New Project (Opinions needed Nitro over Poly)

[Big Bill]

12 hours ago, Dub-T-123 said:

It doesn’t seem like you’ve thought it through but maybe you’ve got an idea I haven’t thought of. 

 

binding is normally installed where it sits slightly proud and is then scraped/sanded perfectly flush. You don’t have that option with the frets installed.
 

The radius of the fretboard means you would theoretically be ripping the binding with one side having an angle to roughly match the fretboard radius. You’d have to rip that angle right up to the point where the binding wraps around the bottom of the fretboard, then leave that part wider and 90°, then back to the angle for the other side of the fretboard. If you somehow do that perfectly, it should be extremely difficult to get binding past the fret ends into the channel. 
 

So imo with all that considered it’s either a hack job or a refret unless you have a different idea. I guess theoretically you could notch the binding around each fret and scrape it between the frets. Probably still not a great outcome and probably still easier to refret

Unless I don't understand what Duane is doing, I don't think he will doing anything with the binding and fretboard other than taping it off.

[duane v]

So I was able to cut out a piece of wood and run the wood grain in the same direction of the grain on the bass body. Then I dampened the wood with warm water and shaped the wood to match the top curvature. I left the patch edges slightly above the body surface so that when I add the QuikWood Putty Stick to the gaps, I will then sand the patch to blend with the top so that I can eliminate the witness lines as much as possible when I paint the bass. I purchased a combination of butterscotch blonde - Semi-Transparent nitro lacquer and then feather it towards the middle of the guitar with the vintage amber transparent lacquer. Then I'll do the body edges with the black and cherry lacquers. 

 

 

[Murph]

Man, you're good at that stuff.

[Dub-T-123]

Honestly I’m not trying to be a **** but sometimes I can’t help myself. I’ll try to be at least as nice as Duane was when commenting on Sgt Pepper’s cooking 👹

Duane… put down the putty… what you just did was supposed to be the easy part and it is an absolute hack job that you will not recover from later in the finishing process 

[Dub-T-123]

If I were to try to be helpful and not just annoying my suggestion would be to make a rectangular template that eats up the two screw holes so you can just knock out that bit of work in one go. Then make a patch that first completely tightly with no gaps.

 

Even with a perfect fitting patch you will never get rid of the lines under the lacquer. As you have it now it’s going to be really ugly 

[duane v]

I didn't want to add to the size of the cavity on the bass guitar, the two screw holes I can hide by making them to look like grain spots, plus most of that will be masked by the the semi transparent lacquer.

I don't expect to completely hide the witness lines but they will be hidden enough to where I will be happy. I have done this kind of repair on a Gibson classical guitar that had a hole cut out for a volume plate and the results (to the untrained eye) were almost invisible. 

[duane v]

Another update in the works is the nut.

After removing the nut and positioning it to be for a lefty, the nut was cut in a way where there was a slope so the low E and A slots are slightly below the zero fret. I have the nut in a little jig to add additional height to the nut by using Nuglu and baking soda then I'll sand and reshape. Then I can re-groove the nut slots so that the groove is angled downward towards the tuners.

 

[duane v]

1 hour ago, Dub-T-123 said:

If I were to try to be helpful and not just annoying my suggestion would be to make a rectangular template that eats up the two screw holes so you can just knock out that bit of work in one go. Then make a patch that first completely tightly with no gaps.

 

Even with a perfect fitting patch you will never get rid of the lines under the lacquer. As you have it now it’s going to be really ugly 

Here is the Gibson classical I fixed;

You can see a few small witness lines and a little color mismatch in some area on the lower corner where the plate was. Overall for my first time doing this it came out pretty good. Did it hide everything? No.... But I didn't expect it to. 

The only area I wished had came out better is when I sprayed the clear I covered too large of the area, as you can see it's darker than the rest of the top

 

[duane v]

So I am just about ready to spray the nitro sanding sealer and will probably go with 6 coats. Just a few small details to go over. And final sanding.

I had to go in a different direction regarding the nut. As I was shaping / leveling the bottom part of the nut, the NuGlu backing soda concoction I made is a bit crumbly so I filed it off and added epoxy to the area of the bass where the nut sits to give the nut a little more height so when it comes time to cut the grooves it will be ready to go. 

