Refinishing my Ibanez blazer bass
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13th November 2009
After a month of working on other projects plus waiting on some items to arrive for this project I continued on.
Now came something I hadn't thought about! With this guitar having had a scratchplate before the cavities for the pickups and covers are not flush with the actual pickup covers and therefore there is a crude gap all the way around. The scratchplate would have been flush and hidden these gaps.
What I decided to do was to use some standard wood filler and cake the sides of the pickup recess. After that had dried I used the scratchplate to mark where the edges should be and then I set to work whittling the edges until it was now perfectly flush. This recess will be black when finished and the veneer will cover the face so it will be invisible even with the pickups out.
With the bass fully sanded I covered the rear and sides of the body with grain filler. This is needed with woods like ash because the open pores (grain) are so large that if I were to spray and laquer as it is, it would sink in within a few days. If that is the desired effect then it isn't needed but I want this guitar to be super smooth and glasslike all over.
As normal I ignored the instructions and didn't use a rag. I pushed the filler in with my fingers. The filler is diluted with white spirits to a cream/paste and then rubbed into the grain. This was then left overnight to set hard.
14th November 2009
With the grain filler now dry I sanded it all off as far as P400 and started to get on with the veneer. First I matched the bookmarked pieces up and then taped the join so I had 1 sheet. I then laid the guitar face down on top of the sheet lining the centre up roughly with the taped join. Taking a pen I then drew around the guitar.
Now I removed the tape so I had 2 seperate pieces of veneer again and using using a stanley knife
I carefully cut along the guitar outline I had just drawn. I used some top notch blades here not the cheapo ones. These are ultra sharp and strong! A single snag could tear the veneer and that means wasted money. Good blades and patience are cheaper than veneer.
Once I had cut the pieces of veneer I marked on the guitar face where the centre line was and put a strip of masking tape all the way down the face on the upper side of the line. I then pushed the edge of the lower section of veneer flush with the edge
of the masking tape and used some more masking tape to keep the veneer in postion.
This enabled me to flip this piece like a book page which I did so that I could glue on the rear. I dabbed PVA on the guitar first and spread it out evenly, then did the same on the rear of the veneer. The veneer was then pushed down and flattened with the back of my hand as quickly as possible. Whilst still being careful this bit needs doing quickly because wood veneers start to curl when the glue goes on. Once flattened with my hand I then put a sheet of 3mm MDF on top and then put lots of heavy items (mainly the things I was working with) on top to weigh it down. This was left for 3 hours to set and then the weight taken off so the veneer could fully dry overnight.
What isn't shown in the pictures is that I taped all the way around the edge to pull the veneer over the contoured edges of the guitar.
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