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Prepping Body Help


gonzosc1

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striped body with heat gun. I'm down to the sealer or filler coat I guess. its a mahogany body, I want to go with a natural finish on the back and sides and a quilted maple top. how or what can I use to remove this coat of filler and open up the grain?? or will I just have to sand the hell out of it to get past it?

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Lots of work, either with the gun or sandpaper.

Or if you can level sand it and work with it go from there.

If you want a color you can put a transparent color over it then clear.

ok, I guess i'm heading the store for a heavy supply of sand paper LOL, as I can't take the smell of burning wood anymore. I will level sand it down to bare wood and see what it looks like.

I want to keep the natural wood color on the sides and back. the quilted maple top will be dyed black and sanded back and then dyed again with a lighter mahogany color. maple neck also will be dyed the same as the top. then just clear the whole thing.

another quick question, on the back theres a small hole in the wood. it looks like a dart was stuck in it.

its thats small but deep. should I fill it in with some dyed wood puddy? would that work? or just over look it and fill it with sealer? I don't think you would even see it from 4-5 feet away

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If its just the top you want to dye and sand back, then I would just sand the sealer off the top. That may not be too bad if you have a decent sander.

As for the hole. I would fill it, is it on the top or the back/sides?

well I wish it could be that easy and just strip the top but its not. this bass has been totaled out, the only thing it is good for at the moment is a boat paddle,, lol,, it was black, on the back of it there is a huge buckle rash 5"-6" circle and its down to the bare wood but has not ate into the wood. the wood in this rash area is a nice super dark red/brown but the filler coat was not dyed so the rest of the guitar is a brown/tan color. so it has to be totally stripped to get the color even.

the sanding will take some time. I have a 1/4 sheet size sander to use on the top, back and sides. I will have to spend some time on the huge bevels that surround the body on the front and back. most likely those will have to be done by hand I think so I don't change the shape of them. will also have to stream out a few dings. its not as bad as I first thought, the messed up finish just made it look like it had a bunch of dings.. i will get the fingerboard off tonight as I got a new iron today, old one died on me last night at the 7th fret.

has for the hole, it is on the back side of the guitar. when you say fill it, do you mean with a puddy or just drop some sealer in there to fill it up. like I said you can not see the hole from about 4-5 feet away..

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Once you get it sanded down to raw bare wood, save some sanding dust, mix it with a tiny bit of medium viscosity CYA glue, and do a drop fill in your hole.

Do NOT use the thin viscosity CYA glue, it will dry up on you before you get a chance to get it in the hole, more than likely, confuse you, and maybe make a mess of things.

It will also seep into the surrounding pores easier, which you don't really want.

The medium viscosity will stay wet longer, and will not try to penetrate the surrounding pores as easily as the thin.

You're trying to do a strategic strike on the hole and the hole only, you don't want your 'fix' to be any bigger than the hole itself, period.

Use something like a sewing needle to drop fill, you don't want CYA glue in the pores surrounding that spot if you can help it.

Just a tiny bit.

Take the needle with some CYA/dust on it and 'pump' the hole a bit, to make sure your dust/glue mixture fills up the hole all the way to the bottom.

If you just stick a dab in there, you will more than likely be trapping an air bubble underneath it.

Pump the needle until you see the air bubble come out and the glue mixture fill in the hole all the way.

Keep an eye on it for a few minutes, and level it off with your fingertip before it dries all the way.

CYA glue is harder than the wood, and will not level out as easy as the wood does, better to let a bit of finish fill the shallow depression (if there is one) than have your hole fix standing proud of the wood.

Post some pics!

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Once you get it sanded down to raw bare wood, save some sanding dust, mix it with a tiny bit of medium viscosity CYA glue, and do a drop fill in your hole.

Do NOT use the thin viscosity CYA glue, it will dry up on you before you get a chance to get it in the hole, more than likely, confuse you, and maybe make a mess of things.

It will also seep into the surrounding pores easier, which you don't really want.

