IB-4, First Build

Hi All,

I had initially started creeping on this page because I was planning on getting my brother a kit for Xmas. After a few weeks of cruising though this forum and seeing how genuinely helpful and excited everybody was for one another, I had decided to get myself one as well. I had played bass and guitar when I was younger, but never took lessons and only learned cool riffs but never enough to play seriously. I do enjoy projects, and figured if I went through the process to built my own, it would give me the kick in the ass to learn how to properly play it as well. I am very excited for this journey.

I have done weeks of research in types of finishes and have gotten a bit of paralysis by analysis, so I had started with some scrap red oak to mimic my ash body as best I could. I have so far really liked the outcome of using Rubio Monocoat, which I have used in the past on some live edge tables, however I have found next to nothing on any guitar forums for this as a one coat oil sealant finish. Does anybody have any thoughts on this? My second choice is a general Minwax oil based stain with either an Orange Oil, or a Tung Oil finish. My tests have shown no issues with an oil stain and oil finish, however my Tung Oil is also minwax branded and not 100% as they list a small percentage of solvent on the can.


Additionally, today I had begun my mock build and have a few questions regarding the fit of some of the components.

For the tone knobs, there is one knob that will not fit onto the pots, I have a picture below of both the furthest I can push it on, as well as the knobs itself. The one that is giving me issues is in the lower right of the photo, it does not have one of the internal quadrants cut out like the other three. Could this be the problem?
I know part of the gap, is due to the washer and hex nut not being on, but this one is much larger than the other three.

Lastly, my input jack only goes in maybe 1/5 of the way. I do not want to force it in, however I am unsure of how to best bore this hole out without it being too loose at the end.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you very much.

Attachment 38553
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Attachment 38555

Ok, so I thought the fitting of the pick ups would have been straight forward, but I was wrong.

I have some photos below where I am trying to have both humbuckers fit and stay level, or at least comparable in height, but the bridge pickup is sitting a bit higher than the neck, I am assuming because of the way the wires are sitting below it.

The first photo here is the neck pick up gong through the channel that has been carved out top to bottom. Once I make the right angle to go into the cavity, there is no channel cut out so I think this is where I am bumping up in height a little bit. Should I carve out a small channel here to have the bridge pick up sit better?
Attachment 38561
Attachment 38562
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Does the orientation of the pickup itself have any problems going in one way or another? for example, in order to have it sit even close to normal (the photo above is the best I can get it) I have the wire starting from the bottom-right in the neck pick up, and the top-left in the bridge pickup.
Attachment 38564

Also, from this photo, I have some concerns as to where the wires enter the cavity, as it sits in the corner where I would likely need to screw the pickup in and do not want to puncture the wire once placed.

And finally, this is a dumb one, more just for peace of mind, but the hole up near the neck pick up, that is just from the factory to bore through the entire body correct? nothing should be coming out of that?
Attachment 38565

Again, thank you for any advice, I think this is going to be a bit more of an undertaking than I had anticipated... can't wait to learn how to solder...

I haven't done one of these ktis, but hopefully someone who has will be along shortly with better answers.

The Rubio Monocoat looks interesting and I'm sure it would work fine. Pretty much anything you can finish wood with will work, some process's are easier than others. But I don't see why that would be a problem, bonus if you already have some experience with it. Like most things in guitar building, finishing is mostly about preparation and patience.

The knobs issue is odd. Are all the pots the same?

I think you might need to get a rats tail file and gently open up the bore hole for the jack. A bit of sandpaper aroudn some dowl might also do the trick. Just go slow and frequently check the fit.

For the pickups...

I would say that normally you would put a bit of foam under the pickups anyway to lift them up out of the cavity a bit and leave room for routing the cables, but it wouldn't hurt to add some relief for them if you have a dremel or something you can use. It does look like you will need to be careful with the screw in that corner. It might pay to tape the wires out of the way a bit?

Someone else might have a better idea about that.

As far as I know the orientation of the pickup shouldn't matter, but I might be corrected on that.

