First build JBA-4

[Wall]

Hello all,

I received my shiny new box of parts in the mail last Tuesday, which was probably when I should have begun this thread...

Forum lurking and the manual have been fantastic resources so far but I can see a few tricky things on the horizon so best to start talking as well now.
Plus I have all the photos and progress that my wife is thoroughly disinterested in.

Has been a fair bit of progress so far.

Good Things:

Head stock shaped, face stained and sanding done. Three coats of Tung Oil one the neck. One light coat over the fretboard to protect it.

Neck's drilled and test fitted, sand and stain done with 12 coats of Tung oil on the body.

All frets levelled and shaped, polished to around the 12th fret. It was making me cross eyed today so the last of them are getting finished in the future.

Replaced the stock pick guard, had some veneer left over from another job so I turned that into 4 ply and shaped a new guard.

Bad Things:

Still waiting on my replacement bridge, set the neck and spaced everything using the stock bridge and a whole bunch of cunning clamp and pencil work. REALLY want to start drilling holes now though.

Also waiting on new tuners, not sure how they will fit. Thinking I may need to blank out the existing holes and redrill appropriately sized holes, no huge drama but it's stopping me oiling the headstock properly. Thinking I may also be worried about a worst case scenario.

Dropped the body and put a nice dent in it, probably should be on the good things list as I'm glad this is out of the way now. All of my guitars have dents.

I cut templates, made an MDF blank, made some more templates and settled on a headstock design...... didn't like it after cutting so reshaped it a little before the brain kicked in. Now the stock tuner does't quite fit on the G string!!!! Hopefully the Gotoh ones have a smaller base plate. Simple fit if it doesn't, wee bit of base plate filing.

Hopefully the hardware arrives tomorrow and I can start putting drill holes in things.

Thanks to anyone who made it through that log winded intro and thanks to all of the advice you've already unwittingly provided.

Photos!

[Wall]

Ok, so my photos won't upload.

My excitement has been beaten down quite quickly as I've been up since 4:30.
Tomorrow I shall figure this out and show the damage I have so far done to a previously respectable kit bass. Poor thing

Photos Tomorrow!!

[Sonic Mountain]

Hey Wall, try using Imugr for photos, I prefer it to the forum uploader.

A quick run down here.

https://www.buildyourownguitar.com.a...ead.php?t=8108

Quite often dents can be removed by steaming them out. A bit of rag and an iron will normally do the trick.

[Wall]

Cheers Sonic,

I will have a play with it after dinner.

[Wall]

Regarding dents, I really do kind of like a bit of character to things so I was tempted to play with water to swell them out but decided that it was good to have something with a ding so I do't handle it with kid gloves every time I get it off the stand.

[Wall]

I really like the steampunk bass by the way, that was one of the builds that turned up randomly in a search when trawling the internets looking for kit guitars that led me to pitbull.
You did an amazing job on that one.

[Sonic Mountain]

Hah cheers.. I still have PTSD from dremelling that brass......