Sanding Finished...For Now

I'm a bit late posting this but I spent some time sanding down the body by hand on Sunday afternoon, to remove the last bits of paint from inside the horns and to try to remove at least some of the white residue that was still there over most of it. The paint actually came off more easily than I expected, with a left-over piece of coarse sandpaper from the power sander and a bit of elbow grease. I'm really glad I didn't try to do the whole body by hand though!

The result looks like this:

Still a bit of the residue left in there but that's OK for now.

I then got my sanding block and some coarse sandpaper and went over the whole body bit by bit just to give it a once-over; it seems to have helped a bit, and although it's not all that easy to see from the pictures I definitely managed to get rid of some of the whiteness. It's probably more noticable in the rib and arm cuts, and round the edges, due to the darker colour of the edges of the plywood.

Back:

Front:

It's a long way from perfect, but it's better than it was and that's all that matters for now. I had planned to spend some more time sanding it down, getting it into an even better state, but then I realised that there's not a lot of point at this stage. Once I'm done cutting/carving down the body to lose some weight, I'll have to sand it all down properly ready for painting, both the bits that are modified and the bits that are unchanged, so it seemed a little unnecessary to go through it all at this point.

So the next task is to figure out and design exactly what I'm going to with it, and then actually start some woodworking. The really daunting stuff begins here :-)

Since I already posted about some of my ideas regarding what I could do, I'm going to work a little on refining the plans (and picking exactly which idea(s) to go for) over the next few days and then hopefully post something a bit more definitive soon. Something of a plan is already formulating, but as before, any ideas and feedback would be appreciated!

Nineteen Layer Cake

This picture illustrates very nicely the layers of the plywood - all nineteen of them:

You can also see a few dents in the edge of the body - somehow these dents (which were clearly visible in the surface before I sanded the paint off) have had the paint pushed into them, rather than the dent going through the paint to the wood like most of the other dings and marks that were in the body. I decided against trying to sand the paint out of these with the power sander as that would've created a horrible flat patch in the edge of the body, so I'll see what comes off when I sand the body down by hand, and may end up having to paint over them to some extent.

I'm hoping to have some time this weekend to sand off the remaining paint inside the horns, and the remaining residue over the whole body too. Then it'll be time to start seriously deciding what I'm going to do about cutting down the body - I already have some more concrete ideas and plans than before, and even some "sketches", so maybe I'll post them up here at some point and ask for comments :-)

Stripped

Finally found the time to finish the sanding today - by taking this afternoon off work. Another 4hrs today to add to the 4hrs last week, and the body is now almost completely free of paint. Thankfully I didn't have to buy a new filter for the sander to get it usable again, I just had to glue the filter down over the air outlet to stop the dust bypassing the filter.

Like last time there were no major hiccups, although as expected there were a couple of bits inside the horns that the power sander simply couldn't reach; actually in the end I was pleased with how much I was able to do in there. The front of the body was pretty easy to finish, the sides (being curved) were a bit fiddly in places but not too much trouble.

A few pics, the first one is after an hour or so, the front of the body now paint-free but the sides still not done:

Secondly, a "during" shot of doing the end of the body:

A couple of shots of the remaining paint inside the horns, first the upper:

...and secondly the lower horn - somewhat more paint left here due to the tighter nature of the shape of the horn:

Lastly, a picture of the whole body:

I might post a couple more pics at some point in the next few days, especially to highlight the plywood!

Next task will be to sand off those last bits of paint by hand, then sand down the whole body to get rid of the white residue that's left over most of it, which I assume is remnants of whatever primer/sealer/undercoat was used beneath the paint.

Enter Sandman

Spent this afternoon sanding the body - had no idea how well it'd go, but in the end I had a pretty successful day. The Bosch sander is really good, and with careful use of the vacuum cleaner there wasn't too much dust flying around. The results also came out as well as I could've expected; it'll need to be sanded down by hand after I'm done but the exposed wood so far is fairly smooth, not too much in the way of unintended contours left by the sanding.

I've managed to do the whole of the back (started there in case I made a mess of it!) and about half of the front. Here are some during/after pics, starting with before - with appropriate kit:

During 1 - the back part done, and a pause for lunch:

During 2 - the back completely done, including the rib-cut:

After 1 - the front half-done:

After 2 - close-up of the rib cut (another clear view of the plywood) and of some of the grain in the back.

Need to get a new dust filter for the sander, and then I should be able to get the rest of the front and all the edges done in one more session. Not sure I'll be able to do the insides of the horns with the Bosch, but if I have to do a little by hand then so be it. But I'm very happy with how it's gone so far!

The Shape of Things to Come

Since I don't have much to post about while I'm waiting to start sanding down the body, I've decided to post some info about what I'm thinking of doing in order to cut down the weight of the body. Each idea has its pros and cons (the cons often related to the potential problems of woodworking with plywood!), and I may end up with some compromise between more than one of them. So, in no particular order...

