickly. If you need the method I can help you, or talk to Tonethech themselves, they are incredibly helpful.

EDIT: Oh I see, you have sprayed it already.

Edited November 15, 2010 by silddx

[LawrenceH]

[quote name='silddx' post='1024735' date='Nov 15 2010, 03:24 PM']In terms of finishing, I have used the Halfords type acrylic and compared to Tonethech Luthier Supplies Pre Cat Nitro Rattle cans, it is not very good at all. I am a complete amateur at refinishing and I got a great finish with the pre cat Nitro. £15 a can. You can wet sand it after 24 hours, well I did, and get a lovely glassy finish quite quickly. If you need the method I can help you, or talk to Tonethech themselves, they are incredibly helpful.

EDIT: Oh I see, you have sprayed it already.[/quote]

Yup, but thanks for the tip - I didn't want to start with the NC cans as they're quite expensive for experimenting with, especially as I was worried that getting a smooth enough finish before spraying might be tricky. I'll definitely try NC in future though for reasons this build thread will make clear! My father was a mechanic and has a spray gun/compressor, plus some experience spraying both nitro and acrylic, so I'll probably go down that route.
By the way, the heat plus scraper thing worked very well with the hairdryer - I think it melts the original sealer layer if you keep the heat on for a bit, and the outer layer softens enough to peel away. A photo of the aftermath:
[attachment=63996:DSCF1136.JPG]

[LawrenceH]

The sealer seems to dry very quickly and is good to sand within an hour or two. Especially if you impatiently speed things along with a hairdryer like I kept doing! Despite what it says on the tin, I'd use several layers of the sealer - I had to go back and re-seal a few bits because of inadequate coverage.

By the way, with sanding, don't bother with the Halfords wet and dry paper beyond 600. 800 and up is rubbish, best to buy something decent from an auto shop or online.

Next up was priming. I used the Halfords white primer, and this is the point at which you (or I, at least) notice all the imperfections in the body that were previously hidden by the wood grain pattern. It's worth noting that because of the thick polyester finish, I don't think they bother with getting it as smooth as you need to for a good finish with nitro or acrylic. The solution was much swearing, using the Halford's filler primer (unfortunately bright mustard yellow) and as much hair-drying as I could get away with (too much and it blisters), then respraying over with white, more swearing when I cut into the yellow while wet sanding around the edges, more filling, more priming and eventually I had a white body that had been sanded down to 800 wet. If I'd realised at this point how crap the Halfords 800 was I'd have switched to the 600 and probably got less sand-through but that's why I did this one with cheap-o rattlecans!

You'll notice the makeshift spray booth made of a stepladder, this was before I switched to the little greenhouse. You can also see where I needed to spray more to hid the yellow filler primer. Why they have to pigment that stuff I really don't know. By the way, for the novice, the primer is much more powdery than the actual colour layers and gives you a false sense of how easy it is to get good, even coverage. For the same reason it also dries quicker than the later layers and you can be (or I was at least) quite cavalier about spraying, speeding the drying with gentle heat, and wet sanding all within a couple of hours.
[attachment=64009:DSCF1369.JPG]

Edited November 15, 2010 by LawrenceH

[LawrenceH]

Now onto the colour layers. Hurrah! I should point out here that my experience with the headstock (to be outlined later) led me to realise that spraying in a living room, dust is a MAJOR pain in the bum for finish layers. Also that the paint particles get EVERYWHERE! Luckily they dry very fast (in mid air), so they don't adhere and can mostly be swept/brushed away.
This meant a) I shifted to the kitchen, and b ) as explained earlier, started using the plastic greenhouse which had a nice transparent plastic cover over it that I could awkwardly spray round the edge of. Later cockups also led me to realise that washing the kitchen floor every time before you spray is a good idea, it makes a real difference to the amount of loose particles floating about waiting to land in your lovely pristine paint layer.

