Non-PBG RBX Style Bass Guitar Kit RBX-20 from DIY Guitars

[Simon Barden]

Alkay, are you sure you haven't just filled in the hole for the bridge earthing wire? If so, you will need to un-fill it! There should be a hole running from under where the bridge would sit, to either the nearest pickup cavity or the control cavity, so that you can run an earth wire for the bridge. If you look in the cavities, you should be able to find the other end of the hole.

[Alkay]

Alkay, are you sure you haven't just filled in the hole for the bridge earthing wire? If so, you will need to un-fill it! There should be a hole running from under where the bridge would sit, to either the nearest pickup cavity or the control cavity, so that you can run an earth wire for the bridge. If you look in the cavities, you should be able to find the other end of the hole.

My brother did the wood filler on it months ago. From memory it was just a chunk taken out of the body face that was unsightly.

I just ran a guitar string from the cavity into the earth wire hole for the bridge and it doesn't look like it reaches that spot that has been filled with timbermate.

I might scrape it out and check now.

[Simon Barden]

They are often drilled at an angle by necessity, so they often do look unsightly.

However, it will mean that the hole/filler should be covered up by the bridge.

[Alkay]

They are often drilled at an angle by necessity, so they often do look unsightly.

However, it will mean that the hole/filler should be covered up by the bridge.

Thanks Simon,

I think I have a bigger problem by the sounds of it.
-Bridge earth hole not correctly drilled
-No drill holes for the bridge

This sounds like it will be tricky.

[Simon Barden]

Someone will have drilled the earthing hole by hand, and when drilling anything at a very small angle, it is difficult to get the initial hole started, as the drill will want to skid off in all directions. The steep angle also means that the drill is likely to throw off splinters around the hole, which will probably have been simply pulled back and removed, making the hole entrance look rough.

[Alkay]

Someone will have drilled the earthing hole by hand, and when drilling anything at a very small angle, it is difficult to get the initial hole started, as the drill will want to skid off in all directions. The steep angle also means that the drill is likely to throw off splinters around the hole, which will probably have been simply pulled back and removed, making the hole entrance look rough.

It's difficult to see how it was drilled unless using a right angle drill bit attachment. There's no way the jack hole lines up with the bridge earth wire hole. Maybe it was done earlier on when glueing the layers to form the body as a guess?

You might be able to see the layers of timber below in the control cavity. Bridge earth wire hole is on the far right.

[WeirdBits]

The bridge ground wire hole will have been drilled on an angle down from the top of the body into the cavity. You'll need to dig that filler out (carefully) and you should then be able to feed a wire down into the cavity from the top.

You need to position the bridge and drill the holes yourself once you have the neck attached and has measured out the scale length etc. DB posted a good guide with pics a while ago, I'll try to dig up the link: Bass bridge placement

[Alkay]

The bridge ground wire hole will have been drilled on an angle down from the top of the body into the cavity. You'll need to dig that filler out (carefully) and you should then be able to feed a wire down into the cavity from the top.

You need to position the bridge and drill the holes yourself once you have the neck attached and has measured out the scale length etc. DB posted a good guide with pics a while ago, I'll try to dig up the link: Bass bridge placement

Thanks WeirdBits, that's exactly the link I was after. Thank you very much. I will dig out the filler before drilling the neck and bridge holes.

[Simon Barden]

The lack of drill holes for the bridge can be an advantage, as it means you can fit whatever bridge you want. Whilst there are generally standard fixing hole arrangements for guitar bridges, bass bridges come in all shapes and sizes and with varying numbers of screw holes. So having holes pre-drilled for the bridge that came with the kit (if there was one) might mean that you'd have to fill those holes if you wanted a better bridge with a different number of screws - or they might even be on display with another bridge fitted, and spoil the look.

It's not hard to locate the bridge position. First you need to draw the centreline for the guitar. Bolt the neck in place, get a long stiff straight edge, place it along each side of the neck and draw pencil lines back to the area where the bridge will be. Use light pencil strokes as you don't want to gouge the wood, and you'll need to sand the marks off later.

Draw lines that cross the body at right-angles to the (as yet undrawn) centre line (the pickup routs should be perpendicular to the centre line as well, so use the as guides) near the neck and at the bridge end of the guitar. Measure the distance of each crossing line between the two lines you first drew, halve the distance and draw a dot at each midway point. Now connect the two dots with a line and that should be the centre-line for the guitar (as determined by the neck).

You can now measure the bridge, and mark with a thin felt-tip (or anything that will put a mark on the metal) at the half-width point of the bridge at the neck-end and tail-end of the bridge. You can now put the bridge down on the body so that the middle is sitting on sitting on the initial centreline. You know the scale length of the guitar, so you can measure roughly 34" (or whatever the scale length is supposed to be) from the nut to the bridge saddles position, and move the bridge so that it's roughly in position with the saddles in mid-adjustment position. I'd use the Stewmac calculator (on their website) to work out the exact length away from the nut that the top G string saddle (in it's mid position) should be from the nut. Mark the top and bottom position of the bridge on the guitar with pencil.

Keeping the bridge in position (maybe using double sided tape), I'd run a piece of string from the bottom E slot to its saddle, and from the top G slot to its saddle. Hopefully the strings should run nice and parallel to the sides of the neck without getting to near or too far from the edge. If the strings look skewed to one side, then you'll need to move the bridge sideways a bit until they aren't. Hopefully the strings should now run nicely either down either side of the neck and as close as you can get to either side of the pickup cavities. You can always place the pickups in the cavities if this helps (as the cavities may not be exactly the right shape and it's the way the strings pass over the pickup that will matter most).

Once this is done, mark either side of the bridge on the wood and you've now positioned your bridge. Mark out the screw holes, then drill the holes (remembering just to drill to the depth of the screws). Best to test out the position of the bridge again once it's screwed into place, in case something went horribly wrong with your drilling. But if you are then happy with the location, you can then clean up the pencil lines and relax.

Don't forget to fit the bridge earthing wire before you fit the bridge for the final time.

[Alkay]

Thanks Simon I'll try that soon but I need to go to the hardware store and get a long drill bit first.
I scraped out the timbermate and there definitely isn't a hole for the bridge earth wire.
I measured this with a guitar string in the bridge earth wire hole and it doesn't even come close to the gouge I previously filled with timbermate (20-30mm away from gouge). It just wasn't done on this kit. It was a cheap factory seconds kit before the site shut down and I bought this knowing it would have- issues.

Adam and DB did a video on drilling the bridge earth wire hole to the control cavity so I will watch this again before attempting it further as I have already made a mess splintering the face. I thought I could find the hole but no luck. It should be easily repaired and the bridge should cover it up anyway so I'm not too worried about it. I'll just drill a new hole and then try your instructions above.