gelfin Posted January 4, 2017 Share Posted January 4, 2017 Oh good grief that is brilliant. That cover has to remain like that . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted January 6, 2017 Author Share Posted January 6, 2017 The cover will be held on with neodymium magnets. From personal experience, I find it helps to have a thumb-hole! The plan is to get this sanding sealed by the end of tomorrow latest. Lots of little tidy up jobs, mainly involving sanding. However, I managed a reasonably neat chiselled rebate to drop the Model One away from the low-set strings: I've also slimmed the neck a bit - the bridge is quite a narrow spread - and tried to get the neck profile as close to Nic's favourite bass as possible. I find the easiest way to fine tune a neck is to use a scraper and hold the bass like a back-to-front cello! I do the final shaping based on feel. I think this one is going to be quite close, but I regularly do the final tweaks with a bass fully strung up because then you really CAN feel what it's like! So all being well, tomorrow final sand and sanding seal, then the finishing process starts Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted January 6, 2017 Author Share Posted January 6, 2017 Actually, it all seemed to come together quickly. I use the sanding sealer not only to seal it but also to see if I've missed any sanding dints or lumps...but I think we can say that finishing has commenced! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harryburke14 Posted January 7, 2017 Share Posted January 7, 2017 Just had the chance to see it in person while handing my own bass over. Different it most certainly is... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MoonBassAlpha Posted January 7, 2017 Share Posted January 7, 2017 Am I the only one on here who thinks it would be a real shame to cover all that nice wood up? Especially the nice neck through and cover detail on the back Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted January 7, 2017 Author Share Posted January 7, 2017 [quote name='MoonBassAlpha' timestamp='1483795403' post='3210167'] Am I the only one on here who thinks it would be a real shame to cover all that nice wood up? Especially the nice neck through and cover detail on the back [/quote] No you're not. And I'm not. On the back, the only things that are going to be cream are the two mahogany wings. The complete neck, including the through-body section, will be left visible and the matching cover too Does that make you feel better? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gelfin Posted January 7, 2017 Share Posted January 7, 2017 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted January 7, 2017 Author Share Posted January 7, 2017 Got some paint trials tomorrow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grangur Posted January 7, 2017 Share Posted January 7, 2017 [quote name='MoonBassAlpha' timestamp='1483795403' post='3210167'] Am I the only one on here who thinks it would be a real shame to cover all that nice wood up? Especially the nice neck through and cover detail on the back [/quote] No, I think covering any of the wood grain is crazy. I don't get this need some (most?) folk have to paint over wood grain. I don't get the excitement most seem to get over the look of paint. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gelfin Posted January 7, 2017 Share Posted January 7, 2017 I guess we all have our preferences. I don't really have a favourite either way. Originally this build was going to be solid cream all over. My reason may be strange but it is this. For quite a few years I have tried to find a mouradian bass to buy. All way too expensive or tatty. I used to own a RIC CS limited edition. This. [URL=http://s970.photobucket.com/user/gelfin5959/media/Rics.jpg.html][IMG]http://i970.photobucket.com/albums/ae181/gelfin5959/Rics.jpg[/IMG][/URL] I had to sell it as I was made redundant just before my daughters wedding, so needed the funds. After playing Kerts Single cut Camphor, built by Andy. I was totally impressed with it. So much so I decided to ask Andy to build this for me. The Mouradian I couldn't buy and a nod (cream) to my ex CS. Not only that but a complete one off original. It was Andy's idea to leave the rear of the neck and control cover in their wood finish, and fair enough he is right. I'm not knocking either Monnbase or Grangur, I'm just explaining my choices. If we all agreed there wouldn't be anything to discuss. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gelfin Posted January 7, 2017 Share Posted January 7, 2017 On the flipside, I do like a bit of wood as in my Kramer LS8. [URL=http://s970.photobucket.com/user/gelfin5959/media/20140910_131236_zpssqy4szou.jpg.html][IMG]http://i970.photobucket.com/albums/ae181/gelfin5959/20140910_131236_zpssqy4szou.jpg[/IMG][/URL] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted January 8, 2017 Author Share Posted January 8, 2017 The mahogany parts of the body have been sanding sealed, lightly sanded and now the grain filler is curing. I've used Rustins - not great but not as bad as some of the others...they all tend to be either too soft and just sand out again, or too hard, leading you to end up sanding back to bare wood! The grain isn't as marked as some mahogany so it actually won't be such a big issue, but the smoother the better. No shots of that...it would be a bit like publishing a sneaked shot of a beautiful lady with her face-mask on (and without the cucumber) In the meantime, I've been trialling some paint, with offcuts from the body wood prepared in exactly the same way. I've seen a number of photos of Nic's sadly-gone Ric and the colour varies considerably across the photos, but with the addition of finish varnish which will tint it a teeny weeny bit, I think this is getting pretty close: The interesting thing is that this is a brushed-on...useful for a man without a spray booth... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted January 8, 2017 Author Share Posted January 8, 2017 ...and while all that is drying and curing, I'm off to take Harry's Harley Benton to bits. Happy Days! