Build#1 RCA-4

Thought I better do the right thing and start a new build thread.
So far all I have done is open the box and check contents.
I checked the neck in the neck pocket. It's a pretty snug fit has a little bit of wobble room which is OK as the 'natural' resting spot of the neck has it ever so slightly out of alignment.
I'll clamp it all together for a "dry-fit" photo tomorrow evening.
There are some changes to the kit that I will do.
I'll try with original pickups and if I like the sound they'll stay other wise I'll get some customs hand-wound by a guy in Melbourne. He has done pups for another of my basses an old Cimar(by Ibanez) Jazz bass I restored last year.
I have ordered new bone nut blanks and I'll shape this and replace the supplied nut.
I will also replace the bridge I like the look of the BABICZ FCH bridge available from PitBull's site.(OUT OF STOCK:( )
Has anyone used the BABICZ FCH 4 string bass bridge on their RCA-4 builds?
I am wanting a green translucent finish something showing the grain through. I have sprayed guitars before using nitrocellulose spray cans for a sunburst effect.
This one I want in high gloss translucent green Attachment 27329
Has anyone done a green finish?
Did you use dyes or paint?
Have been reading the great articles posted by others already there are some really nice guitar finishes and good info on this forum.
Thanks all

Welcome! I enjoyed my RCA4 kit build, although it was in a more trad timber stain. There seems to be lots of people building this kit at the moment!

Well I got home from work late but still thought I better get the kit out and take some photos and do some measuring.
The scale is a little long
432mm to 12th fret
Attachment 27339
The neck is actually a super tight fit and sits dead centre to the front pickup rout and when centre line is transfered down guitar body it looks perfect
Attachment 27340
The only obvious fault is the routing for the rear pup is a fair bit out of line
Attachment 27341
It's a good 3mm off centre which means the strings are nowhere near in line with pick up magnets., or if you do line the bridge up so strings sit close to magnets the strins would hang off the fret board at the body/neck join
Attachment 27342
I have no choice but to lengthen the pup rout by 3mm to align the pick up.
Has anyone else had to do this with theirs?

here are picks of the front and back of the body.
nice enough grain I'm happy with it.
Attachment 27343
Attachment 27344

That back is killer, great score Trebble!

Looks great!
Just consider the break angle of the neck, I have found mine is. A little too flat, meaning that the bridge at its lowest setting still has the action a little high.
The pickups I didn't check, as I changed mine out for two humbuckers

The back is thin veneer

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Trebbble

The back is thin veneer

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Oh no. I had massive troubles with a veneer back on an LP build that I still can’t bring myself to look at.

Just go easy on sanding and seal it with something like shellac quickly.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Trebbble

The back is thin veneer

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Probably best not to introduce it to Mr. heat gun.....like I did.

cheers, Mark.

I'm hoping the veneer has not been used to cover up other faults....

Doesn't it seem weird that there's a veneer on the back only? I don't think I have ever seen that and I don't recall any other RCA-4 build diaries that had veneered backs.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Trebbble

I'm hoping the veneer has not been used to cover up other faults....

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Probably has been otherwise why bother? Suspect poor grain or a bit too much filler used in various places.

In relation to scale length, 34" = 863.6mm from inner side of nut on treble side to mid point of treble side bridge saddle on the G string, therefore nut to crown of 12th fret should = 431.8mm

Cheers, Waz

Weekend is here so thought I'd take a look at the bass again.
The nut looked cheap and nasty and it was...
Attachment 27502
It's plastic and hollow designed to sap any tone to death..
I removed it and will make a bone nut to replace it.
The height of the original nut would also have caused some fret buzz if left on. The E string slot was not even the same height as the first fret.
Attachment 27503

Here is the nut.
Plastic and hollow.
Attachment 27504
Attachment 27505

I got creative this morning and made my own version of stewmac's safe slot nut guard.
does the job ok. Not as pretty as the original but just as functional.
Using this tool, feeler gauges and following the how to videos on the stewmac site I was able to determine the accurate height of the first fret as 1.13mm. (0.044") which is OK.
Attachment 27506