I also plugged the jack hole and drilled another.

One other thing I noticed about Paul's bass is the the 21st fret doesn't have a fret marker, so I ordered some rosewood fret markers to eliminate it, and I also noticed  from the 15th fret and down the fret marker dots are bigger so I ordered 8 mm acrylic fret markers. 

I still need to trim down the the stencils a little but I have plenty of time for that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[duane v]

I laid four coats of the butterscotch to get some coverage on the patch and the dark brown on the cutouts and the top so that the red would would pop. So far I'm presently surprised how well it covered the patch. Gonna let dry for about a week then a couple more coats of butterscotch on the cutaways then I'll address the back... then it's the whole thing with a couple of coats of vintage amber..... then I'll do the sunburst effect.

[Big Bill]

So far so good! 👍

[duane v]

On 3/4/2023 at 4:01 PM, Big Bill said:

So far so good! 👍

Ya

i was worried about the nitro not adhering but it attached well. 

[Big Bill]

Looks like it's sticking nicely. The butterscotch mostly covered the patch. The rest of the different color coats ought to hide it completely. 

[duane v]

22 minutes ago, Big Bill said:

Looks like it's sticking nicely. The butterscotch mostly covered the patch. The rest of the different color coats ought to hide it completely. 

I'm hoping that it does, but am please I was able to get this much coverage with the butterscotch 

[Karloff]

On 3/4/2023 at 3:27 PM, duane v said:

I laid four coats of the butterscotch to get some coverage on the patch and the dark brown on the cutouts and the top so that the red would would pop. So far I'm presently surprised how well it covered the patch. Gonna let dry for about a week then a couple more coats of butterscotch on the cutaways then I'll address the back... then it's the whole thing with a couple of coats of vintage amber..... then I'll do the sunburst effect.

thats looking good Duane

[duane v]

An update on on the neck binding.

I have decided to remove the neck binding, trim the frets and sand the neck flush to the fret board. At that point I may need to do a little back filling at the fret ends but that's a quick and easy cosmetic fix. This would be a quicker fix rather than adding rosewood binding. 

[Dub-T-123]

Gonna be a nasty transition at the neck/body joint at best 

[Big Bill]

32 minutes ago, Dub-T-123 said:

Gonna be a nasty transition at the neck/body joint at best 

It should be alright. The fretboard separates from the neck and body at that point.  Otherwise, I would agree with you.

Edited March 9, 2023 by Big Bill

[Dub-T-123]

That’s no good either bill but I gotta go to work

[Karloff]

all of it is above my pay grade & patience level ...   this has been pretty impressive

[duane v]

6 hours ago, Dub-T-123 said:

Gonna be a nasty transition at the neck/body joint at best 

I don't think you have an understanding of how the neck, fretboard and neck joint interface with each other on a Hofner bass.

[Dub-T-123]

Have you run your idea by anyone who you think understands the neck joint?

[duane v]

2 minutes ago, Dub-T-123 said:

Have you run your idea by anyone who you think understands the neck joint?

I own six Hofner basses and have performed neck resets on two of them. 
 

I thought about painting the binding to match the fretboard but I thought that would look pretty cheesy.

since the bottom neck is about 3/8" away from the body and the neck pocket is even further away from the fret board there would be no issue at all. I'll take images for you when I remove the binding so you can have a better understanding 

[duane v]

My sweeter half sent me images of the 8mm and 6.3mm MOP fret dots that came in the mail, and the rosewood fret dots to remove the extra fret dot. I'm sure out of that bag I'll find one that will somewhat match the fret board.

 

[Dub-T-123]

10 minutes ago, duane v said:

I own six Hofner basses and have performed neck resets on two of them. 
 

I thought about painting the binding to match the fretboard but I thought that would look pretty cheesy.

since the bottom neck is about 3/8" away from the body and the neck pocket is even further away from the fret board there would be no issue at all. I'll take images for you when I remove the binding so you can have a better understanding 

Yeah the good thing is that it has that whole end of the neck pocket covered with binding which is overlapped by the heel. Working in that area is gonna be miserable and highly prone to wonkiness though… especially if you’re planning to use abrasives to do the whole thing 

 

Depending on which glue they used I’d be highly tempted to just replace the whole fretboard