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted January 9, 2017 Author Share Posted January 9, 2017 Sanding sealed, grain filled, sanded down, cleaned down, masked and first coat on the top and sides on. I won't show a close up on this, the first coat, yet - it's a bit rough and uneven. I should be able to do the back this afternoon and get a second coat on tomorrow... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted January 9, 2017 Author Share Posted January 9, 2017 And the back - also taken from a respectable distance Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul S Posted January 9, 2017 Share Posted January 9, 2017 Are you wiping or spraying, Andy? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted January 9, 2017 Author Share Posted January 9, 2017 [quote name='Paul S' timestamp='1483980465' post='3211664'] Are you wiping or spraying, Andy? [/quote] New one for me - brushing! I've been doing some experiments since Ronseal changed their formulation for their varnish...it doesn't take thinners as well as it used to. As part of that, I have done a couple of varnish finishes with an artist's fan brush rather than micro-fibre wipe-on. I've got the spray version of this colour, but also picked up a tin and have tried that for this first coat (I can always sand it down and spray over if it doesn't work). So far, the finish is as good as wipe-on and, in some ways, better than spray as you don't get the 'dimples' - and if you remember, these types of coatings don't melt into previous layers like nitro would so buffing down to a dimple free smoothness isn't an option. You end up with contour lines as each coat cuts through and exposes the previous one. The testing time will be after a light sand, seeing what happens to the second coat. If it starts showing brushstrokes, etc, then for the final surface prior to the varnish coats, I might thin it and wipe-on as I would with varnish in my normal 'odd' style. In parallel, I'm seeing if I can rig a simple booth in my small garden shed to start trying spray more. But with this one, even though I'm using the fan brush rather than the microfibre cloth, I'm sticking with techniques I'm familiar with... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul S Posted January 9, 2017 Share Posted January 9, 2017 Interesting! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted January 10, 2017 Author Share Posted January 10, 2017 Hmmmm...put the second coat on after the recommended 16 hours and, although colour-coverage was great, it orange-peeled like crazy: I just tried another coat on the sample that was done days ago and, although just in isolated bits, that's done the same. Don't you just love these products that are incompatible with themselves As it's dried it's settled down a bit but no good as a base colour coat. I've got a few ideas in terms of using it and I'll also contact the maker's product support. It would be nice to use it because I think the colour is just right, but if it needs to be sanded off, so be it. Either way, it's probably Thursday before it will be hard enough to try some of the ideas out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted January 11, 2017 Author Share Posted January 11, 2017 Forgive the rubbish artificial light photos. The good news is that the colour is good, the colour saturation is good and a scratch test on the test sample says that the adhesion, in spite of the orange peeling, is good. The bad news is that the orange-peeling does have to be dealt with. The body is going to be varnished so the surface finish isn't critical, provided there are no lumps and bumps (or orange peel!) Tomorrow it will be cured enough to have a go at flattening... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MoonBassAlpha Posted January 12, 2017 Share Posted January 12, 2017 [quote name='Andyjr1515' timestamp='1483798406' post='3210209'] No you're not. And I'm not. On the back, the only things that are going to be cream are the two mahogany wings. The complete neck, including the through-body section, will be left visible and the matching cover too Does that make you feel better? [/quote] I think that will look nice, and of course, the customer is king! I do actually think a light solid colour accentuates the complex shape on this, which is nice! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted January 12, 2017 Author Share Posted January 12, 2017 [quote name='MoonBassAlpha' timestamp='1484219647' post='3213597'] I do actually think a light solid colour accentuates the complex shape on this, which is nice! [/quote] Thanks! And yes I agree. I've got a good feeling about this all round The colour will also add more contrast to the reddish rosewood of the fingerboard - that kind of rosewood was again a specific request from Nic The good news is that I've done quite a bit of the flattening of the cream this morning and it's gone well. It's flattened down past the orange-peel and held its colour. On my test sample I also checked that any sanding breakthough would invisibly patch and also that it was compatible with the clear I'm going to use - and the answer there was yes and yes! I'm always cautious with this sorts of things, but I'm certainly planning to start the clear coats this weekend if all goes well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted January 12, 2017 Author Share Posted January 12, 2017 Yes - I think this is going to be fine.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stylon Pilson Posted January 12, 2017 Share Posted January 12, 2017 That looks good enough to eat. S.P. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gelfin Posted January 12, 2017 Share Posted January 12, 2017 [URL=http://s970.photobucket.com/user/gelfin5959/media/Snoopy%20happy_zpsi3rmoywo.jpg.html][IMG]http://i970.photobucket.com/albums/ae181/gelfin5959/Snoopy%20happy_zpsi3rmoywo.jpg[/IMG][/URL][URL=http://s970.photobucket.com/user/gelfin5959/media/Snoopy%20happy_zpsi3rmoywo.jpg.html][IMG]http://i970.photobucket.com/albums/ae181/gelfin5959/Snoopy%20happy_zpsi3rmoywo.jpg[/IMG][/URL][URL=http://s970.photobucket.com/user/gelfin5959/media/Snoopy%20happy_zpsi3rmoywo.jpg.html][IMG]http://i970.photobucket.com/albums/ae181/gelfin5959/Snoopy%20happy_zpsi3rmoywo.jpg[/IMG][/URL] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.