part 2 T-Bird refinish
 

8 coats of sealer sanded every two coats.

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Sanded once again and ready for primer.


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First of 2 coats of primer....sanding in between.


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Sand it one more time. Check for flaws and I should be good to go for the color coats this weekend. Altogether I think the sanding count is around 16 times. This is more than just painting a fender style body. It's a big plank of wood. It's like painting an aircraft carrier.

More later, we still have color coats and sanding, Then clear coats and sanding. Then sanding a buffing.

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Dakota was the winner....

I'm a heretic, but I prefer a beat up finish :D

You could do a Pino Palladino thing, and shoot the red over desert sand, so when it wears you see that underneath. And are you going to use nitro or poly?

I was waiting for you to weigh in. Finish shminish I can take it either way, but I've been wanting a new bass, but then the new birds suck.I want an eb-2, but stupid expense. This was screwed up bad and hopefully I got her straightened away. I thought of things like fixing the finger board and refretting it. I even though about going fretless. But then I came to my senses and said it played well up to the night I dropped it sooooo I decided to just do the repair and refinish, put it all back together and play it. THEN decide if I need to address anything else which I doubt.

using nitro all the way. base coat won't matter as Dakota red is a solid color.

Pino's bass is Fiesta Red over Desert Sand. While the red is opaque, you can see the finish underneath at the wear points.

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gold or maybe silver under the Dakota could be nice. It's a darker red. This bass was Fiesta red before I stripped it away. It was a little too salmon colored. This is Fenders darkest/reddest red and identical to Gibsons cardinal red. Both were a 1958 cadillac color. very few vintage birds were cardinal red.

Yeah this looks beat to death. LOL.

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looking at that pic...that's really a short scale huh.

no, that is 35" scale. Here is a 30" scale next to it. Wait until you see what shows up tomorrow :p

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another sadowsky?

Nope. Much more on the retro side of things. I think you'll approve (no, not a T-bird).

explorer? steinberger? telecaster? rick? hofner? mosrite? am i warm? you have piqued my interest with "retro".

i love the bookmatched wood on the top.

teaser pic from the for sale ad

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yer a dog! very cool so far.

Man, hope your paint job turns out better than the one I was working on....

got pics?

Todd wouldn't it be cheaper to be racing a 911 again?

basses don't break...usually.

All my basses added together don't add up to the transmission rebuild. And I've got some nice basses :p

Then you spent too much on the tranny rebuild....

It was a serious rebuild. I don't do anything half-arsed...

Well this is before I put the clear coat on... she was looking pretty good....

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I think it was a little too hot / humid in my shop (about 115f - 85%) when I applied the clear... it acted just like a chemical stripper would (except it turned hard once it dried)... made me sick after all the hard work I put into that thing....

I had to take the guitar back down to bare wood... My daughter asked me for the guitar and I gave it to her... She came up with the new paint job... we are going to skip the clear coat this time... still need to put the new tuners and strings on it..


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sounds like you put lacquer over enamel. that's a big no no. instant wrinkle paint. never paint when the humidity is that high. the clear will trap the moisture and blush the paint.

Yep, instant wrinkle is what it was... I used normal spray paint to paint it with and the clear coat was from the same manufacturer, same color cans and everything.... never had anything I've painted to do that...

Why did you seal yours before you primed? and did you use any filler at all? if so what did you go with?

The top coat dried faster than the base coat for some reason. I've had it happen myself. It's not pretty. Time to get out the sand paper.

yes first I used a glazing putty with a rubber squeegee to fill the grain. Then a sanding sealer to further fill the grain and level the surface, The body is mahogany, very porous wood. If you don't fill the grain it will show when the the paint fully dries as it sucks down. Nitro never really cures like poly it ages forever.

Go here for all the correct supplies.

ReRanch Guitar Refinishing

What putty did you use, something specific for wood? The reason I ask, is because I purchased some wood filler but it had a sandy texture to it and I would like to find something with a smoother/stronger texture....

go to an auto paint supply store. It's called fill and glaze. Get a bunch of rubber squeegees while yer there.