Printable View
This will be my first attempt at building a bass. March 12th just started sanding today. I’m impressed with how good the surface was before I started. I’m building what is supposed to be a Gibson SG Copy, I’ll get it as close as I am able to. Been a long time since I did some work on finishing furniture. Hope that helps me get the staining right.
Welcome CountryBass.
Just think of it as furniture with strings... and pickups! :oQuote:
Been a long time since I did some work on finishing furniture. Hope that helps me get the staining right.
Hi and Welcome CountryBass,
Good luck with the build. How do you intend to finish your SG copy?
I appreciate your support. Furniture w/ strings isn’t what I thought of but I will now!
Thanks for the welcome!
I am going with Cherry stain and a gloss finish. I’ve worked gloss finish on a few pieces of furniture so I think I can handle it on a bass.
Have a question on the neck. Should I sand it like the body? Seems awful smooth now. I know it needs some sanding in order for the stain to take right. But I’m thinking just a scuff would do with like 600 grit paper. And thanks for the welcome.
Got grain filler from Amazon. Gork’s goodfilla in mahogony tint. Seems like it will be easy to work and sand. Anyone have any experience with this filler?
Hi CountryBass,Quote:
Originally Posted by CountryBass
The neck on my AG-2 was very smooth also, I sanded it to 240 grit like the body and then stained it.
and sorry, but I'm not familiar with the grain filler.
I have used 400 and 600 grit papers for neck recently and I am happy!
Real smooth finish, fyi, no top coats on the neck for me on either my tele or bass build.
I ensured all pores are closed and wet sanded ... Like the feel
Dont forget to post pics if you can, would love to see your progress.
Because of incredibly lousy planning by yours truely I haven’t made any progress yet. I am waiting on a couple things I ordered to use in my build. Will post any progress when I get started again. Later this month or early next month.
Change of color choice. I am gonna go with a red mahogany stain. Had a little here and tried it on a piece of scrap and like the finished color. I’ll decide on gloss, satin or flat. When I get done staining I’ll decide that part. Every thing I was waiting for have arrived from China, so this week or next we get to work.
Classic colour choice. Can't really go wrong with that.
Should I set the neck before finishing? What glue is best for glueing the neck?
No definite answer on the neck. Some people do, some leave it until almost the last thing. Setting it early allows you to get a consistent finish all over from the start. Glueing the neck makes a guitar a lot harder to handle, a bass especially so, so you need space to move it around when applying the finish. It’s easier to do body and neck separately, but you then normally need to work on the neck joint area. I glue my necks near the start as I spray my guitars.
Most luthiers recommend Titebond original (not 2 or 3) for neck joints. If you do need to reset the neck, then heat or steam allow you to separate the parts. It’s more than strong enough. You can use stronger glues or waterproof glues, but then it’s near impossible to break the join.
Thanks! I guess I will glue it later as my room is not quite what I would like. Thanks for your help!
Ok, I have finally got going on my build. Been spending a few hours a day mainly sanding wood filler. Seems to have filled everything well. Soon as I figure out how I’ll post pictures.
Very productive few days. Have begun staining. Attachment 40767Attachment 40767Attachment 40768Attachment 40769
Two coats today and I’ll do 2 more tomorrow. After that I’ll decide if it’ dark enough.
Finally have some pictures up
Set the neck today. Next is sealing the finish. Think I will go ahead and do gloss, hopeful it will turn out as nice as the furniture I did.
Now the neck’s on, I’d just recheck the neck angle with the bridge height to make sure there are no issues and the bridge will sit within acceptable height adjustment limits. If you need to make adjustments, better to find out now than after you’ve put on all your gloss!
Strong agree with Simon's point here ^^^.
Sounds like a great tip! Will do that.
Well, after all that work the stain didn’t hold up to gloss poly soooo.…I resanded the whole bass down to the filler again. Huge job, but will be worth the trouble. Doing a pecan gloss. Looks pretty good so far”Quote:
Originally Posted by Trevor Davies
Did you use spray or wipe-on poly? Spray should have been fine, but I can see the solvents in wipe-on poly reactivating the pigment and lifting it out as you rub.
Unfortunately I used wipe-on. It lifted the pigment enough to screw it up enough to take a new color change. The pecan I used is gloss poly, so much easier!Quote:
Originally Posted by Simon Barden
I took your advice to practice. Only I wet-sanded all the way to 1500 grit. Smoooooooth as a baby’s butt.Quote:
Originally Posted by bhatta
Build is done except for setup! There are some flaws that I will remember on my next build.
Well I had to remove the neck because I glued to early and no good angle for the neck and bridge adjustments. What should I do for neck shims? How high do I need to shim? Do I shim level or do I need to make some kind of angle at the joint?Quote:
Originally Posted by Simon Barden
With the bridge at its lowest setting, where does a straight edge placed along the neck hit the bridge relative to the top of the saddles.
A flat shim is easiest to make, but if the strings need to come up 4mm, then you need a shim 4mm thick. There's not a huge amount of gluing area on the neck joint with that bass, so you lose a fair bit of the side gluing area direct to the neck that's providing extra strength.
An angled shim is more efficient, as you have around a 3:1 gain in height at the bridge for the change in height over the neck tenon length, plus and step height in the shim, so a shim 1mm high at one end and 2mm at the other should get to 4mm of extra height at the bridge. Or if you managed to get one end wafer thin, then the other end could be 1.5mm and you should get 4.5 mm height gain.
The two current PHS-1 builds required similar shims. I described one way you can make your own angled shim using a basic jig here.
https://www.buildyourownguitar.com.a...l=1#post217910
HAH!!! Late to the party again!
There has been much discussion on this subject here lately. It's a shame the pockets can't be done correctly at the factory. It would save a lot of people a lot of aggravation, but anyway...Quote:
What should I do for neck shims? How high do I need to shim? Do I shim level or do I need to make some kind of angle at the joint?
The general consensus is 1.5-2mm tapered to zero (or as near) and the thick end toward the bridge. Simon B has become the resident specialist on this and I's sure will come back to join the conversation.
Because the Search function here is hopeless, here are a couple links to recent discussions:
vivek_rc
mrpearson
Yes, read those two build threads that McCreed has linked to, as they do contain a fair bit of info about making shims. As long as you've got some suitable sized pieced of maple or another hard wood that's still quite strong when thin, it shouldn't take long to make a shim.
If it's not quite right, then it may be easier to just make another with a greater/lesser angle. You don't want the bridge sitting too high in the air, as the bridge design is far from the most stable one ever made, so it's preferable if you can keep it as low to the body as you can.
Thanks for the advice! I’ll post pictures in a few days when I get finished.