Please help me before I make it worse

[Yellow Bang66]

Long story short ~ I’m trying to fix a previous owners patch job and I’m making it worse. What should I do next? Take it to a professional or keep at it myself?

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I found a used 1982 Ibanez Musician last year and play it for most gigs now. I always loved the tone but I was never happy with the look of a previous owners attempt to fix the wear spots in the dark stain by using some kind of brown paint.

Last week I had some time and tried to take off the touch up paint. I thought I could sand off to the wood and be happy with a worn look. The problem I have now is that I scratched up the stain around the sanded section.

I tried buffing but that didn’t help. Any suggestions???

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Luckily, it appears to be on the Bottom & Back! if you r getting nervous, take it to a furniture repairer or guitar tech, berfore you make it any worse! its only wood, so It should be pretty easy to fix! Maybe try asking around at a Woodworking shop, I have Rockler® close by, & they are super helpful most of the time! take slow, Refinishing takes time to do a good job! or if you get anxious, STICKERS/TAPE!

 

[dasherf17]

Luckily, it appears to be on the Bottom & Back! if you r getting nervous, take it to a furniture repairer or guitar tech, berfore you make it any worse! its only wood, so It should be pretty easy to fix! Maybe try asking around at a Woodworking shop, I have Rockler® close by, & they are super helpful most of the time! take slow, Refinishing takes time to do a good job! or if you get anxious, STICKERS/TAPE!

...AND, as I found out building kits all this last year and a half, there's a LOT of help online...type in what you asked us and pick out the best link that fits your need...or read 'em all...like here, there's many ideas to be had. Your issue doesn't look undoable at home.
Feels like you already have a plan!

 

[LukeSlywalker]

"using some kind of brown paint"........that's half your problem..... Why not use a mahogany stain or something lighter so you can gradually match the color......As said above you need to buff those scratches out with some wet/dry high grit paper (600-2000)

It’s the main problem. A previous owner used the brown paint, that is what I sanded off. Hopefully I can clean up my work. Thanks everyone for the help so far.

 

[lark_z]

ALWAYS finish the sanding with each grit by sanding lightly in the direction of the grain. As others have pointed out - Don't skip any grits, don't use a lot of pressure.

 

[RichterScale]

Seeing how easily that finish is removed and is "on" the wood, opposed to soaked into the grain like a stain, the obvious answer is to break down the bass, remove ALL of the finish on the body, refinish the whole body, then replace or clean up the hardware. Especially the rusty stuff.
It's a nice bass. I'm not a fan of this whole "relic" craze. It just looks like a nice instrument that's not taken care of.
For the mental and physical effort being put into it for smoothing out a blemish (to make it look "natural"), I think it's time better spent to simply redo it all and have the thing look new again.

 

[LukeSlywalker]

Seeing how easily that finish is removed and is "on" the wood, opposed to soaked into the grain like a stain, the obvious answer is to break down the bass, remove ALL of the finish on the body, refinish the whole body, then replace or clean up the hardware. Especially the rusty stuff.
It's a nice bass. I'm not a fan of this whole "relic" craze. It just looks like a nice instrument that's not taken care of.
For the mental and physical effort being put into it for smoothing out a blemish (to make it look "natural"), I think it's time better spent to simply redo it all and have the thing look new again.

Sanding the whole thing down and staining or clear coating is an option I’m also leaning towards. I first wanted to try other options before resulting to starting over.

I like the look of natural wear marks and appreciate the history of an old instrument. Hoping to preserve some of the scars. But yes I may end up disassembling and sanding off the whole finish.

 

[Dirk Diggler]

Strip it clean and refinish it if you want perfection, take to a furniture repair shop or quality luthier if you want to hide it a bit.
Personally I'd ride it as is.
Good luck,
Dirk

 

[Gilmourisgod]

Ugghhh. Didn’t realize they were using that stained poly back then. That god awful “brown mahogany” stain they use on the modern SR500 is an industrial version of Minwax Polyshades which is stain mixed with poly. It doesn’t penetrate into the wood like stain, so it chips right back to bare wood. It wouldn’t surprise me if Minwax still has something close in color that you could layer on in thin coats. It’s never going to be perfect, but maybe improvable.

