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Refinishing Project


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I don't know if I want to show off the ruts I accidentally dug into the body in some places. :D But... I have no issue showing it when it's fixed! Seriously, if y'all wanna see what I temporarily monkeyed up, I guess I'm not too proud. Does anyone else want to see them?

I'll be using flat white primer, then a nice medium blue. I figure to top the whole thing off with some brush-on lacquer, sand it flat, and attack it with a 6" or 10" Ryobi buffer I'll be getting from Home Depot. :D There's only s $5 difference from the 6" to the 10", but I don't know if I'd ever need the 10". I'll have to investigate the two some more.

FWIW: I just got a bonus check from work. On lunch, I picked up a 13" thickness planar, a 6 galon shop-vac, and a 4.5" angle grinder with a 60-grit flap wheel. These were the last pieces of the body-building puzzle to fall into place. I'm all giddy thinking about finally making some! First project: this body redesign.

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i demand pics!

And so shall you have them. If you go through these, you can easily see where I really dug into the body in places. It was my first time using a wire stripping brush, so it took me a little bit to get the hang of it. After someone posts a comment, I'll show y'all the "fixed" shots. I love my belt sander.

stripped2.jpg

stripped 1

stripped 3stripped 4

stripped 5

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comment!

stiripped 1,3,4,5

whered 2 go?

it almost looks like the dug in spots have paint int them, like it was painted after it was dug in.

#2 was the main pic. I had some... issues in gettig the paint off evenly. Friction (heat) from the stripper started to melt the paint instead of removing it. As a result, there were some spots that just didn't want to come off. That's what the belt sander is for! I suppose I could have belt sanded the whole thing, but I didn't want to risk gumming up the belt.

resanded1.jpg

resanded back

I'm planning on hitting it with primer tonight. I might do some final leveling/filling with spme putty instead. I don't think anyone else will notice them, but then again they may. Maybe I'll see what it looks like when the primer is on.

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Recommendation.

Go get one of those plastic drywall sanders. You know, two wingnuts on the front and back, put 1/3-sheet of sandpaper in it, start sanding? It's really very cheap and easy to get wood leveled back down without too many valleys and peaks. Start with 80 grit, work up to 220 grit, and you should get a babybutt smooth finish that's almost planer-flat and ready for woodgrain sealer.

6978845.jpg

Just built a nice wood bed frame over the weekend for my brother, and this little guy was so nice to use. Got all my jigsawed edges flattened and true with just a little bit of elbow grease. I'd imagine, if you used this like a hand plane, going through maybe 4 grades of sandpaper, (80, 120, 180, 220) you'd have the front and back perfectly flat in an hour MAX.

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I got the body & headstock primered this weekend. The next step is to lightly sand it down. After that's all done, I can start with the blue. Before I get too far into that, however, I got a question.

I need to put a MOP inlay in the headstock. If I do it before painting, how hard will it be to clean the paint off the MOP? OR... how hard would it be to go through the paint to do the inlay? I'll be carving ouy the area with a dremel, if that makes any difference. I can dail the RPMs way down so the paint wouldn't get scorched, but would it monkey it up anyway?

And no, I'm not going to post a progress pic of the primer coat. :D

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Don't give up on the crackle yet! Or, to stick with the 80's theme, "Don't stop believin"

Once you get it primed, lay down your base coat again, the way you want it. The crackle really will hide most of the imperfections in your base color, so it doesn't need to be perfect, but the flatter it is, the better the topcoat will crackle.

I found This for you. I used something very similar on my guitar a couple years back, and it worked really well. Basically just follow the instructions to apply the crackle medium.

While it's still wet, shoot black paint (brush on-type paint, diluted with water if you like) out of a spray bottle (old windex bottle, etc) and you should get the kind of even, round pattern you're looking for.

If you brush the paint on, it will crack in the direction of your brush strokes. The thicker the medium, the larger and further apart the cracks are.

You can get an awesome finish for a total cost of about 20 bucks, including primer, basecoat, crackle medium, and topcoat.

Here's my guitar, not a great pic, but it'll do.

guitar2fj9kf5.jpg

OH! P.S.

The biggest thing when it comes to doing this finish is trial and error. I totally screwed up my finish the first time I tried it. You've gotta practice a lot on scraps of wood and just stick with what works. Good luck!

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  • 4 weeks later...

Thanks. It's a nice, bright, medium blue. Despite being a little generic, you don't see it very often. It should be ready to have some poly slathered on it by this weekend.

With any luck, the 'redesign' I've been working on will be ready then as well. (probably not)

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