Lyn #18 - P-Bass

While I’m waiting for clear coat on #17 (the Red Tele) to go off I thought I might as well start another build.


I already have a real 1972 Fender J, an active Ibanez SDGR and a fretless PBG MM Bass, but I have always wanted P-Bass, so here we go again.


I bought an Ash body, Maple neck, GPB-4M kit. And I must say that I am very happy with the kit. Build quality is probably the best yet from Adam as the neck fit was so tight that I was able to pick up the complete guitar by the neck even before screwing it together. Very impressive.


Attachment 31246

My plan is for a natural finish to the body and neck, so I thought that a black pickguard would contrast nicely with the natural Ash finish. This is where I met my first problem.


Attachment 31247

I had ordered a black pickguard to replace the white one and although the standard kit plate fits perfectly the new black one does not. If I line up the pickups with the neck there is a gap around the controls at the tail of the guard.


Attachment 31248

Attachment 31249

I could have ordered another pre-cut guard from eBay but I was not sure which was out of standard alignment, the routing on the guitar or the new pickguard. So I ordered a blank pickguard and cut and finished it myself. This is just the rough cut out. I will trim it up later.


Attachment 31250

My second hurdle was the cheap black hardware I had ordered from China. This is my 18^th guitar and I have never snapped a screw. So now I have my first. I was screwing the bridge in place and I had lubricated the screw in my usual fashion with candle wax, but the screw is of such poor quality that without any excessive pressure it snapped. Luckily it snapped just behind the head and was fairly easy to remove with multigrips. So I think I dodged a bullet with this one. But we are off to a less than auspicious start.


Hopefully when my replacements parts arrive I will have a bit more luck.

Bugger about the hardware Robin, look forward to see how this one turns out.

As I can’t do any more to the body until all the parts arrive I thought I would get a bit done on the neck.


Attachment 31251
First job is to cut and shape the headstock. Easy Peasy. Sketch out the design, out with the coping saw and its done. A bit of a tidy up and it should look OK.


Next job was to do one of my “signature” features, MoP fret dots. This is really easy to do and adds just a little something to all my guitars.


The plastic dots are 6.5mm and are a snug fit into (approx) 6mm hole.


Attachment 31252
First step is to drill out the little blighters. Just grab a drill bit a couple of mm smaller than the dot and carefully drill out the middle of the dot.


Attachment 31253
If you are lucky you can pull the dot straight out. If not, a bit of wiggling about will crack the dot and you just remove the fragments. The trick here is to not damage the original hole. You want the MoP’s to be a snug fit.


Attachment 31254
The MoP dots vary in size by the slightest margin and you may/or may not have to make the hole slightly bigger. First I will try and see how they fit and some will fit with a bit of gentle persuasion, but with others you may have to enlarge the hole. I use a 6.5mm bit for this but just turn it by hand. The hole will be so close to the perfect fit that there will be little or no resistance to the bit.


Attachment 31255
And yer done! I know that some people don't like them, but I think they look pretty cool.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FrankenWashie

Bugger about the hardware Robin, look forward to see how this one turns out.

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Thanks Frankie. That's what you get when you troll eBay for the cheapest price. lol. One day I will learn.

Love your work robin. Will watch and learn.

Thanks Mark.

As this is just a Kit Build there will be nothing much special happening, so there will not be much to learn. I usually don't obsess too much with guitars I make for myself. I just take my time and do the best I can. I aim for a guitar that plays well, not that concerned with how they look.

Watching with interest, I'm also working on an ash PBass with black pickguard. Thanks for the detailed info on the dots!

Looking great Robin.

Emuflats - full tute on fret dots here: https://www.buildyourownguitar.com.a...ead.php?t=2584

Cheers Brendan
Just tried to open & it says "invalid post" contact Admin..

Quote:

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Originally Posted by emuflats

Watching with interest, I'm also working on an ash PBass with black pickguard. Thanks for the detailed info on the dots!

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Thanks Emuflats, I just checked out Brendan's excellent Tute, and he goes into far more detail than me. We differ slightly on a few points (Brendan uses 6mm dots and glue, I use 6.5mm dots and no glue) but we both agree that it is fairly easy and well worth the effort.

Good luck with your build.

Thanks Brendan for the detailed Tute.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by emuflats

Cheers Brendan
Just tried to open & it says "invalid post" contact Admin..

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Not sure why - navigation via menus is below. There's also a dodgy vid here starring your truly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yA4c4rTseY&t=144s

For some reason I’m finding it a bit hard to maintain my momentum with this build but I have finally progressed a little so I thought it was about time for another update.


Now where was I……


Attachment 32295
Neck is finished...... so onto the body.


I find that the belly cuts on these kits usually need a bit more work so its out with a pencil and my favourite toy, the Japanese Saw Rasp.


Its a process of pencil marking the shape and removing what shouldn’t be there.


Attachment 32296
First, roughly pencil the shape and then….


Attachment 32297
Start removing unwanted wood. The File Rasp is a fantastic tool for hand shaping timber and it removes the wood fairly quickly but does not leave too many “chew” mark that you later have to sand out.


