The dying process is taking longer than I expected. Have to be patient. I think the last coat will go on tomorrow, then the finish can go on starting Tuesday.

Oh yeah! I almost forgot. In order for the dye to not bleed when putting on the urethane gel finish, I’m sealing the wood with a Tung Oil Sealer first. One more step, but necessary.

OK, more pics soon!

DM

First, I still haven’t heard back from AllParts re: the bass bridge. I sent them a couple emails now and no response… I’m considering powder coating the current bridge instead – I’m waiting to hear back from a couple powder coating companies in Calgary to see if they’ll do it, and what the charge would be, and then I may cancel my order for the bridge. Hm.

I should be receiving the black tuners tomorrow, (tracking via UPS), which I ordered from another company at the same time that I ordered the bridge from AllParts.

As for dying the body black, I went to check on the bass this afternoon – it should have been completely dry and ready by then, and it was. But I noticed a couple sanding “flaws” that were bugging me, especially on the bottom of the bass. So I sanded them down a bit, and then ended up sanding down the whole bass again – first with 320 then 400 grit sandpaper. I followed that with #00 steel wool and then #0000.

I had to sand down quite a bit in order to remove some of the imperfections, but the whole bass is smoother than silk now. I made extra sure that it was perfect. As a result, I’ll be applying 2 or 3 more coats of dye now, so the bass won’t be ready for the finish to be applied until the weekend some time. I’m glad I did this though, it would have bugged be down the road if I didn’t. Now it looks even better than before – seriously like silk.

More updates soon :-)

DM