 

[LukeSlywalker]

Ugghhh. Didn’t realize they were using that stained poly back then. That god awful “brown mahogany” stain they use on the modern SR500 is an industrial version of Minwax Polyshades which is stain mixed with poly. It doesn’t penetrate into the wood like stain, so it chips right back to bare wood. It wouldn’t surprise me if Minwax still has something close in color that you could layer on in thin coats. It’s never going to be perfect, but maybe improvable.

Great info, Thankyou

 

[Gordo350]

Ugghhh. Didn’t realize they were using that stained poly back then. That god awful “brown mahogany” stain they use on the modern SR500 is an industrial version of Minwax Polyshades which is stain mixed with poly. It doesn’t penetrate into the wood like stain, so it chips right back to bare wood. It wouldn’t surprise me if Minwax still has something close in color that you could layer on in thin coats. It’s never going to be perfect, but maybe improvable.

And that poly is 1/4 inch thick. I own one of these basses and let me tell you, if you strip all that finish off the bass will be 4 pounds lighter

 

[LukeSlywalker]

And that poly is 1/4 inch thick. I own one of these basses and let me tell you, if you strip all that finish off the bass will be 4 pounds lighter

that might not be a bad thing. The weight doesn’t bother me because of my wide neoprene strap but it is my heaviest bass

 

[coy garcia]

Id use some "old english scratch cover" and call it a day. I use this on old instruments to hide nicks and scratches when I clean them.

 

[arbiterusa]

Former finish guy here. If you want it fixed, take it to a pro. A real pro, someone with years of experience and who specializes in finish, because that’s going to be a hard fix. If it’s not visible from the front I’d leave it. If it was mine I might leave it anyway.

You are in way over your head here.

 

[M0ses]

I took off the brown paint with 120 grit and then tried to smooth it out with a finished kit that I think went from 800 up to 2000 at least.

I may not have done the correct buffing, no prior experience. I used Meguiars Scratch X from auto zone. Applied a small amount on a buffing pad and worked it into scratches by hand. No effect really.

You didn't sand enough with the 800. Use the 800 until those scratches disappear then start going upwards into buffing.

 

[OogieWaWa]

Unless you want to actually re-shape something, throw away any sandpaper under, say, 200 grit; maybe even as far as 320. Re-shaping and refinishing are two entirely different purposes of the same basic tool, with an overlap region. Very coarse refinishing begins before very fine shaping ends as you step up. Or more precisely down in grit size.

 

[Leigh Semmens]

It is a nice looking instrument. The question has already been asked, what are you trying to achieve? Given that you've already attempted to sand it, if you want consistent finish, you'll have to strip it all back to bare wood and start again, either that, take it to a specialist paint shop (a car spray painter might be able to blend but, I'd be more inclined to go to a recognised luthier that specialised in restoring old instruments. If, OTOH, all you are hoping for is a relic'd look, then you are almost there and just require time and effort using finer and finer grit paper until you achieve the desired result.

 

[Chain_Lightning]

I have a Musician Bass it's A nice instrument.
if you do not know what you are doing. STOP! IT WILL ONLY COST YOU MORE MONEY & TIME TO FIT IT. TAKE IT TO A PRO! THIS AX WAS NOT A CHEAT BASS WHEN IT WAS 1ST SOLD. A PROFESSIONAL WILL BRING OUT THE BEST OUT OF THAT AX. I KNOW YOU WILL BE VERY SATIFIED WIT IT. AFTER IT HAS BEEN REPAIRED & FOR YEARS TO COME, BEST OF LUCK ON YOUR MUSICIAN, nice instrument.

 

[MotorCityMinion]

tried buffing but that didn’t help. Any suggestions???

As already mentioned, you have to step up in grits to get it decent looking, then buff. Simply finding a stain that matches will work to get the color back. Buffing the entire bass will only make the other dings stand out more. Either have a pro touch it up or learn to live with it. My perfect finish / shiny bass OCD drives me nuts. In fact, to the point that I would probably never buy a Relic'ed bass at any price. BTW, nice bass. It's a classic. It may look great stripped and oiled in it's natural color.

 

[albertus]

I will leave it as it is. and call it "natural relic" which it actually is. it has the pre owner's stoy, now it has yours. you fix it, the story vanishes. for the sake of a beautiful instrument. unless you want it for selling it

 

[Huw Phillips]

I do this kind of work and have done for 35 years if you want it so you can’t see it give it to a pro if your happy to be able to still see it slightly above is good advice getting the stain color right is half the battle good luck