Creating a Fretless Bass from a cheapie donor P Bass copy

Was thinking about building a fretless when it dawned on me that I had this cheapie kicking around and looking rather neglected in a corner hidden behind 2 other guitars, then it dawned on me, why not have a go at converting this one as it only owes me about 50 bucks?

Looked at a few forum threads, some vids on youtube, and it doesn't look too hard so here goes. Initially bought a bag of white plastic pot plant label strips to fill the joints left behind after de-fretting but stumbled on an old thread where DB had done an amazing job on a HB4 for Gavin. Wow, what a shiny neck so off I went and bought some natural coloured timbermate and have ordered some thin CA glue too.

Here after the Before shots......
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Speed hump removal to commence on my next day off work.

Go for gold , its not that difficult a job. I'm going to try the timber mate method next time round. Maple sawdust and CA glue was a bit fiddly especially on the edges of the fret slot

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Thanks Ponch.

Well, had a spare bit of time towards end of this afternoon and decided to make a start on making this a fretless......
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Now that the patient has been sedated time to pull some teeth....errr I mean speed bumps....
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Then sanded things down with a bit of 180 before taping up ahead of applying Natural coloured timbermate....
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Job done and now hung up to dry....
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Great Job Wazkelly.Maybe the guys DB, Wazkelly that have done the fretless with the timbermate method. Can let me know how the timbermate stands the pressure of the neck and string tension. Have you mixed the timbermate with any harderner. What holds those fretboard cuts together.
Cheers
Kimball

How'd you find the Artist Bass Waz? I've got a couple of 6 string electrics from them and was quite impressed for the $$. I will eventually upgrade them though.

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Originally Posted by kimball492

Great Job Wazkelly.Maybe the guys DB, Wazkelly that have done the fretless with the timbermate method. Can let me know how the timbermate stands the pressure of the neck and string tension. Have you mixed the timbermate with any harderner. What holds those fretboard cuts together.
Cheers
Kimball

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Once it is levelled and sanded to 220, I flood the fingerboard with CA glue.
This seems to harden the TM quite sufficiently

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Originally Posted by Andy40

How'd you find the Artist Bass Waz? I've got a couple of 6 string electrics from them and was quite impressed for the $$. I will eventually upgrade them though.

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Hi Andy, was bidding for the Artist and a Yammy at the same time and took the slightly cheaper option and pleasantly surprised. Sound is good and overall finish was good however the cheap plastic nut and lack of a string retainer had the A string popping out of the nut all the time. Not as good as a budget end Yammy but still quite good for mail order Chinese built guitars. I see that a lot of their guitars score Wilkinson PUP's too so that is also a bonus.

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Originally Posted by dingobass

Once it is levelled and sanded to 220, I flood the fingerboard with CA glue.
This seems to harden the TM quite sufficiently

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Hi Kimball, DB's prior thread for Gavmeister's Hoffner caught my eye and hope to do a similar job. Fret board cuts were quite shallow to accommodate the fret wire that was just under 2 mm deep.

Surprised how much damage can be easily caused when yanking out the frets as the Rosewood badly splintered along many of the fret edges once removed. Cheap materials used in the construction may have also contributed and it will be a nervous peeling off of the masking tape so as to avoid any further damage. Might need to spread a layer of Ebony Timbermate to fill in some of the cracks & divots before performing a final sand and prep for the CA glue.

Looking good so far Wazkelly. I can imagine it's nigh on impossible, not to have some material break away from fret edges when pulling the frets out. Look forward to seeng it completed. And cheers for info DB.

Rosewood is a cantankerous bugger when removing speed humps...
It helps to tighten the truss rod to get as much back bow as possible without blowing the truss rod nut :p
Then heating the fret with your trusty soldering iron and using a fingerboard guard helps to reduce chip out.
http://www.stewmac.com/Luthier_Tools..._Set_of_2.html

Thanks for the good advice DB. May have to consider those tips for another fret less project as all the humps were removed before I realised the edges were not as smooth and clean as they could have been.

Just wondering how things would go if I applied ebony timber mate over the whole fret board and whether it would darken the light coloured fret lines. Would I have to tape over the white lines or should I cover them with something that would sand off easy and not lift it out of the fret cuts? Would clear nail Polish be ok or would your suggest something else?

Cheers, Waz

Sanded off the timber mate this morning......
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Then applied 1st coat of CA glue a couple of hours ago......wondering how long to leave it before light sanding as it is starting to rain outside at the moment and temperature is about 19 degrees C ???
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hey Waz the neck is coming along nicely. I guess to be on the safe side 4-5 hours should be heaps for the CA glue to dry.
If you caked it on thick then maybe 6 hours should be heaps

Thanks Woks, will leave it until later on tonight before having another look at things to see if ready for a light sand. If not there is always another chance tomorrow night after work.

Cannot believe it has taken 8 weeks since the first coat of CA glue was applied to finish this project. Extremely fiddly stuff and each time you do a touch up you risk creating more minor stuff ups to fix, hence why it has taken so long to get it done.

99.5% happy as there were still a couple of minor imperfections here and there but figured this is about as good as it might get. First shot shows the gear used, and for those wondering what the coloured small squares are, those are micro mesh pads. Originally had 4 but the 4000 grit one ran out of puff when buffing up the J bass & Tele a few months ago. The tube of metal polish was an experiment that proved a winner as it acted a bit like a polishing compound and then brought it home with the car polish. Did the same on the guitar body, neck, headstock and now so shiny it proved hard to photograph without showing up unwanted reflections.

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Did a quick sound check and it was fine however action is still a bit high and will give it a bit of time to settle before tweaking things a bit. Haven't played flat wounds for ages and had forgotten how smooth and mellow they are. Just need to make more time for playing to get better at pitching the notes without looking all the time.

More shots.....
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Hey Wazza, it was worth the wait, it looks great.

got to agree with Robin, that looks great Waz

Nice job Wazza. You'll soon get used to the fretless. Yes and agree.the CA glue is a bit of a pain. I had some issues with clouding in the finish that required 2x attempts to get right. The neck on my JBA-4 has settled down after a few weeks and needed a bit of front bow removed. Now sweet as.

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Great work Waz, gotta love that showroom shine!

thats come up really well Waz great job, love the gloss you got on the fingerboard and body. Sure you will get it set up how you want it once the neck has settled

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Originally Posted by andrewdosborne

Nice job Wazza. You'll soon get used to the fretless. Yes and agree.the CA glue is a bit of a pain. I had some issues with clouding in the finish that required 2x attempts to get right.

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Pretty sure that would be from any contaminants getting in the glue, if you touch it with your skin then it clouds due to the oils

Thanks everyone for the kind comments.

With the clouding I experienced it too as many of the touch ups seemed to react differently with the surface already laid down, and that was done only after wet sanding and hence no polish, finger prints, or any other contaminants present.

For example, you put a small drop on that spreads to an area about the size of your smallest fingernail. Overnight it looks to have dried clear but still looking moist. A few days later as it fully dries out, then Bam, outta nowhere cloudy edges where the touch up meets the original surface?

The layers are so thin that if doing this project again I would take a leaf out of Robin's book and use an epoxy resin as this stuff appears to have similar properties but a right proper B@#!*h to bring up to an all over glassy finish. Don't think anything less would work however if I was more patient with removing the frets less damage (splintered edges) would have happened and therefore may have got away with using the plastic plant labels and then Dingo Waxed the Rosewood board.

Really happy with end result as it all looks like new and cost next to nothing to convert.