The medium viscosity will stay wet longer, and will not try to penetrate the surrounding pores as easily as the thin.

You're trying to do a strategic strike on the hole and the hole only, you don't want your 'fix' to be any bigger than the hole itself, period.

Use something like a sewing needle to drop fill, you don't want CYA glue in the pores surrounding that spot if you can help it.

Just a tiny bit.

Take the needle with some CYA/dust on it and 'pump' the hole a bit, to make sure your dust/glue mixture fills up the hole all the way to the bottom.

If you just stick a dab in there, you will more than likely be trapping an air bubble underneath it.

Pump the needle until you see the air bubble come out and the glue mixture fill in the hole all the way.

Keep an eye on it for a few minutes, and level it off with your fingertip before it dries all the way.

CYA glue is harder than the wood, and will not level out as easy as the wood does, better to let a bit of finish fill the shallow depression (if there is one) than have your hole fix standing proud of the wood.

Post some pics!

great, sounds good on the hole repair. I just put the cam batteries in the charger. shouldn't take too long. I'll try to put some up to date pics on here tonight, but heres some of the bass when I first got it..its a mess!!!!!!!!

hamer5.jpghamer3.jpghamer4.jpgh5b.jpgh9b.jpgh10b.jpg

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That looks like a great rebuild project.

When I used to haunt pawn shops, I loved finding guitars like that...beat to hell, not working, but with quality 1-piece bodies hiding out underneath waiting to be re-birthed into their former glory.

Are you -really- prepared to mill the top of that thing down to install a quilted Maple top on it?

That's a lot of work when you could have a beautiful 1-piece Mahogany guitar with a LOT less effort involved...

...just sayin'... :D

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That looks like a great rebuild project.

When I used to haunt pawn shops, I loved finding guitars like that...beat to hell, not working, but with quality 1-piece bodies hiding out underneath waiting to be re-birthed into their former glory.

Are you -really- prepared to mill the top of that thing down to install a quilted Maple top on it?

That's a lot of work when you could have a beautiful 1-piece Mahogany guitar with a LOT less effort involved...

...just sayin'... :D

LOL,,,,, I get that alot from playing buddies, are you really gonna try and do that...........LOL

I agree it would be easier to just take it down to bare wood and leave it at that. and seeing that this is my first project, I am maybe aiming high!!!!!!! LOL..... the reason I wanted to go with a top on it was that maple neck. it sticks out like a sore thumb on the dark wood grain body. it didn't look half bad with the black paint but I don't how it will be with the wood grain...

if I could get the neck to match up with dye and oil, I might think about not putting a top on it. I do like the look of wood.

I would really like to keep the whole thing a natural grain with a rubbed out finish like my Warwick. it has a very thin finish where you can still feel the grain with your fingers, but it is finished..... hell,, I don't know. you got me thinkin' about it now,, LOL I got the fingerboard off to night. those last 5 frets just didn't want to let go, it took about an hour!!!

well here it is with the black stripped off. see the big spot of dark grain on the back where the buckle rash was.

it looks real good up close...on the back side pic you can just make out that small hole we talked about. if you look at the bottom left of the buckle rash, there a scratch going down and left. the hole is at the end of that scratch in a small dark spot.

I just realizes I need to repair the strap button hole as well. that will be a little more work then the pinhole!!!!!!

stripped2.jpg

stripped.jpg

Edited by gonzosc1
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I really dig the crazy looking grain/oil/water patterns all over the backside. : )

The front looks a little bit more like a finishing wreck of some, but the back is pretty sweet.

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When I had a disaster trying to do a veneered top on an unprofiled body, I found a furniture maker with a drum sander (maybe called something different in the US). It's a powered sander where the drum that is loaded with abrasive is 24" wide. It took all of 3 passes to get all the veneer and glue off, dead flat and hardly a trace of sanding swirls.

He did it for free, too, although I did give him enough cash for a few beers!!

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