I had some bone nut blanks left over from a rebuild on my old 1970's cimar jazz bass.
Unfortunately Murphy's law waon out and they are the exact same size as the plastic nut in height which means they are about a 1mm too small to make the needed adjustment to raise the nut string slot height above the fret height.
The below diagram is adapted from a still shot on a how-to video on another site.
The top of the nut needs to be height of first fret + height of string clearance + half diameter of string.
Attachment 27509
l Like a string clearance of approx 0.55 - 0.6mm at first fret.
So using those figures the nut slot depth above fret board for E string should be 1.13mm(fret height) + 0.55mm (string clearance hight) so 1.68mm. The top of the nut should be that figure plus half of string diameter (I'm fitting 45-105 which is 2.667mm E string) so another 1.33mm. This means my over all height of nut at E string is 3.01mm above fret board.

I'm going to have to get some more bone nut blanks.
The recess for the nut is a lot deeper on this neck than any of my other basses or guitars.
Attachment 27510
Attachment 27511
Attachment 27513
This will mean I need a nut blank that is almost 11mm high.
Not a common size...

Could you perhaps use a brass shim under the nut you have?

Good idea Andyxlh, I've never done that before and a bone blank is only a couple of dollars so I just ordered another 3 blanks.
I will read up and see if anyone has put a shim under their nut.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Trebbble

Good idea Andyxlh, I've never done that before and a bone blank is only a couple of dollars so I just ordered another 3 blanks.
I will read up and see if anyone has put a shim under their nut.

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You would have to think having the deeper bone nut would be better than a shim. I have used brass shims on my SV1 floyd nut and also on the TLA kit nut, there I used a sliver of a plastic guitar pick.

haven';t been able to update much as work has been frantic..
I had to do some work on the neck and frets.
Taped the fret board up then checked for high frets.
Filed the all even then dressed and polished them allAttachment 28061
Attachment 28062

The hole routed for the JBass pup that came with the kit was way off position and would have need re-routing so I decided to replace it with a humbucker pickup(nothing special just an old ebay special I had lying around)
The rear pickup hole was re-sized with dremmel and super sharp chisel.
You can also see where I drilled the holes for the upgraded bridge in the wrong spot and had to plug them re-mark and re-drill....
The plugs will be hidden under the bridge so wont be seen.
Attachment 28063

Attachment 28064
close up of stuff up

Had to make a larger pickup surround to cover the hole from the j Bass pickup.
Had some old scrap stainless steel left over from fitting out my boat so cut and shaped it for an under pickup surround.
I forgot how jolly hard stainless steel is... Took forever to cut and went through 19 dremel carbon cut-off wheels....
It polished up OK with 1200 wet n dry emery cloth.
Attachment 28065

If rest of build turns out OK and I like playing the guitar I will spend the dollars and get some custom pick ups from Orpheus Pick-Ups.
David from Orpheus has made custom pups for me before and they are amazing.

I did as mentioned upgrade the bridge. (Pitbull by far are the cheapest place to buy Babicz bridges)
Attachment 28066

In my first post I said I was wanting to get a green stain on the timber and posted a picture of someone else guitar.
I tried several stains on old bits of pine I had and ended up going with airbrush paint as sold by Aldi...
I am really happy with the colour and at present are sealing with wipe on poly by Feast Watson
Attachment 28067
Attachment 28068

neck glued ready to coat with wipe-on clear high gloss poly by Feast and Watson
Attachment 28069

wow, that green is really vibrant!

She is shaping up to be something rather special!

Grain on the back is stunning with that colour scheme.

Sent from my SM-A520F using Tapatalk

Thanks all,
I used the airbrush paint without diluting it and just wiped it on/in with a clean soft cloth. Sanded between applications with 400 then 1200 wet n dry (dry).