Right. Colour spraying was much trickier than the primers. It took me a while to realise that the powdery texture I was getting with lots of tiny pits in was partly because I was shaking the cans to mix them (don't do this, just roll them around and let the ball do the work) and partly because the paint was drying too fast in mid-air. This gave me a very even colour layer but one that I had to cut back loads to get close to smooth, and then before you know it you're into the white and even worse yellow primer layer again F**K! Cue respray, hairdrying, sanding, swearing etc. I wasted several cans of paint and several days before I realised this, and experimenting led me to start heating the cans in warm water before spraying and to spray a shade closer, so it goes on slick. The problem here is then two-fold. First, it's bloody difficult to get that Goldilocks 'just right' distance and speed of movement before you get pooling. And second, it ALWAYS gave me orange peel and, worse, the pigments in the particular paint I was using were evidently different densities because if the paint was on even just a little too thick you got separation into lighter and darker layers. A real nightmare when sanding back. Heating the body of the bass itself with the hairdryer helps the paint dry faster once stuck on, which helped with runs and separation, but I never got this completely right. What I would do if I was trying again with Halfords cans would be to buy a replacement nozzle for the can. The Halfords one doesn't spread enough, it just concentrates the paint in one place which is rubbish. Apparently you can buy a (pink?) nozzle to give more of a fan and I'm sure this would really help apply the coats in a more controlled manner - my dad has sprayed enough cars to suggest this was the problem, along with the Halfords paint really needing a bit more thinner to stop it drying quite so quick.

I wasn't sure if I needed to sand uniformly smooth before clear-coating, but I suspected that if I didn't, and only sanded out the dust etc, then any imperfections like orange peel and inconsistencies between sanded and unsanded layers would show through. Plus the Halfords instructions said to sand smooth so I did. Cue more sand-through, repair, rage etc etc. The colour layers are much less tolerant of hair drying and stay tackier for far longer than the primers. You can get away with wet sanding after a day, but it's noticeably better after a couple more and maybe even a week later would be safest.

Oh and I can finally reveal the colour scheme - 'Daphne' (cough cough actually Ford Riviera!) blue! I don't think they actually offered this colour on 70s jazzes, you could maybe(?) get it on the late 60s blocked and bound basses but then you probably don't have the 70s pickup spacing. Anyway, I'm not trying to create a forgery and I like blue. Colour's a little off in these pics, more accurate later. I have failed to rotate the 2nd pic but it's hanging in the tomato grower.
[attachment=64012:DSCF1381.JPG] [attachment=64011:DSCF1382.JPG]

Edited November 15, 2010 by LawrenceH

[LawrenceH]

Sanding back that colour layer was a real pain as I said. Eventually switching to better quality paper was the answer to prevent sand-through, and also (obvious tip to anyone but me) the harder the paint the better (so be patient and leave it an extra couple of days), and DON"T press at all hard especially when you're freehand-sanding around the edges where you can't use a proper block. The paper will do the work for you, pressing hard just gouges into it.

Once I'd taken off the gross imperfections with 400, I think I jumped from 600 to 1200 in the end since this was the best quality paper I had, it worked ok though obviously it took longer than progressing through the grades. And I felt it was worth going up to 1200 rather than keeping it coarser. I've seen recommendations online that just use 400 but I suspect they're talking about nitro and my feeling is you need to take things finer with acrylic.

So next were the clear coats. This was a right pain, the stuff seems to pull in dust like a black hole sucks in light, and it takes a loooong time to harden. As per the usual instructions, I tried spraying a couple of mist layers then added a couple more thicker ones but often, the mist layers would trap dust and I'd have to wait at least a day to be able to sand it out. In the end I started spraying quite thick just so I had a decent layer of clear down before any particles were able to settle on the surface, this meant it took a VERY long time for the paint to harden.

Next cock-up: I did stupidly manage to cut back right down to the wood(!) when sanding out an imperfection around the back of the neck join. This was a major pain in the bum and taught me that you must never go onto autopilot when sanding! Fixing this was tricky, I had to sand back immediately around the fault, mask the whole rest of the bass off with tape and white paper and very carefully spray colour (didn't even try priming it as it would have been a disaster) trying to minimise the amount that got onto where the tape joined. The problem then was blending, partly due to pigment separation it's damn hard getting the colour to blend perfectly, especially when you're sanding a mixture of colour and clear coats. Took me a couple of goes at least IIRC, though much therapy has mostly blanked out the ghastlier details. In the end it wasn't perfect, but it was round the back and I hoped that more clear coat would in any case help sort things out once the thing was buffed to a shine (actually it did - woo!).

