TLB-4 becoming world's 1st Drakensteyn Telemaster Bass

Hey guys,

I've been dreaming about this for many years, now with another baby on the way and limited time to play bass in the evening, I decided to buy a kit for the perfect stay-at-home nights.

I wanted a telecaster bass, rare on it's own, but Pitbull had one.

Although this is my first build, and this kit is recommended for advanced builders, with degrees in Electrical Engineering and Microfabrication (MEMS manufacturing) in my pocket I'll just go for it. No gut's no glory and with dedication, patience, persistence and your help, success will be unavoidable :cool:

Design: Sonic blue nitro finish, matching headstock, oiled neck.
Original Fender Cabronita humbucker at the edge of the pickguard, a 4-conductor MM humbucker closer to the bridge and most likely a 51' single coil close to the neck in the standard tele (guitar) position. Exact electrical wiring connections tbd, will prototype and select the best sounds/combinations to hook up to the new 5-way switch. Will add a stacked 2-band active @ tone position. I might replace the pickguard by a custom one, we'll see (3-ply white pearloid material ordered and got access to a professional laser cutter). Custom Decal (Dutch know who lived @ Drakensteyn:)), old school j-bass bridge cover and straplocks to finish it off.

Got the kit and most parts, still waiting for the '51 SC pickup, vintage style round jack plate, battery compartment, but got all sanding paper, nitro finish (base, color, transparent) from a local dutch supplier.

1st job: the mock-up build....

Sounds great - also sounds like the electrical side should be pretty straightforward for you Alfons. Great start - keen to see how you progress.

What sort of '51 single coil are you waiting on? I must admit - I've looked at this kit more than once and have held off based on wanting to go with a '51 P Bass pickup.

welcome to the forum Alfons, love your plans for the build. 3 pickups and 5 way switch will give you plenty of sound variety. Love the sonic blue will look unreal. Hope you have access to a router to route the pickup cavities ?
Ask any questions you have and good luck with the build !

wow! I'm liking your plans a lot!

Hi Brendan,

couple of options for the '51 pickup:
Fender original replacement, the Squier classic vibes replacement, and 3 flavors of Seymour Duncan's: SCP1-B, SCPB-2 and SCPB-3-quarterpound. There are others most likely out there, but beyond my budget. These were the only I could find for a small budget.

I ordered the Squier, can replace it later, but I think the position will be way more influencing the sound than exact type so first experiment with that.

For the electronics I'll go for a pretty standard and affordable Artec SE-2A.

Welcome to the forum. This bass is going to be awesome

Sent from my SM-T700 using Tapatalk

Cool build, welcome and enjoy

Thanks for all responses guys! Much appreciated!

Mock-up build #1 fitting the neck

Straight out of the box, the neck just fitted (not) in the pocket: fraction too wide and can't get it all the way in:
wood at the lower corner pocket seriously stretched after some force. Also the the corner radius of the neck and pocket don't match.

Attachment 12748Attachment 12749

As this body has no holes for the bridge yet (I checked the 4 point neck alignment tutorial), I decided to sand down the neck at the lower end a little for a comfortable fit and aligned along the long pocket edge. Tried to get is as far in as possible, now at a gap of ~0.5mm.
Attachment 12750Attachment 12751
Should I continue to get a 100% fit or is a little gap at neck edge OK tonewise? I mean, 90%+ of the contact area is at the bottom anyway and I don't want to risk sanding it too much making it loose...

For alignment, I measured the body width at the widest part, put a little pencil marker half way. A thin wire in the dead center of the neck across all dots nicely lines up with the mark with the neck fully in and pushed towards the long/top side of the pocket. So, time to start drilling the holes in the neck and use this midpoint as the center for the bridge and pickups.
Attachment 12752
For the neck plate, in the instruction video the black rubber thing is used as well. I would put the metal plate directly on the wood like for real Fenders. Any thoughts on this?

Looking good mate, just remember depending on what finish you are going for it may add some buildup thickness on the neck and pocket.

Mockup build #2: install tuners and attach the neck

Tonight got the tuners on, aligned them 1 by one, predrilled 1.0mm and later up to 1.5mm.
Fit will although lining them up was a little tricky as the bushings are about 1mm wide so centering needs to be done by gut feel. Worked out good enough and no screws broke off..

Attachment 12786Attachment 12787

Then sanded the neck a little at the sides, got a comfortable fit, not too much friction.
Drilled the holes 4.5mm, pretty tight fit, screw just went in, but with the neck on and off a couple of times, should be OK.
Start to look like a bass, BUT...

Closer look from the front show a slight angle on the neck across the body. It's in the neck pocket, saw it earlier.
I know I sanded the fret board a little at the edges but it's still there...
I think I need to sand down the pocket towards the side a little to level it. Or I can leave it as is and compensate for it by adjusting the saddles and pickups, but sounds like a compromise to early.
Attachment 12788Attachment 12789Attachment 12790
Any thoughts on this?

Try and work out if the neck pocket isn't flat, or if it's the neck. Gently sand the offender accordingly, it shouldn't need much, go slowly, you'll be fine

Nice buy Alfons. Have been drooling that bass myself. It's a nice canvas to paint your own art on.

I can recommend the SD scpb-3. I put it on my p51 build some time ago and it rocks.

Mockup build #3: mount the bridge, replace the nut, mill the pickup pockets


It's been a while, but a lot happened. With the neck in place, the bridge is mounted to the body. Simply by aligning to the center of the neck and the 2 outer strings for position, at a distance of 34" (864mm) for the G string in max out position.
Attachment 13463
Once screwed down, I replaced the standard nut by a cream graphtech version. For that, the slot had to be widened, job done in half an hour of filing with a side only file, increasing the gap towards the head while keeping the depth as equal as possible.


Next, the toughest job till now: milling the pickup pockets.
Never used a top down mill before, borrowed one from a friend and started testing on some dummy wood. Decided to go for the template route, designed pickups in CAD, added margin for the router guide and got them laser cut out of some PMMA plate (in fact, 2x 5mm to make the required 9mm of the router guide).
In the design, pickup posititions for the MM Humbucker and 51p-SC are the same as for the original basses, the Cabronita HB is shifted a few mm and fits nicely in between the other two.

Attachment 13469
Next, tested in on some spare piece of wood, verified the templates were OK and finally today got time to get them milled out of the body.
51P and cabronita HB were pretty easy, the MM humbucker required 2 templates (one rectangular and one for the 'ears').

Basswood is pretty nice for someone with marginal wood experience, quite soft (but not too soft), got the job done in a few hours (pretty much the same as aligning masks in microtechnology, my day job :-))


Worked out nice I think, next added some channels for all the wires and made a 4th pocket for the 9V battery for powering the active electronics.
Attachment 13465 Attachment 13466 Attachment 13467

Furthermore, I designed the electronics, including a new control plate and pickguard. More on that later...

Very happy so far and great joy!:cool:

wow, you are going to have some interesting sounds available

Very interesting!

This will be on of my next builds for sure.. looking good and can't wait to see it progress. Nice work so far.

That's one mess of a pickup combo. If it sounds as wild as it looks, I'm stoked to see the end result!