1) Simply make the body thinner. Shave a thin layer of wood from the back of the body, possibly even a whole "ply" of the plywood which would make it easier to achieve a flat, consistent-thickness result. Like most of these options though, I'm not sure how the plywood will react to being planed/carved - I don't want it splintering everywhere, although that may be unavoidable regardless of what I do! Also I wouldn't be able to take much off without risking a reduction in the structural integrity of the bass as a whole once I get a neck on it and it's under tension from the strings. Another consideration is the hole for the jack and the strap button holes, as these would all no longer be exactly centered within the thickness of the body - especially a consideration for the jack. Lastly, the cover for the electrics cavity is neatly recessed into the body, so I'd have to re-do that recessing once I'm done, while still retaining the depth of the cavity that's needed to actually house everything. Tricky.

2) Trim down the shape of the body. Remove a little wood most of the way round, while still keeping the basic body shape - a good example of this is the Warmoth "Dinky P" body shape, for which they have an excellent little diagram showing the difference between a standard Precision-style body and their "dinky" version. Possibly quite tricky from a woodworking point of view, and I'd have to be quite careful not to end up with something bizarre-looking! Strap buttons are again a consideration, especially the one on the top "horn" of the body. Also the body has slightly carved/curved edges all the way round which I'd have to re-create once I'd cut the shape down, as the bridge end of the body would probably remain pretty much as is, so I'd have to keep that carved edge consistent all round.

3) Deeper arm-cut. The rib-cut on it is already pretty deep, but the arm cut isn't at all, so although it won't remove a lot of wood this is a pretty obvious way to gain a bit.

4) Cavities. Basically create one or more cavities in the body. A simple way to remove sheer bulk of wood, but one I'm reluctant to go for since it'd be risky for the structural integrity of the body, for the resonance of it (yes, I know it's only plywood!) and also from the point of view of the balance of it. I'm also sure that adding a laminate to cover the cavities would be beyond my woodworking capabilities, and I'm not too sure how exposed cavities would look even on the back! Some level of contouring of the back of the body (rather than blocky cavities) may be a possibility though, although it would probably look rather odd.

5) "Carved-top" look. Enhance the carved edges of the body from the small curve that's already there into something deeper and more akin to the PRS-style "carved-top" type of guitar. Probably beyond my woodworking skills, as it'd be difficult to achieve a result that's consistent and looks good all the way round a very curved shape. Also not much could be done behind the bridge as there's not a lot of wood to spare back there.

6) Drastic change in body shape. For example removing and rounding off the lower "horn", like with a Fender Jaguar. A risky strategy due the possibility of ending up with something that looks, well, ridiculous :-)

There are probably other options too - any suggestions and comments would be gratefully received, so please feel free to add them using the comments functionality below this post!

Workbench Delays

So no sanding this weekend after all...bought a workbench from B&Q on Friday evening in order to have something stable to use to support the body while sanding, tried to build it on Saturday only to find that one of the parts was faulty and I couldn't put it together.

I'm going back to B&Q to take it back, get a refund and a new one (going to get a better one too as the one I got seemed a bit flimsy) tonight, so hopefully should get onto the sanding next weekend - bank holiday weekend plus a day off work on Tuesday so there ought to be plenty of time for it!

Might take a look at woodworking tools while I'm getting the new workbench too, since that'll be the next step - still not sure exactly what I'm going to do with it to try to take some weight off, but I have a few ideas. Perhaps that can be a topic for another post this week, since I won't be able to make any actual progress until next weekend...

Paint Removal Machine

Weighed the body tonight, it's ~2.9kg with everything now stripped out of it. That'll be an interesting checkpoint for me to refer back to once I'm trying to trim some weight off it. I already have some ideas for that, but no concrete decisions yet as I have other things to do first.

Which leads me onto the other point of tonight's post - the subject of paint removal.

I ummed and ahhed about how to do this, and did some research online to help me decide between the two possibilities, either sanding or using some sort of chemical paint stripper. Both would be messy and have their own particular drawbacks, but in the end I've gone for sanding, largely because I wouldn't have known where to start with buying paint stripper. I have no idea what type of lacquer/paint was used on the Marlin, so choosing which type to get would've been pure guesswork - and I read a forum post online somewhere in which someone described the experience of trying 5 or 6 different kinds before anything made the slightest impression on his guitar, which didn't appeal to me! I figured sandpaper would work on anything :-)

Hand-sanding it would be time-consuming and doesn't really appeal though, so I've bought myself a Bosch hand-held sander which should make the job even easier. There might be one or two awkward bits that I need to do by hand but it should take care of the bulk of it, and I'm not bothering to do the insides of the pickup and electrics cavities as I don't really see the point.

I'm hoping to have some time to make a start this weekend, obviously any progress (and photos) will be on here as soon as I'm done!