...I think I'm turning Japanese, I really think so

Well, not really...

The fret decals I ordered dropped in the post all the way from Osaka, Japan. Really impressed, as I thought I'd be waiting for them a couple of weeks. Anyway, that's what bought to mind the song lyrics I used as this blog title.

The fret decals look really nice, but I'm not so sure about the "go faster stripe". The colour isn't quite what I expected from the photo I saw, its less red and more pink than I was expecting, so I'm not sure whether I will use it on this bass. Perhaps it will be saved for a future project.

Shiny, shiny!

In the last couple of weeks, on and off I've been starting to apply the finish.

Whilst it may have looked like I primed the body some time ago, in reality that has been a bit of an ongoing saga (saga? geddit?). As I hung the body whilst spraying, what I found was that it was quite prone to runs. This ended up with me having to sand back and then re-prime in a number of different places. I've now got a 2" x 1.5" off cut of wood attached as a sort of temporary neck and clamped it to my workbench so that I can paint with the body flat.

In addition, the white primer highlighted the fact my earlier sanding of the bridge pickup cavity had not gone all according to plan. So I ended up filling the sides of the cavity, making a template from the pickup cover and carving it out again. So the body is now primed, everything smooth and ready for the colour coat.

The neck finish has not been without problems either. My plan was to have a satin finish, and I had bought a special acrylic lacquer on-line for this. After applying the decals, I then had to build up the layers of lacquer to ensure the decals don;t end up raised above the surface. As I got towards the end of the can of lacquer, either some dampness crept in from somewhere or most likely there were contaminates in the bottom of the can. This left some patches of pin hole, white coloured spots on the neck :(

So I had to sand all this out and then start with the lacquers again. Rather than the hassle of ordering the sating lacquer online, I decide to go with the clear glossy lacquer I had bought from the local motorist shop. This week I've applied probably 5 coats and its looking good so far (photos below are straight after the last coat, so its very wet here)

Its all looking very shiny! And I haven't even got to the polishing stages yet. I may well create a satin look/feel on the back of the neck with some fine wet & dry or 0000 grade wire wool, but I quite like the glossy look I'm achieving for the headstock. I remember, my old Bass Collection bass had a painted and quite highly polished neck and I always found it very comfy and fast to play, so I may leave it with the gloss effect. Not sure yet.

Found something cool!

Today I came across inlaysticker.com whilst browsing a guitar buidling forum. They provide some very cool loking decals that are designed ot look like mother of pearl and abalone etc. - So they have some cool fret inlay deals and all sorts of other stuff.

I thought they might snazz up that old acoustic a little and my jazz bass build. As they are not terribly expensive and not permanent I decided to take a punt and ordered for the bass....

a go faster stripe!

and some jazz bass fret decals

And then for the acoustic something a little more fancy...

Side tracked

I've been well and truly side tracked from this project in the last week or two, having discovered my old K acoustic guitar that only comes out once every blue moon in a sorry state of repair.

Basically it had dried out in a number of different ways meaning some TLC was required.

First of all the bridge was lifting off of the body and pulling on the nuts that  held it in place. The relatively cheap construction showed that the bridge had been fixed directly to the finish (oops). So I have removed it, cleaned up the body and ensured the base of the bridge was exactly flat before borrowing some sound hole clamps and reattaching it...

In addition to that little job, as you can probably see from the first photo I started attacking the fingerboard. It was made to look more exotic than it is , by dyeing a cheap wood and then putting lacquer over the top. The lacquer was starting to flake off and some cracks were appearing in the wood. So time to scrape and sand, fill the cracks and sort that out too!...

To be honest I probably over sanded the frets at the bridge end - not very clever. They are now flat-ish, but I've really taken them a bit too low. As I don;t tend to play all the way up there, I'm just going to make sure this looks presentable now rather then replacing the fingerboard altogether. For the remaining frets I'm carefully removing the existing finish with a 4" scraper blade, then P80 and P1200 lightly sanding.

I've also decided that on this guitar the fingerboard probably does look better dark, so I've got a small pot of dark oak coloured Ronseal wood dye intended for exterior woods, that should help prevent any future drying out and cracks. Then I will probably use 0000 gauge wire wool to clean the frets themselves. lemon oil it all and leave it at that. So still a bit of work to do on it before I return to the bass. Still, that's not going anywhere :)

What to call it?

Well, I'm not running this as a competition or anything, but I've been mulling over what to call this bass for some time.

Being a sentimental old fella, I've decided on something family related. I've been doing a lot of work on this bass and also fixing my old acoustic guitar on a Black & Decker Workbench that used to be my Grandad's. He had a family name that wasn't passed on beyond himself, as far as I know. It was actually used as a middle name and so I've decided to use that.

So I have the "Loche Jazz Bass". Although a yorkshireman like me, the name "Loche" comes from his Scottish ancestry.

I bought some inkjet water slide clear decal paper off of ebay (Sara's Texture Crafts) and played around with what seemed like a million fonts and effects, until I came up with something relatively simple.

The decal paper was pretty easy to use, printing straight on to it with an inkjet printer. Next you should use some acrylic lacquer (about 3 or 4 coats) to seal the ink on the paper. Wait for it all to dry and then cut out with a craft knife or scissors (I found the later easier). 30 seconds in water, then slide the decal off onto the headstock, adjusting the piosition carefully so not to rip the decal and then dab off excess water with a lint free cloth. Just like when I was a kid doing the airfix models!

I also decided to put a yorkshire rose decal and serial nuymber on the back of the down near the heel of the bass...

Once dry, I need to figure out how to sort this so the decals aren't proud of the finish. Time for some googling and advice from guitarattack.com