Couple of Jack Casady questions!

[Highlander]

 

[Alanko]

Alright, rushed these photos on my phone this morning:

The good:



The not so good:



So, still a wee bit of work to do. The issues at the moment are:

1) That dark bit on the back! As a result of using a heat gun I had a wee bit of the back de-laminate, and a bubble formed accordingly. The standard procedure here is to cut a line in the bubble and press glue into the void, then clamp and let it dry. I've done this but I had to put down a few small holes to get the glue in. I've lost a couple of bits of finish here, so I've filled with a contrasting rosewood dust/glue filler. It will leave an obvious mark (all of an inch long), but I want it to be visible as it has a story behind it. Stupid as it is.

2) The back of the treble horn. Argh! There was no sanding sealer here for some reason. The black finish was in the pores of the wood. They deftly sanded through the sealer coat in the factory then sprayed the finish anyway. I'm building up the area here with superglue as a new sealer, and will have to level it out.

3) The treble horn is a bugger to work in, and the finish is thickest in here for some reason.

[clankenstein]

I think i like the look with the natural sides.

[Basvarken]

I can understand why they used that block for the lower horn. Bending the sides in such a sharp corner is  quite tricky. Chances are the wood will break if you don't take enough time.
Using the block saves a lot of time and lowers the risk.
The thick finish build up and lack of sanding sealer maybe has to do with their goal to hide the difference between the block and the rest of the sides.

[Rob]

I think i like the look with the natural sides.

Me 2

[66Atlas]

The lower horn is the same as the early Gibson design.  Its actually an extension of the mahogany block that the neck is set in to.

[Alanko]

It is nice of them to preserve a period feature like that!

I'm not getting anywhere with working with the sanding sealer, so I'm going to have to do a full strip to get down to the actual wood. The sanding sealer is annoying to try and work with, as it is thick, hard but sort of oddly brittle quality as well. I've stripped a few solid bodies, and this Fullerplast-style filler is a pig to work with.

I wish acetone would simply wash this stuff away, but it looks like I'm going to need a wee sander and lot of patience.

[Alanko]

Two months later....

I'm getting the Casady bass refinished by an auto body shop. I'm looking at RAL 9001 as the colour, which is a pleasantly vintage shade of cream. I saw a cream EB-2 online and took a shine to it. No binding, just acres of 2K lacquer. I'm glad somebody else is dealing with the 2K lacquer.

I will cut either a black or a red tortoishell pickguard for the bass and clean up the wiring loom harness. I'm going to put a shout out for a black Casady pickup and mounting ring set, as mine are cream and might clash with the body.

[Rob]

Using an experienced painter makes sense to me

[Alanko]

Using an experienced painter makes sense to me

It was quite a funny phone call. The painter felt he was letting me in for some bad news, as it might cost me £120 or so to get the bass painted.

Guitar refinishers are quite rare in the UK, and they would charge £300 - £400 for the work. Hollow bass (tick), set neck (tick), body and neck refinish (tick).

[Dave W]

That price is more than reasonable.

[amptech]

That price is more than reasonable.

That's a good price indeed. The local atuto paint shop charges £1000 for a guitar paint. I think that price reflect their interest in painting instruments. I know a guitar player that paid that price, but the paintjob was awful.

On the other hand, you have to be very good at what you do to be able to do  good instument finishing at a good price and actually make money doing it.

[Highlander]

My rattle-cans are resting at present...

[Dave W]

I've never priced refinishing an instrument through an auto body shop here. No idea what they would charge. But £120 is a bargain compared to what a guitar refinisher would charge here, even for a bolt-on.

[Basvarken]

I hope it'll work out good for you Alan.

I've had a lesser experience with a car painter doing a refin on a bass guitar.
The result was a decent paint job. But the entire finish had an orange peel wobbly surface.
Apparently car painters don't bother to sand properly nor polish it to a mirror like flat surface...

My advice would be to emphasize on a good sanding and thorough polishing job (which can be extremely time consuming)