The Über-M - fretless

[Stumbo]

The white sides will then be sprayed in black. BTW, does anyone think that the sides should stay white?

My vote is black.

Excellent build as always.

 

[darylchan]

i'm for natural finish

 

[natw42]

I can see it looking good either white or black. The only reason I would go black is because it will mirror what's going on with headstock. Regardless seeing your builds makes me wish I had way more money. :scowl:

 

[Spino]

I vote for natural sides because of the contrast.

 

[miziomix]

I can see it looking good either white or black. The only reason I would go black is because it will mirror what's going on with headstock. Regardless seeing your builds makes me wish I had way more money. :scowl:

Thank you natw42, and thank you all for sharing your POV on this.

I've got to say that, after two coats of lacquer the contrast of Semangkok and Macassar is looking pretty cool. As expected the S has turned a bit darker and the grain more visible. There's a very nice sheen that just goes beautifully with the Macassar.

In the end though, I have decided to go with black sides for at the least two reasons. One is that it will unify the look and make the Olivewood shine. The other one is what natw42 has mentioned in his post.

Nevertheless I will definitely build a B&W bass with SGK and Mac

The spraying is going to continue for the rest of this week. I will upload progress pictures tomorrow.

Thank you all!

 

[miziomix]

More of the same............

 

[cccy]

Nice! The OW looks amazing! What happens if you paint the sides and decide you don't like it at all?

 

[miziomix]

Gosh... I have not updated this thread for one month?

Quite a bit has happened actually. First of all I did a test to kinda check what I already knew that is, that spraying the sides black would bring out the right look.

Aside from the finish being too glossy we are very happy with the outcome. Judge for yourself.

Now I am redoing the last few coats because the finish should have been less glossy and because being a test I didn't sand it as much as I should have.

So here she is, sanded and in between coatings.

 

[tZer]

Sexual Chocolate!

 

[roberthabraken]

I'm in love

 

[BarkerBass]

the back of that bass is gorgeous, it actually made me WOW out loud!

 

[tZer]

the back of that bass is gorgeous, it actually made me WOW out loud!

+1002​

I never really was a fan of that much dark wood on a bass, but man you make it work for me! That is absolutely gorgeous!

 

[natw42]

To quote my girlfriend: that looks amaze-balls.

Glad you decided to dye the sides. Looks luscious

 

[MarkA]

I didn't like the idea of painted anything with all that pretty wood, but I have to admit that it looks pretty hot, not to mention more "of a piece" than the first (unpainted) way -- at least in the photos so far.

 

[miziomix]

Thank you guys!

@MarkA. I agree. I usually don't fancy paint over pretty wood either. In this case it just naturally felt like the right thing to do to complete the look. So much so that I didn't even realize that..mmm... I don't think I have seen anything like that before... or maybe I haven't seen enough


Update time.

Here's the body after some sanding and two coats of lacquer. That Chinese newspaper is priceless

Cavity cover with signature. It's a metallic paint. It will look kinda light gray after the satin finish.

Lastly, the p-up cover after a few oil applications. Still a bit to go. The Zericote fingerboard too will be oil finished. Together they should look quite neat.

I'm juggling fours builds at the same time but I really want to finish this one soon. So, this week and the next one will be kinda focused on accomplishing that

To those living in the big country - Happy 4th of July!

ps: I like the new Spider man It's slick - for a change....

 

[MarkA]

Here's the body after some sanding and two coats of lacquer. That Chinese newspaper is priceless

Do the two coats of lacquer refer to the black "burst" paint on the sides and back (since top is masked off), or a clear-coat of some kind?

The Zericote fingerboard too will be oil finished.

Hmm. I have a couple of fretless basses with wood fingerboards -- one an unlined ebony, the other a lined snakewood board. Might they benefit, in terms of protecting the wood, from oiling the board? I don't want anything to distort the wood or, in the case of the lined, snakewood board, to make the lines swell and rise past the rest of the fingerboard. (Which is actually the case currently -- just a little bit. It's a beautiful instrument and my only "boutique" piece, but it needs to go into a good luthier for a light sanding to level things out before it is properly playable.)

ps: I like the new Spider man It's slick - for a change....

It's playing now? Hadn't realized. I'm slightly dubious from the previews, but I will dutifully attend and hope for the best!

 

[miziomix]

Do the two coats of lacquer refer to the black "burst" paint on the sides and back (since top is masked off), or a clear-coat of some kind?

Hmm. I have a couple of fretless basses with wood fingerboards -- one an unlined ebony, the other a lined snakewood board. Might they benefit, in terms of protecting the wood, from oiling the board? I don't want anything to distort the wood or, in the case of the lined, snakewood board, to make the lines swell and rise past the rest of the fingerboard. (Which is actually the case currently -- just a little bit. It's a beautiful instrument and my only "boutique" piece, but it needs to go into a good luthier for a light sanding to level things out before it is properly playable.)

It's playing now? Hadn't realized. I'm slightly dubious from the previews, but I will dutifully attend and hope for the best!

Clear coat. I sanded down the body a bit - more than a bit in some areas. The finish wasn't leveled enough and had some small imperfections here and there. I wanted to test the idea, so I didn't bother. Now that I do it for real I'm basically going back a few steps.

Next one is the black paint. After that the usual xxx coats to get to the final look.

Oil. To me it's better if there's some kind of finish on an Ebony fingerboard. I don't like the epoxy look. So oil is good. Just a bit, to darken the wood and show it some TLC Same for your snakewood board... hell of a thing Maybe it was a bit too much TLC? some light sanding should do the trick.

I believe Spider man premiered yesterday in US. I managed to snatch a ticket to a private screening over here it's all about connections eh?

I enjoyed it even though it's not my kind of movie. Loved SM when i was a kid though. But I really didn't like the previous series... a bit too corny for my taste. This one at the least tries hard not to be and gives a bit of space to storytelling with a some depth - if that can be said about a comics hero hahahhaha.... good cast, good acting, well blend in sfx... and I definitively, positively think that this new guy is what P Parker should be like today. there

cheers!

 

[miziomix]

Rain has cooled down the air for a few days too many. So spraying has been on hold the entire week. Since I was still recovering from flue I didn't complain much. Anyway, today the sun came back with a vengeance. So, it's sanding sanding sanding, spraying spraying spraying More of the same tomorrow.

 

[MarkA]

Thanks for the answer re. the fingerboard -- I picked up a bottle of Guitar Honey awhile back and have used it once or twice on the rosewood fretboards of some of my basses. Do you think that this would work well for the two fretless basses I mentioned, or would you go with something else? What sort of oil do you use, and is it substantially different than this in application or result?

As for The Amazing Spiderman, I saw it on the 4th of July with my brother. I dug the effects, action, characterization, and storytelling through through the first 90% of the movie. The last 10%, for me, featured several disappointing cop-outs on the part of the writers, but I won't go further than that here! 'Tweens will love it.

 

[miziomix]

It has been a while since the last update. I've been busy getting other builds to the same stage as this one so as they could all be sprayed at the same time. Rain has delayed everything for about a week - so much for the dry season. It finally cleared yesterday and here we go.

The black sides have been resprayed and two more coats have been applied. Next is satin finish.

Thank you for following this build