TL;DR—Looking for information on spray painting a bass kit (unfinished) with DupliColor and which grits of sand paper to use throughout the process.
First off, wow. I have not been on the website in YEARS. What an upgrade. I’m still rocking the same gear though. Which brings us to this post.
I am a middle of the road player—self taught, could probably hone my skills with some lessons, I can just never seem to have the time or the money for lessons. I am not amazing. But can I hold it down in the pocket, sure.
I am also left handed. Buying gear is not easy for me. I have two or 2-3 Squiers, an Ibanez or 2, a few Fenders, and some top of the line basses I could work my whole life for and never afford. Compare that to the right handed selection. Pickings are slim. I’m not bitter at all. /s.
I decided, okay, I’m not sure I can justify the Fender P bass at around 650, or the American Standard at roughly the cost of 2-3 weeks pay. My playing does not warrant something that nice and I have to pay my rent.
Also, I know the Squier P bass just came out. But! I hate the 60’s-70’s neck finishes. And I know I could sand that off, buttttt...
I’ve been in rut. Graduated college back in 2018, watched a lot of people in my major either go straight into the legal field as paralegals or head to law school with daddy’s money. Because I chose to stay in town, getting a job as paralegal here was more difficult than people who lived up in Chicago.
I got a job in auto claims at a large insurance company. You wreck your car, I pay to fix it. I don’t hate it—It pays the bills. Pretty soon, I was just working this job and if I wasn’t working I was sleeping.
I had a thought one day. That I don’t do anything with my time. Not really. So I decided to build a bass for two reasons.
1. As I mentioned above it is incredibly hard to find a bass, within my price range, that I like with no modifications needing to be made.
2. I had to get off my butt and DO something.
So I’m currently waiting on a left handed P bass kit from BYO (Build Your Own) guitars. I have no idea if BYO is a good brand. I’d heard good things about Solo and Fretwire, but they didn’t have LH kits available. Whatever. It’s ordered.
I knew I wanted to upgrade and was pleasantly surprised to see right off the bat upgrades were available in the ordering process. However, I put in all the upgrades I wanted and looked at the total and figured I could get the upgrades later on for possibly cheaper.
So the bass is coming stock and with a 30 dollar penalty for being LH, having the holes pre-drilled at 50 dollars, and shelling out 25 dollars for a black 3-ply pickguard instead of white, and 19.99 for shipping, I’m sitting at almost the cost of a finished bass.
I know it’s going to be cheap. I’m looking to get an idea of how my instrument works, not to expect custom shop work.
All that background aside, I’m interested in hearing about experiences spray painting with Duplicolor and the best grits to sand with and at which times. I’ve been YouTubing and One guy used 400 grit the entire process and another guy used 220, 400, and went all the way to 1500. Aside of the painting of the bass, there seems to be most variable in sanding and I would love to hear testimonials.
First off, wow. I have not been on the website in YEARS. What an upgrade. I’m still rocking the same gear though. Which brings us to this post.
I am a middle of the road player—self taught, could probably hone my skills with some lessons, I can just never seem to have the time or the money for lessons. I am not amazing. But can I hold it down in the pocket, sure.
I am also left handed. Buying gear is not easy for me. I have two or 2-3 Squiers, an Ibanez or 2, a few Fenders, and some top of the line basses I could work my whole life for and never afford. Compare that to the right handed selection. Pickings are slim. I’m not bitter at all. /s.
I decided, okay, I’m not sure I can justify the Fender P bass at around 650, or the American Standard at roughly the cost of 2-3 weeks pay. My playing does not warrant something that nice and I have to pay my rent.
Also, I know the Squier P bass just came out. But! I hate the 60’s-70’s neck finishes. And I know I could sand that off, buttttt...
I’ve been in rut. Graduated college back in 2018, watched a lot of people in my major either go straight into the legal field as paralegals or head to law school with daddy’s money. Because I chose to stay in town, getting a job as paralegal here was more difficult than people who lived up in Chicago.
I got a job in auto claims at a large insurance company. You wreck your car, I pay to fix it. I don’t hate it—It pays the bills. Pretty soon, I was just working this job and if I wasn’t working I was sleeping.
I had a thought one day. That I don’t do anything with my time. Not really. So I decided to build a bass for two reasons.
1. As I mentioned above it is incredibly hard to find a bass, within my price range, that I like with no modifications needing to be made.
2. I had to get off my butt and DO something.
So I’m currently waiting on a left handed P bass kit from BYO (Build Your Own) guitars. I have no idea if BYO is a good brand. I’d heard good things about Solo and Fretwire, but they didn’t have LH kits available. Whatever. It’s ordered.
I knew I wanted to upgrade and was pleasantly surprised to see right off the bat upgrades were available in the ordering process. However, I put in all the upgrades I wanted and looked at the total and figured I could get the upgrades later on for possibly cheaper.
So the bass is coming stock and with a 30 dollar penalty for being LH, having the holes pre-drilled at 50 dollars, and shelling out 25 dollars for a black 3-ply pickguard instead of white, and 19.99 for shipping, I’m sitting at almost the cost of a finished bass.
I know it’s going to be cheap. I’m looking to get an idea of how my instrument works, not to expect custom shop work.
All that background aside, I’m interested in hearing about experiences spray painting with Duplicolor and the best grits to sand with and at which times. I’ve been YouTubing and One guy used 400 grit the entire process and another guy used 220, 400, and went all the way to 1500. Aside of the painting of the bass, there seems to be most variable in sanding and I would love to hear testimonials.