At this point I was far too full of rage to take pictures, and due to various work commitments after sanding it down to 1200 I left it for the best part of a month to harden off. However that turned out to be a good thing because even though I left it longer than the two weeks recommended, it still wasn't really hard enough to buff to a high shine without issues. First I tried the Halfords rubbing compound which although coarse had worked well on an epoxy/polyurethane spray repair to my natural-finish Jap 75. It didn't do such a good job here, although things were improved somewhat when I attached one of those buffing cloths to my drill. T cut next! Better, but. But. I flipping well managed to gouge a couple of damn chunks thanks to the (*&^ thing catching and dragging round, didn't I? AND I overdid it around the neck pocket and took it back into the primer layer on the very edge. Yet another lesson in patience.

I put the bass away again for another few weeks while we moved house (!) When I next took it out, it was moderately shiny but still with lots of scratches, not to mention a load of orange peel around the back and on the horns. As an experiment I tried 1500 wet paper followed by rubbing compound/T cut. This helped with the scratches, and I realised that ideally for an acrylic finish you should take it right down through the grades to 2000 if you want a properly good, glassy finish. But don't do what I did and go onto automatic pilot (again!) around the edge, going into the colour layer with a hint of flipping yellow filler coming through underneath (?!?). It's on the bottom, it's only evident if you look really close, and I've decided in the interests of sanity that it just doesn't matter enough to go back.
So I also noticed that it seemed to come up to more of a shine this time - evidently the clear coat was still not fully hard when I did the initial cutting a month before. Probably due to spraying all those thick layers. Switching to a proper lint-free cloth also helped with the scratches (lesson - don't be lazy and use a yellow duster for the later bits) and in the end I was getting good results applying T cut with one pretty-much saturated cloth and giving it a good but GENTLE going over, before eventually switching to an 'off' cloth which took off the last bits of T cut and brought out the shine. One final thing, even though it had by now been left for ages, I got best results when there was a day or two between any more sanding and applying the T cut.

One bass body, 'Daphne' blue:
[attachment=64017:DSCF1388.JPG]

Edited November 15, 2010 by LawrenceH

[LawrenceH]

Next up - matching headstocks are in my correct opinion the nuts! I wanted one, so concurrently with the body spraying I had a go at this. First of all I sanded down the polyurethane finish on the front using a 400. I didn't bother trying to strip it off since it was thick, hard and actually made a really good smooth surface for paint application (much better than the body). Plus, this sanding didn't take away the original logo so it's underneath if for any reason anyone felt like going back to the original (serial number is on the back of the headstock anyhow).
The hardest bit to start with was masking off the headstock well enough. I used bog-standard tape to begin with but later discovered that you can get special posh stretchy stuff for going round curves and things, which was much better. Nonetheless, thanks to the hard polyurethane finish and some very careful sanding back with a block, I got a good enough clean line on the primer layer just with the normal stuff. Up close it looks pretty clean, better I think than on one of the guitar garage blogs where he shows a close-up of a Lake Placid Blue headstock he has done. You can see in the following photos where there are some serious imperfections before sanding, these were pretty much rectified laterr as can be seen in the final pic (what looks like a white streak towards the left is just a trick of the light).
You'll also see where I did go through into the wood a bit round the edges when sanding, this was a bit of a pain to get clean again when painting so if anyone else is having a go, when it comes to the headstock less is more - you don't really need to sand away more than just enough to rough it up.
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[LawrenceH]

Straight onto the colour spraying, this was where I had my first encounter with the pigment separation problems if you spray too thick and try to sand back. No matter, it just adds an extra day or two. Once I'd got a flat colour layer sanded back (4 or 5 coats I think, took me a while to get this right around the edges without sanding into the primer - next time I'll underspray the primer so the colour goes on as an overhang onto the curves) I had a go at adding a decal, from the excellent simon at decartdecals - his are great with proper metallics, not rubbish yellow like an ebay seller I tried. I wanted to go for a late 60s/early 70s logo because I think the retro text looks funkier and it suits the old-school colour scheme better even if, as I said, I'm not sure they ever made basses with this exact combination.

Adding the decal, I found rather tricky. I got there in the end, more by luck than judgement, and with a few imperfections where the pigment flaked off in places but we'll go back to that later. Decal on, and a couple of light clear coats. Oh no! Orange peel as usual, but dust in the clear coat. Sand back. Cut into the decal. Try and rectify with gold paint. Fail. Epic swearing. Sand off, try again with the spare decal I bought (they aren't cheap these things!). Total fail, Simon's method of wetting the decal and getting a corner in place before sliding the backing off just didn't work for me. These things crinkle up and fold over like no-one's business, and the jazz logo is so large that it's unwieldy and easy to tear with only a modest amount of force (such as that exerted by trying to slide the card backing off).

