This guy keeps the Halloween mask collection and humor as part of his instructional video series !!
Moderator edit: Due to "colorful" language you'll have to find this Youtube vid on your own.
Ric Bass Refinish Project - You Tube Humor
Moderators: rickenbrother, ajish4
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8mileshigher
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Re: Ric Bass Refinish Project - You Tube Humor
Check out his other videos, he's a rabid Rickenbacker ranter 
...hey, haven't I heard that voice before?
...hey, haven't I heard that voice before?
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jingle_jangle
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Re: Ric Bass Refinish Project - You Tube Humor
"I fix $8 haircuts"
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Rockin' James
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Re: Ric Bass Refinish Project - You Tube Humor
Nice to see someone add some humor to an excellent touch up on a Rickenbacker finish. Thanks for the information about using a Pasche airbrush with lacquer to repair the finish on a bass guitar.
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jingle_jangle
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Re: Ric Bass Refinish Project - You Tube Humor
It's Paasche, James. An old and respected name in the biz.
There are a few issues here, not the least of which is that this method is only good with certain paints, mostly solid colors, and black is the easiest and pretty much a special case, anyway.
I'd venture to say that anyone following this method exactly has about a 5% chance of success. I'd define "success" in this case as "it ends up looking better/less noticeable than it started out", which is sort of a basic Hippocratic concept. If it ends up looking worse/more noticeable, then by definition, it's not a "fix", it's "damage".
Ricks may be painted with any type of paint you could dream of. I could refinish a Jetglo Rickenbacker with kindergarten tempera paint, and you couldn't tell the difference. This is because the black pigment is the same across the board, and color coats are only the bottom layer of a good refinish. The important part of the paint job--the top clearcoat--needs to be a certain, very tricky and toxic coating, in order to look right and last. This is where most amateurs drop the ball, either out of ignorance or lack of funds for proper materials and/or equipment.
Spraying with nitrocellulose or acrylic lacquer (or solvent-based polyurethane base coat, for that matter--the black formulas for all three systems are virtually identical!) will give you a black touch-up that's glossy and will "burn in" (blend with the old finish) if you're very lucky. Most of the time you'll get "haloing" that shows, both close up and at a distance.
Airbrushes--even Paasche sign-painters' airbrushes--don't put out a whole lot of spray. In order to get lacquer to spray properly through a tiny air brush nozzle, it has to be thinned way down, meaning that the paint film you're putting down is very, very thin.
Black pigment (generally what we'd term "lamp black" or, in plain English, soot!) has very small, soft particles. When you get to colors like white, the particles of pigment are larger, and harder, and will tend to clog the nozzle of the airbrush. There's white in virtually any color that's not a pure primary color or black.
Forget about trying to touch up a guitar with a metallic, pearlescent, or transparent/translucent finish (like FG), using an airbrush. The repair will be obvious 99.9% of the time. The other 1% of the time is plain dumb luck. Many metallics and pearls won't even pass through an airbrush's nozzle, anyway, and airbrushes will spray lacquers so very dry (too much air) that color matching is impossible.
A complete refinish cannot be done on an object as large as a guitar, using an airbrush, either. They simply can't cover enough real estate with each pass. You'll get uneven gloss, insufficient film thickness and film strength, and usually a mess.
For every pro refinisher plying his (her) trade, there are several hundred amateurs looking for a cheap way to get that guitar finish they've always dreamed of. ("Metallic black" is a common dream, and by definition a contradiction in terms, anyway.) The actual success rate with these attempts is very, very low. No wonder used instrument dealers run the other way when they hear "refinished"!
I hate to say this, but rattle/spray cans are the easiest way for an amateur to refinish a guitar, but then only with specially-formulated paints (ReRanch makes some good stuff), and even then it's gonna be nitrocellulose lacquer, no clear coat protectant, and lousy film thickness (again). Forget PreVal sprayers for anything but bug spray, and save that airbrush for birthday cakes. And, still, an amateur refinish will NOT increase the value of a guitar, unless your cousin just has to have that orange Strat you did last weekend, is inebriated, and has his wallet out...
Ironically, black touch-ups on small finish chips are dead easy, using something as simple as back nail polish and the brush in the cap. Just make sure your Rick is truly black--older JG finishes usually suffer from greening, due to the conversion varnish topcoats having turned yellow to a greater or lesser degree. I've seen some oldies that are literally olive drab due to this phenomenon.
Last bit of irony: The spray gun that I favor for my own refins (Sharpe Finex F3000) costs less than a pro-quality Paasche sign-painters' airbrush. Hobby airbrushes are too cheap and nasty and clog immediately. Pro artists' airbrushes are too delicate and small. All airbrushes except single-actions like the Paasche H model, are a bear to keep clean, and lacquer makes the problem worse. The issue is a compressor; again, a small spray-gun type of compressor with a tank (important) can be had for under $160; the last airbrush compressor I bought--an Iwata Smart Jet--cost about $60 more than the cheap tank compressor!
