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.