H's JBA-4 Fretless

[UpperCaseH]

OK, cool. Used the address on the shop website, guess I would have waited forever

Never thought about marine shops even though I knew a lot of boat repairs are done with epoxy. I'll check around, my dad was way into sailing dinghys and I'm sure he'll know or know someone who knows the exact thing I want.

This entire project is based on me "needing" two basses so I can have one with flats and one without, and the plan is to put the flats on the fretless, yeah.

[wokkaboy]

sounds good H. Have a look at Robin's MMB build diary he goes into quite a bit of detail how he applied the resin and sanding it to shape. And the square edges can be sharp so don't cut yourself !
The fretless conversion I have done I found it much easier and less work to use thin superglue. Think that's what AndrewO did for his GOTM JBA-4 build

[UpperCaseH]

Thanks! Still tossing up CA or epoxy. With that in mind, is there a specific kind of CA glue I should be looking at?

[wazkelly]

G'day H, Woks is on the money with his advice. Only benefit with resin might be a harder surface and a more even covering from fewer applications. It might scratch up a bit but the CA Super glue may do the same too. With Flat wounds that should prevent a lot of the friction marks you may otherwise encounter and these should easily polish out from time to time.

My old man was into sailing boats too and remember him mixing up all sorts of stuff including epoxy resins to repair his fibreglass hulls. The fumes are wickedly toxic so best to be in a well ventilated environment and use a mask.

Robins MM Build is a great reference tool and the only other suggestion might be to create a foam mould to support the sides of the fretboard, rising a few mm above where you want the coating to finish so that once hard you can knock that off and then sand it into shape without risking razor blade sharp edges.

The boating people may have some other ideas too as I remember my father creating moulds for making up his own fibre glass spinnaker launchers and that required application of some goo on the mould which prevented the two parts sticking together permanently and thus made it easier to separate them once fully cured.

[wokkaboy]

Hey H, DB uses Stewmac thin superglue, for mine I found some thin superglue at the green shed. Try get a bottle with a little brush connected to the lid makes it easier to apply

[dingobass]

If you have a Carbatec store close by, I recommend Hot Stuff CA glue.
Really good stuff and a bigger bottle than Stew mac and a heck of a lot cheaper.

With the pup surround, flick Pablopepper a PM. Pabs is the Guru of cutting fiddly plastic bitz.

[UpperCaseH]

Oh awesome, there's a Carbtec 10 minutes drive away from me! Never heard of the place, and it looks like it sells all kinds of stuff I'll want. Thanks!

I'll talk to Pablopepper if I can't cut this thing myself. Kinda want to try it though.

[dingobass]

An even better toy shop is Timbecon, much larger range of toys err tools.
Sadly they dont sell Hot Stuff CA glue...

[UpperCaseH]

OK, gonna go with the glue, hopefully I'll get out there this weekend and pick some up.

Yesterday I picked up some timbermate, ebony for the grain pop and cedar for the fret lines (maple looked a bit pink in the sample, cedar seemed about right, we'll see how it goes).

Did a test assembly today. This kit has holes pre drilled for everything, including on the neck heel.

Distance from the nut to 12th fret is 43.2cm. After adjusting the bridge all the way forward, 12th fret to saddle on E is 43.7. and on G is 43.5. Assume those numbers will be OK?

Pre drilled holes in the neck lined up nicely, so I screwed it on to see if it aligned, and it did.





One more question for now. Filling hte pick guard screw holes: go with timbermate, or should I try to get some wood in there before I sand flat? What kind of wood? Assuming bamboo skewers are gonna look weird, but what would I know?

edit: Just realised the sharpie number on the back of the neck there is visible peeking out over the body. Assume I can just sand it off.

[wazkelly]

Yep, just sand off that Sharpie scribble. For pre drilled holes, have a look at the bamboo skewers to see if there is a suitable colour match to the body if not you may need to look towards a filler of similar colour. Agree that Timber Mate samples shown in hardware stores bears no resemblance to what you expect and neither does looking at the stuff in the pot. I went Natural rather than white and it came out slightly off-white. All the other colours already looked too dark and once coated may come up a little bit darker too.

Bottom shot looks like the neck is riding a bit high in the neck pocket? Had same issue on my Tele that required me to very painfully slow & gradual sand a bit off at a time until it was low enough to bring the bridge saddles down from such a high altitude. 'Low Tide' level on Fret Board to Guitar Body looks more than 10mm and suggest check measuring on your other Bass to get a reference point as to what should be happening there.