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I’m glad you’re staying safe.
Good on you for giving it a go. Leo Fender apparently never played either and he did all right.
Haha. Yeah, it’s really great to make something tangible and get a...

Hi Jon, I’m glad it helped. Let me know what you need and I’ll try to help. I’m just about to start my second build in the next few days.

And thank you, yes, I’m in Sydney. Hence the second...

That’s really impressive, isn’t it? Getting so many designs right so early on.


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All great points Simon.
Yeah, I think if I had have done this from the start I might have ended up with a better result.

Leo was responsible for so many outstanding inventions. It’s amazing...

Thanks for that, Trevor. I’m pretty happy with the logo.


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Thanks Simon. I really appreciate it.
This is all great advice. If I make another one, I’ll definitely spend more time on that priming/grain filling stage. Doing this project has shown me how much...

The only thing to do now is add the strap buttons and set the bridge height. It’s already playing pretty nicely though. It sounds great. Once I get it setup properly it should be sweet. It’s a bit of...

I then put it all back together using plenty of soap on all the screws and the replacement neck screws. I also added in the copper shielding in the pickup cavity. I put that on in small strips,...

Once the lacquer was dry and no longer giving off a smell, I started sanding the rough spots back. Given that the grain was showing anyway, there was only so much I could sand. I was also being...

While I was waiting for the lacquer to dry, I mounted the neck hardware. I used a round file at the front of each of the tuner holes so I could get the front mounts for the machine heads in. I used a...

My wife bought one of those Cricut Maker 3 machines, so I put together a headstock decal. She stuck that on to the headstock for me. I used the same font as Triumph had used on the Street Triple....

I let it dry for a day or two. It looked slightly better when it was dry. I then sanded it back a bit and applied more coats. In hindsight, I should have sanded a bit heavier and just got it back...

I then moved on to painting. If I was to do another one of these kits and wanted that super smooth finish, I would have used grain filler before the primer. I actually quite liked the grain, so I...

Once I’d given the neck another sanding, I started the tru-oil layers on the maple. I ended up doing 9 or 10 layers sanding between every 2 really lightly with 0000 steel wool. You have to be careful...

My next job was cutting the headstock. I didn’t want to just make a Fender headstock, mainly because I didn’t want to mislead anyone. Haha. So I came up with a pencil design using some tracing paper...

Once I had the bass looking like an actual working instrument, I mounted the string tree. I used my stingray for reference and checked a few headstock images. That made the strings fit more securely...

I drilled the holes for the tuner backing plates. It’s a tiny screw size so the pilot hole drill bit actually got stuck. I tracked down a hand drill with a smaller chuck. That was actually easier to...

Looking back, I think the routing of the pickup and controls may have been out slightly as the scratch plate didn’t quite match up with neck or the cavity. I ended up grinding a little from the top...

Once I had the neck pocket sorted, I loose fitted the scratch plate and worked out where to mount the bridge. I’ve seen other kits that have holes pre-drilled for the neck and sometimes the bridge,...

As soon as I opened the kit, I was really impressed with the body and the neck. The timber in the body had a nice grain and seemed really solid. The neck looked good and straight.
The neck pocket...

I play bass in an 80’s band and I've really wanted to try a Precision bass, just as an alternative to my EBMM Stingray. I’d found a mid 80’s Japanese Fender with a rosewood neck that looked and...