And yep, the hole in the pocket is from the factory using a long auger bit to join the cavities and is normal.

There are no stupid questions either! The only stupid question is the one you don't ask before mucking something up :)

Just take your time with it, they aren't exactly guitar lego these kits, but if you are patient and ask questions you'll be fine. There is almost no error that can't be rectified.

Hi DrJack. Welcome & happy holidays.

Sonic posted before I finished typing and there's a bit of overlap in our responses, but I've already typed it so I'll post it anyway :)

I'm not a bass player, nor have I built one but all you your questions are relevant to any build.
I'll try and go through them in order:

re: finish -
I have no experience with the Rubio Monocoat and didn't even know it was available in Australia until now.
It's quite expensive here, but sounds interesting. As for oil based stain and Tung Oil (essentially polyurethane) is common, tried & true combination. FWIW, what is sold as Tung Oil nowadays is not truly Tung Oil, but that's another discussion.

re: knobs -
Does the offending knob happen to be the one with one of its 4 mould partitions filled in? (hope that makes sense)
If yes, my guess it that the hole for the pot shaft is not allowing enough expansion to accommodate the shaft properly.

It may just need a tiny bit of sanding. Just wrap a single layer of sandpaper around the blank end of a 5.5mm drill bit and twist it by hand in the knob hole. Try to fit and sand more if needed. I don't think it will take much.

re: input jack -
The OD of that long panel jack should be 12-13mm and the jack hole in teh body may just need a bit of a clean up.
If you have 1/2" drill bit (a twist drill bit, NOT a spade bit), just try running that in & out and see if that does the trick.
If you don't have a bit that large, You can do it with sandpaper or a round file, but just be careful to do it evenly so you don't finish up with an oval-shaped hole. Again, I don't think it will take very much removal of material.

re: pickups orientation/height -
I concur with Sonic about the orientation. If I were doing the build, I would route a channel for the leads to run through so not to interfere with any downward adjustment, but that may not even be an issue when final height is set. The difference in height between the neck & bridge pickup may also be ok due to the angle of the bridge and strings. A Les Paul bridge pickup sits up higher than the neck just for this reason.

Hope this helps, and look forward to seeing your progress.

Sonic and McCreed,

Thank you both for your quick and thorough responses.

As for the finish: yes Rubio is quite expensive, I have been able to get 20 mL sample sizes in the US for about $10 on Amazon. This is meant mostly for floors, so a little goes quite a long way. Luckily I still have some of the part B (which accelerates the curing process) from my table I had made a while back so I will not need to buy more of that which is half the reason I am leaning toward this method.

For the knobs/pots: The offending knob is the one with the 1 mold not cut out. I will give the sanding of the interior a go and see how that fits. The pots are different too, there are 2 A500K and 2 B500K. Looking at the wiring guide on PitBull, they just say Neck and Bridge Volume/Tone Pot (500K). I am sure I can find more info on which is the tone and volume between the A and B somewhere online, but that may be a little down the road.

For the pickups: I will likely add a little more of a channel to keep the wires a bit below the pickup and tape it away from the corner so I can properly screw it down without issue. As for a foam below it, is there a certain type or thickness that you would recommend? Or just any old passing that can fit and cushion would work?

For the input jack: that sounds like a very easy method to clean it out, I will make sure to go little by little to avoid overdoing it.

Thank you very much for your advice,
Happy Holidays!

Typically B pots are for tone and A for volume, but some people prefer using A for both. The only difference is that one is linear and the other logarithmic, so they offer differing amounts of control over volume and tone. If you just put it together as per the kit wiring diagram it’ll work fine.

I was wondering if you got one with a different spline or shaft length. Just remember that they need a bit of friction on the shaft to stay on. Even if you muck it up, knobs are pretty cheap to replace.

For the foam, I’ve been using 20mm draft excluder as it has an adhesive backing so I can stick it in the cavity. On commercial guitars that use foam, it’s normally a bit denser, but I haven’t had any issues with it to date.

