The Finishing Process

[shapiro]

hey,

can someone outline the finishing process for me? ive heard of grain filler and laquer and wood stain but dont really know how to apply it or the order of application or the drying time for them. I want to do a natural finish on my bass and maybe bring up the contrast in the wood a little and make it more vivid, and then make it shiny and mirror like.

im looking for this kind of shine: (not color though, im using bubinga)

[ubersam]

Well, theres the tutorials section here and @ the main PG site. Theres also an article @ stewmac, somewhere in the tradesecrets area where someone was finishing up a blue prs type guitar.

I don't really have much, I'm just on my first re-finish. If it would help you though, I just grain filled the body (mahogany), scraped of the excess before it dried up. Sanded with 150 once it was completely dry. Raised the grain then sanded with 220. Since I'm doing a solid color, no stain involved. So far I've used up 2 12oz. cans of Black Filler Primer and 3 12oz. cans of Black Sanding/Sandable Primer (all Duplicolor kind), sanding w/ 400 between coats (each coat about 3 or 4 passes). That seem like a lot of primer, but I like the smoothnes of the body right now. Next weekend will be the base coat, hopefully, I can do the mid coat as well.