There are a few issues here, not the least of which is that this method is only good with certain paints, mostly solid colors, and black is the easiest and pretty much a special case, anyway.
I'd venture to say that anyone following this method exactly has about a 5% chance of success. I'd define "success" in this case as "it ends up looking better/less noticeable than it started out", which is sort of a basic Hippocratic concept. If it ends up looking worse/more noticeable, then by definition, it's not a "fix", it's "damage".
Ricks may be painted with any type of paint you could dream of. I could refinish a Jetglo Rickenbacker with kindergarten tempera paint, and you couldn't tell the difference. This is because the black pigment is the same across the board, and color coats are only the bottom layer of a good refinish. The important part of the paint job--the top clearcoat--needs to be a certain, very tricky and toxic coating, in order to look right and last. This is where most amateurs drop the ball, either out of ignorance or lack of funds for proper materials and/or equipment.
Spraying with nitrocellulose or acrylic lacquer (or solvent-based polyurethane base coat, for that matter--the black formulas for all three systems are virtually identical!) will give you a black touch-up that's glossy and will "burn in" (blend with the old finish) if you're very lucky. Most of the time you'll get "haloing" that shows, both close up and at a distance.
Airbrushes--even Paasche sign-painters' airbrushes--don't put out a whole lot of spray. In order to get lacquer to spray properly through a tiny air brush nozzle, it has to be thinned way down, meaning that the paint film you're putting down is very, very thin.
Black pigment (generally what we'd term "lamp black" or, in plain English, soot!) has very small, soft particles. When you get to colors like white, the particles of pigment are larger, and harder, and will tend to clog the nozzle of the airbrush. There's white in virtually any color that's not a pure primary color or black.
Forget about trying to touch up a guitar with a metallic, pearlescent, or transparent/translucent finish (like FG), using an airbrush. The repair will be obvious 99.9% of the time. The other 1% of the time is plain dumb luck. Many metallics and pearls won't even pass through an airbrush's nozzle, anyway, and airbrushes will spray lacquers so very dry (too much air) that color matching is impossible.
A complete refinish cannot be done on an object as large as a guitar, using an airbrush, either. They simply can't cover enough real estate with each pass. You'll get uneven gloss, insufficient film thickness and film strength, and usually a mess.
For every pro refinisher plying his (her) trade, there are several hundred amateurs looking for a cheap way to get that guitar finish they've always dreamed of. ("Metallic black" is a common dream, and by definition a contradiction in terms, anyway.) The actual success rate with these attempts is very, very low. No wonder used instrument dealers run the other way when they hear "refinished"!
I hate to say this, but rattle/spray cans are the easiest way for an amateur to refinish a guitar, but then only with specially-formulated paints (ReRanch makes some good stuff), and even then it's gonna be nitrocellulose lacquer, no clear coat protectant, and lousy film thickness (again). Forget PreVal sprayers for anything but bug spray, and save that airbrush for birthday cakes. And, still, an amateur refinish will NOT increase the value of a guitar, unless your cousin just has to have that orange Strat you did last weekend, is inebriated, and has his wallet out...
Ironically, black touch-ups on small finish chips are dead easy, using something as simple as back nail polish and the brush in the cap. Just make sure your Rick is truly black--older JG finishes usually suffer from greening, due to the conversion varnish topcoats having turned yellow to a greater or lesser degree. I've seen some oldies that are literally olive drab due to this phenomenon.
Last bit of irony: The spray gun that I favor for my own refins (Sharpe Finex F3000) costs less than a pro-quality Paasche sign-painters' airbrush. Hobby airbrushes are too cheap and nasty and clog immediately. Pro artists' airbrushes are too delicate and small. All airbrushes except single-actions like the Paasche H model, are a bear to keep clean, and lacquer makes the problem worse. The issue is a compressor; again, a small spray-gun type of compressor with a tank (important) can be had for under $160; the last airbrush compressor I bought--an Iwata Smart Jet--cost about $60 more than the cheap tank compressor!
Re: Ric Bass Refinish Project - You Tube Humor
He's got some rambling "rickenbacker vs. fender" videos that tell me he really has no idea what he's talking about. The Fender and Ric debate is as old as most of the members here(zing!) and there are legitimate complaints to each arguement, but his videos are obviously biased to one direction, and rather than pointing out that it's a matter of personal opinion he tries to convince the viewer that one is actaully better than the other for reasons he pulls out of his ***, which is impossible.godber wrote:Check out his other videos, he's a rabid Rickenbacker ranter
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8mileshigher
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Re: Ric Bass Refinish Project - You Tube Humor
Paul -- many thanks for that detailed explanation 
about all the possibilites with touching up, airbrush nossels, JetGlo finishes yellowing and the whole nine yards. Wow -- it makes me even more convinced, that this type of refinish work is not for amateurs and should be left in the hands of pro's ! 
about all the possibilites with touching up, airbrush nossels, JetGlo finishes yellowing and the whole nine yards. Wow -- it makes me even more convinced, that this type of refinish work is not for amateurs and should be left in the hands of pro's !