First Build: TB-4 Bass build

Hello all! my name is Jeff from the USA. This is my first build of a guitar and im anxiously excited. I have already made some progress with the kit. I fit the neck and made sure all the measurements were correct as per the instructions. I just laid down another coat of primer on the body as it will be painted like a candy apple red. I have also painted the pick guard metallic black and cut a sticker of the Thunderbird logo. I sanded the neck and headstock and added a little more curves to the head. The back of the neck and headstock will be a dark gray/black stain with a matte finish and the front of the headstock will be red to match the body. Enjoy the pics! Thank you all.

Hi Jeff. Nice work so far!

Thanks Simon. I am excited to be doing this. I have been wanting to build one for a while now and when i saw the Thunderbird style i had to get it!

Headstock looks great!

Thanks for the comments guys. Heres what I have been working on. I got the back of the neck finished out and letting it dry good before painting the front of the headstock. I also made a sticker for the front of the headstock and got the body in primer. Thanks for looking.

Good progress has been made on the kit. I got the body all painted and started to assemble it and I ran into a problem. When I put in the press in nuts for the bridge one of the back ones started to pull out and now I cant get it out of the body. When I turn the screw the whole nut turns inside to body. Anyone have a suggestion on getting it out and making it stay in? It is the nut that the ground/earth wire goes to. Also is there a picture somewhere of how the bridge is supposed to sit on the screws? When I put it on it was nose high. Thank you for any help.

The best thing might be to improvise a puller. The big gotcha is that the body paint will still be soft and easily damaged. The longer you can give it to harden the better.

More equipment and more facilities you can do better, but the simplest and crudest might be this.
Get some scrap wood, ply perhaps, maybe about 75mm across. Cut a hole in one piece big enough for the whole post to easily fit through, and put some padding on it. Cork tile good.

Cut a hole in another piece which the bolt will go through loosely, but the head won't. This doesn't want to be too tight, looser the better really provided the bolt head won't go through. Thread the bolt through both holes and screw onto the post. It won't go really tight because the post will turn. Now gently and carefully wedge the two bits of ply just a couple of mm apart with an old knife or something. The post should lift just a bit. Remove wedge, screw down, rinse and repeat.

It's very important that the piece with the large hole is not touching the post, only the body. Be careful about this.

Another big gotcha is not to lift too much at a time. If you do you will put bad loads on the bolt and maybe bend it. A couple of mm at a time is good, gently does it. Depending on how thick everything is and how firm you may need to add a second or even third large hole piece before the post is loose enough to pull out.

It's very easy to think of ways this could be improved, and if you have the facilities you can surely think of them, but the key part is to protect the finish and proceed very slowly a mm or two at a time.

WAIT! Before you go trying to prise it out with some DIY extractor/puller and bugger up your finish, read this.

If those posts consist of a threaded bush(ing) and a threaded stud like a tune-o-matic bridge (which I believe they are) all you need to do is unscrew the stud, and place something that will fit inside the hole and provide adequate resistance (a piece of hardwood dowel; an upside down machine screw or similar) Whatever it is, it should be 1/2 -3/4 of the bush depth. Place it in the hole in the bush, then screw the stud back in. As you turn the stud in, it will press against the dowel etc in the bush and begin to lift the bush out.
It's very simple mechanics of leverage. Using the power of the threaded stud against the bush

Just keep an eye on the backside in the area where post is located and make sure you don't see any obvious signs of stress in the wood surface.
If you notice any stress, stop and another method may be required. Generally this isn't a problem, but it can be if the post holes have been drilled too deep. So far, I have never had one push out the back.

However if the stud is rotating, then trying to turn a bolt in it won't work. Worth a try, but a puller may be the best option in this case.

If the stud is turning, it can't be held in that tightly. I'd try putting an M8 bolt in the hole (so you don't ruin the finish) and get hold of the end of that with some grips, or any reasonable way of getting hold of the bolt with a good purchase so you can pull it upwards.

If that doesn't work, then a puller is the only real option.

Good point Simon. I admit that I missed the bit about the bush turning... (D'oh!)

A possible solution may be a flat shoelace tightly looped around the stud several times (not tied). With the other end looped around something lie a wrench or screwdriver) for a "T" handle to pull with.

I use a flat shoelace for prising off stubborn knobs on splined shafts. (but without a handle)

Thanks for the ideas guys! Upon research of this type of bridge I noticed that I was doing this all wrong. I have no experience with this type of bridge and I didnt realize it was supposed to float. My f up!! If I can get the insert out, should I epoxy it back in or should I get a fender style bridge that just screws down to the body? Thanks again for the help!

So I got the nut insert out of the body. Should I try the epoxy in the hole to keep it in? What about the ground wire?

You'll still need that ground wire in the hole making contact with the bridge stud insert. I'd personally be averse to epoxying it in. I'd either fit a hardwood dowel in the existing hole and then drill it out to a more appropriate size, or try gluing some thin slivers of veneer around the edges of the hole to make it smaller. I've done this with some headstock holes to get push-in inserts to fit tightly.

A chunky Fender-style bridge would probably be my choice but you won't cover up all the existing post holes, that single forward one will be exposed as a minimum. But you need to a) make sure that any new bridge has the height required (or shallowness, depending on the required minimum string height above the bridge position) and b) make sure the string spacing is the same.

The Hipshot Supertone bass bridges are designed as drop-in replacements for the 3-point Gibson style bridge and are much better units, but they are expensive. They have a nominal overall 2.06"/52.3mm string spacing (E to G), but that can be adjusted by up to ±3mm to suit your particular needs

Fenders have a wider string spacing a standard at 2.25", enough to spread the strings out too far for the neck width. So whatever bridge you look at, you do need to get a string spacing that is very close to that 2.06"/52.3mm value (or whatever you measure the saddle spacing on the kit bridge as (the kit bridge saddles are rather loose, so your value may vary slightly). Don't go for a straight Fender replacement (unless it has plain barrels that you can notch yourself for the correct distance).

I've used epoxy OK, but I used a custom mix of boat building epoxy and special filler which makes for a more flexible cured resin than the stuff that comes in tubes. If you put the post in with the epoxy uncured I suggest you block up the end of the post with melted candlewax so that epoxy cannot possibly get on the threads. If you want to fill the hole and redrill - if one of the holes was slightly mislocated for instance - then on the whole, as Simon says, I suggest most folks will be better off filling it with wood and using a wood glue rather than epoxy. The one thing to avoid is trying to push the post into epoxy that's fully cured and hard.

Well I got the issues worked out and I am calling this one done. Will post some glamour pics in the gallery also. Thanks for the help everyone.

That looks nice and 'birdy. Happy with the sound?

Yes it sounds good with the strings that come with it. Im sure better pickups would help it but Im happy with how it sounds.

A decent set of strings should certainly improve it. The kit strings are pretty agricultural and only really any use during basic set-up.