nervous
Well-known member
Been a while since I've been back but I thought it'd be fun to share my latest (second) Axis Sport rescue.
Came to me as a bit beat up and grubby 1999 model, all original that I bought with the intention of restoring and refinishing. I had great success with my 1997 model so I was pretty confident I could create something respectable. Really, this is intended to be the as close as possible playing and sounding back to my '97 which is my #1.
This is what it looked like on arrival:
After checking with a variety of painters in the US they were all very busy and all around 6 month lead time to complete. I was feeling a bit impatient with a lot of summer work booked so I wanted to get this one into service ASAP. I put the feelers out for a local source and found one that was highly recommended so we had the conversation. I quickly learned that he didn't work in automotive type finishes and preferred lacquer so that immediately changed course for the color choices I was originally wanting, preferably a Firemist Copper Metallic. Further along in our discussions about options it became more apparent that anything short of a solid vintage color was going to be a challenge. I then said can we just do a simple, orangy/red clear over the ash, similar to the original look.
I had already stripped the original finish and this is what I supplied:
A few small areas of the sealer and filler were sanded back but I assumes that a competent refinisher would immediately recognize that, apply the necessary bits of fill and seal to those areas and move on. Simple basic prep. I assumed wrong...
Five weeks later, after regular checking in and many perfect low humidity spray days lost I got a message that my body was ready. Excited and happy to get it back I headed out to retrieve it. First impression in his dark house was not good. It wasn't the transparent color I had provided pics of, and was now some odd mashup of transparent/metallic/burst. Pieces of everything that we discussed rolled into one, except the burst, that was a surprise. And it was not the glass smooth finish I had expected. But I immediately thought that if this was work he was proud to present to me and didn't recognize the issues that my amateur eyes could see then there was little point in have an argument at that point. I'd take it home and give it a proper evaluation in better light.
That was even worse. Significant orange peel front and rear. Cloudiness in the finish, probably from spraying in too humid conditions, round seemingly un-sanded sides and several areas on the side of unfilled grain. Real amateur stuff. In hindsight I could have done better with a $100.00 of automotive spray cans and clear coats in my garage.
I was beginning to move from disappointed to angry. So, I stewed on things for a couple days and weighed all my options. I sent a couple messages of complaint that went unresponded and decided I had nothing to lose by trying to repair things myself. I didn't want to, nor should I have to but worst case I either add more lacquer myself, respray with cans, or send off to the pros as originally planned and chalk it up to another life experience. I had never done a full scale wet sand and polish but watch several videos on this so I felt semi-comfortable digging in and already had the equipment and materials on hand. Not knowing how much clear coat build I had to work with I assumed very little and I started very safely at 2000 grit wet sanding to see what that actually did. When that went pretty well I moved on to 2500 grit then to Griots Complete Compound and finished with Griots Complete Polish. In the end, while not as perfect as I would have liked I think I ended up with a fairly respectable result.
1/1
Came to me as a bit beat up and grubby 1999 model, all original that I bought with the intention of restoring and refinishing. I had great success with my 1997 model so I was pretty confident I could create something respectable. Really, this is intended to be the as close as possible playing and sounding back to my '97 which is my #1.
This is what it looked like on arrival:
After checking with a variety of painters in the US they were all very busy and all around 6 month lead time to complete. I was feeling a bit impatient with a lot of summer work booked so I wanted to get this one into service ASAP. I put the feelers out for a local source and found one that was highly recommended so we had the conversation. I quickly learned that he didn't work in automotive type finishes and preferred lacquer so that immediately changed course for the color choices I was originally wanting, preferably a Firemist Copper Metallic. Further along in our discussions about options it became more apparent that anything short of a solid vintage color was going to be a challenge. I then said can we just do a simple, orangy/red clear over the ash, similar to the original look.
I had already stripped the original finish and this is what I supplied:
A few small areas of the sealer and filler were sanded back but I assumes that a competent refinisher would immediately recognize that, apply the necessary bits of fill and seal to those areas and move on. Simple basic prep. I assumed wrong...
Five weeks later, after regular checking in and many perfect low humidity spray days lost I got a message that my body was ready. Excited and happy to get it back I headed out to retrieve it. First impression in his dark house was not good. It wasn't the transparent color I had provided pics of, and was now some odd mashup of transparent/metallic/burst. Pieces of everything that we discussed rolled into one, except the burst, that was a surprise. And it was not the glass smooth finish I had expected. But I immediately thought that if this was work he was proud to present to me and didn't recognize the issues that my amateur eyes could see then there was little point in have an argument at that point. I'd take it home and give it a proper evaluation in better light.
That was even worse. Significant orange peel front and rear. Cloudiness in the finish, probably from spraying in too humid conditions, round seemingly un-sanded sides and several areas on the side of unfilled grain. Real amateur stuff. In hindsight I could have done better with a $100.00 of automotive spray cans and clear coats in my garage.
I was beginning to move from disappointed to angry. So, I stewed on things for a couple days and weighed all my options. I sent a couple messages of complaint that went unresponded and decided I had nothing to lose by trying to repair things myself. I didn't want to, nor should I have to but worst case I either add more lacquer myself, respray with cans, or send off to the pros as originally planned and chalk it up to another life experience. I had never done a full scale wet sand and polish but watch several videos on this so I felt semi-comfortable digging in and already had the equipment and materials on hand. Not knowing how much clear coat build I had to work with I assumed very little and I started very safely at 2000 grit wet sanding to see what that actually did. When that went pretty well I moved on to 2500 grit then to Griots Complete Compound and finished with Griots Complete Polish. In the end, while not as perfect as I would have liked I think I ended up with a fairly respectable result.
1/1
