Body sanding/painting prep advice

mikem8634

Hi folks,

I have an alder tele Custom body bought from boobooguitars on the bay. It is a little rough in a few spots and needs a bit of sanding to finish it off before I hand it to my highly artistic niece to paint with Posca Pens. As far as i can tell there don't seem to be any knots or blemishes to worry about as the only issue with the body is that one of the ferrule holes hasn't been properly drilled through.

As I've never sanded a body before could some of you please point me in the right direction regarding the most appropriate/best brands of sandpaper, which grits I should work through and any other stuff I should take into account?

Many thanks

Corvus

It depends how rough it is, but go up through the grades to say 320 or 400 till the scratches are gone. Paint tends to show scratches more than hide them, especially dark colours & pearls, metallics etc.
The finer the starting grade needed to clean it up, the less overall work. Coarse paper needs more grades/work to clean up, but starting too fine means more sanding. All depends what the state of the body is and how good you want it to be.

Sanding blocks are far better than bare hands. Go easy on the roundovers. Cylinders are good for inside curves. You can buy blocks/cyls etc or press stuff into service, flat wood, plumbing pipe, I've got blocks made from hard foam from ammo box lining... all sorts of stuff can do a job.

3m, Mirka, Klingspor, any half decent brand will do, I like 3M Fre-Cut dry-cutting paper but there's notalot in it with decent papers.

mikem8634

Thanks very much Corvus, that is just what I was after. Feel much more confident approaching it now.