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This beauty arrived just before Christmas and, as I'm off work until 5th January I'm hoping to get a good start on it. It's good looking kit but it does appear to have been cut with older router bits, its a bit rough and is going to need a fair bit of sanding. The drill bit used on the bridge ground hole was clearly in need of replacing. The neck is pretty straight and the truss rod is responsive.
There are a few small blemishes on the body, but nothing to worry about.
There is a bit of glue and/or wood polishing from blunt router bits on both the upper and lower cutaways, and some definite glue leakage on the bottom end of the body.
Today I've been able to get neck alignment worked out and the neck holes drilled as well as measuring the scale length and getting the bridge alignment finalised and the done the drilling for that as well. I find one of the hardest parts is getting the tuning machines straight but after a lot of measuring, re-measuring and triple checking I got their placement worked out as well. The last bit I got done today was doing the rough shaping for the headstock.
nice looking kit Fretty, when was your last build ? been a while.
Sure you will work around the small issues. There's some nice ash grain in the body. Rough headstock shaping looks good.
Whats the stain colour plans ?
DT Clear for the neck, Nullabor Ochre for the body. Part of me is hoping that it will come out like the finish on old Wal basses. But to be honest I don't have a set vision like I had for the Bigsby Tele, so as long as it gets a decent finish I will be happy.
Good to see someone also doing a JBA :) the headstock shape looks good, I only got a a sketch on mine haven't work up the nerve to cut it yet. what was your distances from the nut to 12th? It will look good with the Nullarbor Ochre, are you keeping the white scratch plate?
Joe, working completely from (a dodgy) memory it was 432cm from the nut to the 12th fret. At the moment I'm keeping it completely stock.
Slowly working through the glue spots. The large one inside the cutaway is so far completely resistant to the wire brush. I don't know why there would be glue where they are either, because they aren't on the joints between the body pieces. I'm considering getting a sanding wheel for the drill and reshaping the cutaways to get rid of them. Or do think that would be a stupid idea?
A bit of broom handle or equivalent with some 80/120 grit stuck to it would probably do the job just as well and be more controllable. It's how I've dealt with hard soaked in glue seeps in cutaways on a couple of kits.
Not sure I'd want to cross a man that plays an 8 metre bass. Ha ha
made me spit out my drinkQuote:
Originally Posted by Shoota
color combo sounds nice
The neck is now sanded to 240 and the body to 220. I don't have any good quality sandpaper finer than that, so I might have to wait now until I go back to work as the I can buy good sandpaper in the city. My only local hardware store is big, green and starts with a "B".
Ash has larger more open pores in the wood. I wasn't going to grain fill, I was just going to apply the Dingotone. For those of you who have used Dingotone on ash before, do you think its better to grain fill, or just leave as is so the wood drinks up more stain?
I'd certainly recommend grain filling on the ash. It's hard to get even coverage on ash for the very reason that it's so porous.
First coat of Nullabor Ochre on the body. Perfect choice. Exactly what I was after. Now I just have to leave it for a week and see how the colour develops.
Geez Fretworn, both the colour and the grain look superb! suits it down to a tee!... did you end up filling that grain or is it au natural?
looks great Frettie
Nice slab of ash Fretworn with a lot of character and the colour really brings out the grain.
What colour pickguard and jewelry you thinking of.
Love the grain.....ash body bass is my next build. Interested to hear if you did the pore fill or not?
I did end up grain filling, with my own Timbermate mix of "hardwood" and "white". I was able to match the colour to the ash quite well.
ATM I'm going to go stock with the hardware (chrome & white) - except I've ordered a pair of mushroom strap buttons. Not overly fond of the size or shape of the stock buttons.
looks awesome Fretty.
One base coat & one intensifying coat and I reckon it's done. Time to move onto the top coat. Nullabor Ochre is such a cool colour DB. This is exactly what I was hoping for.
The neck hasn't been as successful. I've ended up doing three base coats (Dingotone clear neck) as it had dried blotchy. Nothing I could take a photo of, but when you held it in the light your could see that it was patchs where the finish was shiny and other patches where it was quite dull. I'm wondering whether the extreme humidity we've had in Sydney over the last few weeks has messed with the finish. I'll see how it turns out in a week after the third coat dries.
that body has come up well Fretty!
nice one fretty that looks excellent. The Nullarbor ochre looks darker on my basswood ST-1. Looks a treat though. Give the neck a good steel wool before next clear coat. Make sure you shake the bottles thoroughly before using them
Yeah that Nullabor Ochre looks a lot lighter than Wokka's one but I guess only putting one coat of each probably had something to do with it. Looking fricken sweet either way.
Ok, so it's been two months of patient Dingotone application, but this weekend I've been able to put it all together. Yesterday (Saturday) I got all the pieces together and today I got the wiring done. Plugged it in all works as it should. Going to let it all settle together under string tension until next week, and then I work on the intonation and final set-up.
All the final product.
Nice looking bass mate.