Eegads

I got four more passes on the `vette last night after work. Looking good! The humidity and temp have been almost perfect for painting, so it's gone very well. It's quite glossy already, so it will take little in the way of sanding and polishing to get it looking gorgeous. I doubt I'll put anymore gloss on. If I do, it will have to be next week as I have band practice tonight and will not have another opportunity to spray this week as it's too cold in the mornings right now. Probably just leave well enough alone and not apply anymore. It got three passes over the sand and sealer, then the color coats, then 10 passes over that. I think that should be plenty of clear. I want to let it cure for at least a week before sand out, maybe two.

I took a good close look at the Explorer after I was done spraying and started the process of sanding it out. It's not exactly my finest work. I was having a lot of issues with high humidty and blushing. Especially on the black bits. I get this kind of crazing in areas, like a lot of little white pits that essentially will not sand out. The Explorer has a lot of them on the edges. Nothing on the front or back of the body, just a small area on the back of the headstock.

I got the neck and headstock sanded out to 2000 grit this morning. The body has only been gone over with 600 so far. I think I will go ahead and sand the body out to 2000 and see where I stand. I could then polish it out with my buffer and start assembly, or I may consider respraying the black areas (especially the edges) and then starting again with the clear. If the weather holds I should be able to get a nicer series of clear coats on that would look more like my other projects (like the Corvette). I just don't know:

a) How important it is to me to get this one "perfect"
b) If the weather will hold for spraying
c) If I want to invest the extra time this will add to the process...probably three weeks.

I suppose the big stumbling block is it's difficult to get the bushings in and out of this one. I do not want to have to work around them when finishing. Once I reinstall them, they're going to be pretty much in there for good. So going back won't be much of an option. A plus side to having one that's not "perfect" is I am way less worried about the first dings and scrapes. It might be just the guitar to leave at practice as a backup to my Ibanez. I don't have anything there right now and no real prospect for something I care to leave there all the time. If I break a string on the Ibanez it will just be a pain in the butt and I'll have to make everyone wait while I fix it. With the Explorer I'd be good to go.

I'll ponder all this over the weekend and keep an eye on the forecast. I will also figure out if I want to refret the Explorer. The factory frets are overbeveled. That effectively narrows the fretboard by a significant amount. It didn't bother me too much when I had it together to test play for a couple months, but i I'm going to fix it, now's a good time. It would only take a couple days to do and I think I have some fret wire that would be perfect for the job. If the original frets are kept, I will still need to do a level, crown and dress on them.