I haven't built this kit but the pickups are same ones that came with my EX5.
It is a good idea to create a channel for wires to sit below both pickups. Doubt that they will end up sitting that low as their output is surprisingly quite low given the high impedance readings. The springs are useless and best way to go is use some high density foam at least 5mm to 6mm thick. Still use the springs & screws but the foam compression will keep the pickup sitting exactly where you want it positioned.
Bridge pickups usually need to sit higher with height adjustments done for both during final setup.
Cheers Waz

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Hey All,

Thank you for all your advice, it has been a busy few weeks. I had ordered some extra bits and slight upgrades to some small parts. I had no luck with relieving any pressure in the stubborn knob, so I just ordered some ebony wood ones I found online which fit perfectly and I am quite happy with. I had also ordered some different machine heads that had more of a gear mechanism on the back and waited a few weeks only to be let down when they were far too big to fir the headstock. I will moving forward with the kit ones since I know they fit.
I got to break out the dremel to make some wire channels under the pick ups, it isn't the prettiest job, but it is functional and hidden so whatever. After copper taping all the cavities, I was able to fit it for 5mm high density foam as suggest. the pick ups sit nice and flat, however it was quite a pain to get them screwed down with the addition of the springs as well (I have the springs between the foam and pickup - body>wires>foam>spring>pickup, not sure if they should be between the foam and body/wires). I am certain that the springs may not be properly set and seem oddly compressed. But they are in, so once I get to testing it, I will adjust then.

I had finished the body and neck with Walnut colored Rubio Monocoat. It came out a bit darker than my test strip, but I am very happy with it. It does look a bit brighter when not photographed in the basement. I also put a small bit of lemon oil on the fretboard.

Attachment 38892

So I have begun to work on my wiring, at least the bits that are not coming from the pickups. I had followed the PitBull Wiring Guide which I have copied below, but I colored in the wires to match what I used in the actual photo below that. It should hopefully make it easier for my following questions.

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The color dots on the right represent the wires I have already soldered together. Below that, #1,2,& 3 are the remaining wires I have left. I am assuming wire #1 which is a longer yellow wire, goes to the bridge since it is longer to get through the body. Does this wire get soldered to the underside of the bridge? Or does it just sit there and when the bridge is screwed down, the connection to the copper is enough to ground?

Wires #2 (yellow), #3 (white), are additional ground wires to the pots and output jack correct? Does anything need to be soldered to the copper taped cavity?


Next, I am curious about wires A, B and C. These are the wires coming out from the humbuckers. There are three wires, seen below. Green & Silver, Red & White, and Black. Looking at the diagram, there are two wires, A Hot and B Ground. I have seen in a number of posts that the colors usually vary by kit. Is this something where this is the case too? I am unsure which wires go where, and what to do with the third wire that is not accounted for in the diagram.

Attachment 38896


And lastly, for the output jack. There are three pins on it. The short and long ones have one hole opening, while the medium length one has two. In the diagram, it says to connect the hot to the short pin (black wire in my build), and the ground/earth wire (#2/yellow in my build) to the long pin. What is the medium one for?

Again, any help is greatly appreciated, I know there is a lot going on in this post.

Alright, so I did some more poking around and thanks to this thread https://www.buildyourownguitar.com.a...ad.php?t=11195 I was able to distinguish between the pick up wires (A, B, & C from last post).

Black = hot, red & white = series link (insulate tip), green & bare = ground/shield.

That being said, Green&Bare will be soldered to the top of the pot, Black will be soldered to the lug... but what do I do with the red&white?

Still not sure if this is the wire that gets soldered to the copper taped cavity?

Thank you

Hi Dr
"That being said, Green&Bare will be soldered to the top of the pot, Black will be soldered to the lug... but what do I do with the red&white?"

I'm sure the red and white are left alone (unless you are tapping the coils for series and parallel). Tape the red and white join to ensure they cannot make contact with any grounds.

The copper taped cavity is part of the grounds and would be soldered to the top of the pots (or ground circuit).

Trevor