This time sanding off I managed to slightly cut into a layer where the pigments hadn't gone on even and, worse, around the tuning peg holes which had got a bit wet when adding the decal, the surface started to swell up! A useful tip, plug all holes when wet sanding and make sure you wipe them dry as soon as you're finished or this can happen.

So there was nothing for it, I had to wait for the swelling to stabilise, sand level, go back a step and respray the colour layer. This time I also sprayed a couple of clearcoats before trying to add the decal to give me some mesaure of protection if I messed up again, and roughed these up after a few days. A couple of discount decals came through the post courtesy of Simon who I think took pity on my hamfistedness, but these were put away for the house move until a couple of days ago. Finally I plucked up the courage to try again and this time I found that using very large, soft-bristled paintbrushes helped handling the decal and it was much more easily worked when the lukewarm water-plus-tiny-drop-washing-up-liquid is really rather warm indeed, certainly at least body temperature. I took the decal off the backing underwater, layered it upside-down on a paintbrush and turned this out onto the already wet headstock (this time the tuning peg holes were taped over!). I then used very small, fine sable brushes to smooth out the logo, if it ever tucked in under itself I'd take it off with the brush and my fingers and start again. To start with it won't go completely flat but after a while as you work the water out from underneath, soaking up with a cloth at the edge as you go, it lies smooth and this time there were no imperfections. Phew!

Pictures here are all from the first time round.
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ment=64031:DSCF1376.JPG]

[LawrenceH]

So that's where I'm currently at, I've yet to put the clearcoat back on the headstock, so fingers crossed that goes ok - but here are a couple of pics of the bass assembled to give an idea of the final appearance. Pickups aren't yet wired in, but they're Vintage 75s as seen in the US75RI, since I pinched the excellent MIM Vintage Alnicos it came with for my Japanese jazz. Once I've sprayed the headstock I'll have to wait at least a couple of weeks before buffing and putting the tuning pegs on to make sure it's hard enough and they don't bite into the lacquer. I'm also a bit concerned about the lacquer cracking around the tuning peg holes thanks to their tight fit and the fact that paint has got in, so I might sand out the holes a bit first. Same for adding the screw holes back for the pickguard, but I need a new drill first since the last one belonged to the previous house! Am a bit wary of doing that myself as I can see myself messing up at the final hurdle. Anyhow, I hope this tedious thread proves useful for anyone beginning along this road like me, and can take a place alongside the far better build diaries where people are actually making basses from scratch and all that (the mind boggles).
Daphne blue 'late 60s/early 70s' inspired Jazz:
[attachment=64032:DSCF1392.JPG] [attachment=64033:DSCF1396.JPG] [attachment=64034:DSCF1397.JPG]

Oh, and if I knew how to rotate images either within basschat or on the annoying mac I'm using then I would! Meantime, just tilt your heads

Edited November 15, 2010 by LawrenceH

[steve-soar]

I worked in a custom builders shop for a few years and that refin is on par with what we use to do.
Except that you really should use an extractor fan and 3M masks are useless.
Brilliant stuff.

[LawrenceH]

[quote name='steve-soar' post='1025075' date='Nov 15 2010, 07:42 PM']I worked in a custom builders shop for a few years and that refin is on par with what we use to do.
Except that you really should use an extractor fan and 3M masks are useless.
Brilliant stuff.[/quote]

Heh you wouldn't say that if you saw the outside of the mask! Although yes, I realise it doesn't help with the fumes it was just to stop my lungs turning blue. Forgot to mention that as soon as the spraying was over I opened the windows full and left the kitchen extractor fan on full whack while I wandered off, which seemed to be pretty effective at dissipating the paint smell. Still far from ideal. I don't know what the solvent is in the Halfords stuff :/
Thanks for the compliment. Up close it's not quite there, certainly compared to the ridiculously glass smooth finish you get with the polyester finishes. However, compared to old nitro finishes which often seem to be a bit less perfect, I'm pretty sure that it's going to be as near as. And actually most of the imperfections will be totally invisible to anyone over 45 who isn't using reading glasses! All in all I'm happy with it, though for my next project (a knackered 80s Jap jazz which badly needs body filling) I think I'll be having a go with my dad and using nitro through a spray gun. It'll be interesting (read: infuriating) to see how well we need to prep the body for that one to get a lastingly smooth finish.