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Yamaha trb 6 refinishing project

amadeusex

amadeusex

Aug 16, 2008
126
19
Athens Greece
www.facebook.com
#1
Hi

For almost 17 years this bass was my main instrument.
Thousands of gigs went by and this summer I decided to refinish it.

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Countless dings and dongs, even some dents caused by famous people like a dent in the fretboard when the late Dave Carpenter dropped it.

Step 1.

Disassembly

Not much to say/show here. A screwdriver is your friend. Lucky me the pickups and jack battery cables were all fitted with plugs like the ones used for fans on a computer mainboard. For someone like me who sucks big time when it comes to soldering that was a relief :-)

Step 2

Stripping the old paint.

Attempt 1 with a heat gun ...

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Now that doesn't look good ...

Attempt 2

Using paint stripper i've had lying around from when i repainted my pool walls.

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Now that looks better.

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As you can see there is still some primer left on the wood, which some sanding and elbow grease took care of as you can see below

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Same procedure for the neck

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Now i decided in my noobness that it would be a good idea to use acrylic wood putty to make an even surface. Straight out of the box. Yeah i know NOW that this is not a good idea. Again some sanding did the job, below is a picture taken while sanding it away.

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Step 3

Make the grain pop out.

Attempt 1

I wanted to use wood stain but due to limited supplies here i turned to a stained varnish. Is was a black colored varnish, which i forgot to shake well (turns out you have to). Read the f.... manual. Iknow i'm a noob :-)

Here's what i got.

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Now that i discovered that shaking the can will make that stuff really black i ended up with this (of course sanding down to the wood again, i'm a sanding master by now:-)

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Sanding down a bit

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And off topic

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Staining the neck (actually just the exposed part which shows below the fretboard and the headstock)

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As you can see i used some tape to make everything right, but guess what ? I left out the holes for the tuning machines and some of that stuff went through. Nothing though what some SANDING couldn't take care of :-)

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#2
Step 4

Finish

When I decided to refinish my beloved Yamaha I was aiming for a white see through finish. Back in the 90's while studying in LA I went downtown Pasadena, when I stumbled upon a band playing a coffeehouse gig.

The bass player had a sadowsky with a very nice see through finish almost looking like some sort of marble (mainly because you could just see the grain beneath)

After some www research I came across a video on the tube where a luthier demonstrated a technique using a mixture of artistic oil paint (linseed oil and pigments) and tru oil.

Being totally inexperienced (noob) regarding any kind of spraying and the lack of a dustfree environment i went for that.

I have to admit here that the whole procedure of caressing my old lady with my fingers had some sensual vibe to it. Wood porn at its best :-)

I should also mention that the first coating with the mixture didn't turn out the way it should. Mainly because i was using too much of that stuff.

Some SANDING later ... down to the sealing (same brand as tru oil) fixed that :-)

Here are some pictures from the first cuple of coats (done the right way)

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Even more coats later

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This went on and on for maybe 2 days and a total of 10+ coats

Here are some pictures after wet sanding pure tru oil and some more plain tru oil coats

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I also sanded and finished the neck, but didn't take any pictures. Pure tru oil applied with the fingers - actually wearing rubber gloves (the kind physicians use) because i got tired of the hand cleaning procedure.

Step 5

Assembly. Screwdriver and some wrenches that's all.

And here she is

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As you can tell the neck is not done yet. The bass is with a luthier now to get some new frets and I'm out of tru oil. I'll finish her up as soon as she returns.

Thanks for watching !
 
#17
I know it's an old thread but... what kind of stuff did you use for as a sealing.
Do you put this on after the 'grain-popping' treatment en before de coloured or clear finish?
I'm having ideas about sanding the old colour off my TRB5 and clearcoat the bass. But that white see-through :cool:
 

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