basshead wrote:Geir, what's your process for painting a bare bass? Seal the fingerboard and body as you describe above? Then mask the fingerboard to shoot the colour? How many coats, rubbing back between coats etc? I'd appreciate any info mate.
Huh. You almost made it sound like I know what I’m doing - I haven’t done it yet though
Comments from those that have actually done some finishing would be great.
Anyway . . .
Yes, I will seal everything including fretboard.
While test-spraying I seem to get a very good bonding between coats, without sanding, when there is not too much time between coats. Long enough for the previous coat to have set enough to be almost non-sticky, but not yet fully set. 1.5 to 3 hours seems to work for me (probably depends on temperature, how much reducer etc.).
I will build a sealing coat thick enough so that I can sand the surface completely smooth (with 220 grit) without sanding down into the wood. As I’m doing a Fireglo for the burst to fade from color to no-color as smooth as possible the surface needs to be smooth or else it can get blotchy.
I don’t think this will be so critical with a solid finish, but still some sanding to get a good bind between sealing and color coat.
My plane is: sealing coat(s), sand with 220 grit (not the fretboard), mask fretboard, color coats, un-mask fretboard, top coats. Sanding after sealing coat I will not be sanding the fretboard. Better to sand the fretboard later just before the next coat (top coat) goes onto the board.
As I’m spraying a fireglo I won’t be sanding between color coats or I’ll ruin the burst. I have to do some more testing, but I won’t bore you with the detail as you’re doing a different style finish.
One aim though is to get away with as thin a color coat as possible to avoid building a too thick finish. With a solid finish that shouldn’t be so hard.
Thin down the finish as much as possible. The TransTint I’m using mixes very well with Glasurit finish itself but not with the reducer, so I can’t thin it down too much or the dye will not mix properly. Adding 100% reducer seems to still be ok for me, while 200% gives me problems.
You’ll have to test this yourself with the PPG and the tint you’ll be using. But with a solid finish you shouldn’t have the need to thin it down so much anyway as you can add much more tint/dye and get away with fewer color coats. (A burst finish is different because one wants to get that fading transition as smooth as possible, and therefore can’t add too much dye or it’ll start to look blotchy.)
For a solid color I guess you can just add as much tint/dye you need to get good coverage maybe even with one coat. You’ll just have to do some experimenting with this to see what works.