I wanted to keep the striking grain, so I thought I would try and enhance it with some dark grain-filling. But I didn’t want to remove the grain texture, so I mixed up a slurry of Walnut TimberMate and water to the consistency of runny custard and applied it all over. Not sure it was the right idea, but I wanted to give it a try.


Attachment 32298
When finished shaping, I applied the TimberMate slurry, let it dry.


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Then sanded it off.

Attachment 32300
The back of the guitar showing the belly cut. Plus, as most of my practice is done sitting down I also do (what I call) a “lap” cut. It’s a comfort thing. Lol.


Now the fun part, applying the Tru-Oil finish. AFTER applying a “soak” coat I apply multiple very thin coats of T-O. I find that applying the T-O in sections is the easiest way to go.


Attachment 32301
You can see 8 drops of T-O and this is more than enough to do half of the top of the guitar. By the time I have wiped this over the bottom half I can feel the application cloth start to drag as the T-O is spread out and starts to dry. Follow this procedure for the rest of the guitar and then you can hang it up for a few hours to dry. Do this about another 20 times and you will end up with a nice thin layer of T-O on your guitar.


Here in Brisbane I can apply 4 coats a day so, weather permitting, I can usually apply all the T-O in about a week.


I will now hang it under the house for another week until the T-O stops “gassing off” and then I will try and get a gloss finish.

Hey Guys, sorry for the lengthy absence but I'm back now with a few updates.

I actually finished the bass a few months ago and have used it a couple of times at church so I thought I had better put this thread to bed with an update.

Front
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Back
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Headstock
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All in all I am quite happy with the end result, but I need to revisit the electrics. The cheap pots are little more than on/off switches. All the control is within the first quarter turn of both pots. I have also noticed that compared to another bass used at church (a real Fender P) it lacks a wee bit of volume. I was a bit surprised as I updated the pups with ToneRiders which, in the past, have been excellent products and every bit as good as original Fender fare. I am hoping that better pots will address this problem.

I might also upgrade the hardware at some stage and get rid of the cheap and nasty bridge and replace it with a better quality string through. This might also help address the volume issue.

But even as she is, I'm very happy with her and she has earned a place in my bass arsenal.

Cheers guys
rob

Beautiful! Did you give the maple fretboard a coat of tru oil?

Looks fantastic as always.

It's doubtful that better pots will improve the volume, though you may have a high resistance solder joint which is taking the edge off the output. The pots I fitted to my ES-3 kit suffer from all the action being in the 8-10 range, and these are Bare Knuckles custom CTS 550k vintage taper pots! Back to standard CTS 450 series audio taper pots for me.

Are the strings the same type as on the P-bass? A thicker string will give slightly more output, and some string materials give more output than others. Though your pickup height looks to be fine from the photo, if the P-bass pickups are nearer the strings, then again that will give that bit more volume. And the pickups themselves may have different outputs with different numbers of winds. 50's style PB pickups were wound a bit hotter than 60s style PB pickups. The DCR of the TR pickup at 10.6k is on a par with Bare Knuckle's 1965 style pickup, which is about 1k less than the BK 1958 style pickup. I'd be more concerned about tone than about a slight volume difference, as you can always turn the amp up but you can't change the fundamental tone of the bass. You can adjust it a bit with the amp's tone controls, but the bass's tone will still come through. So if you are happy with how it sounds, then I wouldn't worry too much.

I'd also suggest that string-through is more likely to affect the sustain and tone than the primary output volume.

@DarkMark,
Yes mate, Tru-oil on the maple board. I am in the process of refurbing another guitar and noticed that when cleaning a very dirty fretboard that to remove all the gunk I also removed some of the TO meaning I had to redo the whole fretboard. Not a big deal but a lesson to clean the board periodically. Something that I am not familiar with :p

@Simon
Strings! of course. I don't know why I didn't think of it! It still has the crappy strings on that come with the kit. (Sorry Adam no offense meant). I will start saving for a set of D'addarios. I think I will still get some CTS pots as well.

Thanks Simon, your insight is most helpful and appreciated as usual.

Cheers guys
rob

That's such a beautiful piece of wood. What a score.

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@Colin
Thanks mate, I couldn't ask for higher praise than that.

@Dozy
Yes mate I agree, of all my kits this has to be the best body yet. It's always a bit of a pig in a poke when you order kits, this time I just got lucky.

Cheers guys
rob

Yes, the basic kit strings are known to be very poor, with low output and an uneven response from string to string. The kits would be better without them IMO, but then they wouldn’t be ‘complete’ kits.

Might be worth trying out a set of Artist Guitar strings (mentioned in another current thread for guitar strings) as they are considerably cheaper than D’Addarios but seem to be on a par for quality and feel. I can get a set in the UK for £6 including postage compared to £20 and upwards for basic Rotosounds. Looks like they are AU$15 including postage for you. Worth a try? If you can cope with the kit strings, then the Artists should be a definite upgrade.

Looking good. I like the head stock. So much more balanced than the exaggerated Fender ones. They always seem to make the P and J bases look like you are trying to poke someones eye out :rolleyes: .

@Rabbit
Thanks mate. Yep, trying to get away from standard Fender headstocks.

@Simon
Thanks for the heads-up about Artist Strings, I missed that Thread. I have ordered a set of Bass strings and a 4 pack of Guitar strings, at those prices they are definitely worth a try.