VP4 - 2nd build

[wazkelly]

Love the natural organic look you have got going there.

For scratch plates there are plenty on eBay for most Fender shapes and reckon a silver mirror or brushed aluminium finish would compliment the chrome finish. Bought one for my Son's Strat copy a few months back for around $20 bucks delivered out of Hong Kong.

[stan]

the sheen on that tung oil finish is beautiful, suits it perfectly

[PapaKen]

Excellent work, my boy! Thanks for the plug at the top for my Ashley! She still sounds as good as when you were home. Keep up the good work!

[kenfu]

So the finish is pretty much all done. The wood was not soaking up any more tung oil so I decided to call it. I let that cure for a good long while and then put two rounds of carnuba wax on it. I realize that with the wax it will require a lot more work and regular maintenance, but the look and feel of it is just spectacular.









You can see in that last photo how there are two very different (hardness? grain pattern?) looks of the wood. It is kind of weird. The grain is a lot more open where it looks "duller" in the picture. Absorbed a bit more stain too so it is a little darker. Not sure what it is, but the fretboard oil really brought out the difference. Going to put a couple more rounds of oil on and see what that does. Don't want to go too thick on that so I'm being super careful. If it stays like that, I can live with it. The little bit of dark stain on the fretboard really makes it pop though. I'm really happy with how the curves and edges turned out. I took a lot of time to sand with some super fine scoth brite to get some gradation in darkness of the stain. Kind of like a burst I guess but it is more like it accentuates the natural shadows to give it a lot more depth. The photos don't do a good job capturing the subtlety especially around the edges. It looks more like a solid border.

I've been going back and forth on the logo. I was planning on doing a lion head again, to match the LP I did. The plan was to engrave out the wood back to the raw wood so it would be lighter in color than the dark wood. But now that the finish is done I don't know.... I really like the look of just the wood. I was thinking of changing plans and just etching the lion head (or a variant) into the ashtray or pickup cover. We'll have to see. I may try the pickup cover first. That would be a lot easier to change if I didn't like it... Also thinking about getting a black/white sandwich sheet of pickguard material and engraving that down to the white. So that will be test two if I don't like how the ashtray/pickup guard turns out.

[kenfu]

Sorry for the double post, but I had a big question and I forgot to ask. So this kit has a 34" scale length. I know I'm going to have to find the centerline, measure from 12th fret to saddles (saddles forward, right?) etc. I'm just wondering the order of install. Should I just temporarily clamp the neck to get the measurements and mount the bridge *then* mount the neck, or mount the neck and *then* make all measurements/alignments for the bridge? To me it seems easier to mount the neck first but I don't know... the LP had the bridge mounts pre drilled. FYI this is a bolt on neck. Thanks!!

[Andy40]

Hey Kenfu,

I was considering a waxy satin finish on one of my builds. I see you've anticipated a lot more work and regular maintenance. Do you mean just re waxing? whats the finish feel like? smooth or sticky?

Sorry I've never built a bass but I would have thought the methodology in measuring the scale length would be the same as a 6 string? I stand to be corrected though.

[kenfu]

The finish is very smooth. The carnauba wax dries to a nice hard finish, not stickyat all. With a wax finish you have to polish it yearly with a nice light wax. And it isn't very alcohol resistant so you don't want to spill many drinks on it. Looks and feels pretty amazing.

Edit- I realized I didn't specify the wax I was using. It is carnauba, but not 100%. I enjoy cooking and I burn through a couple of cutting boards every year. My gf's mom works for a place that makes/distributes essential oils/waxes/etc. So I have a giant playground of different materials to work with. I have two different waxes for my cutting boards - one is the carnauba wax and the other is a much lighter touch up wax I use about once a week. Here are my recipes, and they seem to work very very well. Keeps the cutting board sealed up pretty well through repeated abuse with knives and acidic veggies/fruits so I figure it will work well for the guitar. Not going to be slicing on them. Someday shredding hopefully...

Note that this has to be *pure* tung oil.

Initial wax: 1 part carnauba, 1 part beeswax. Grate them up seperately. In a double boiler, add the wax and just enough tung oil to almost cover. After everything is melted over gentle heat (no boiling the water and stir fairly constantly) seal it up and enjoy. (1)

Maintain wax: 1 part carnauba, 4 parts beeswax. Same thing, but I use food grade mineral oil rather than tung oil. This is just so I don't have to wait a week for the oil to cure. You can find it in the grocery store under "laxitives" (1)

polish: Note - *not* food safe. Great for furniture though. 1 part carnauba, 4 parts beeswax. Same process, but use turpentine or mineral spirits rather than oil and *do not* add them until after the wax is melted! Take that off the stove, allow to cool for a couple minutes and stir in about 1 part spirits. I prefer "odorless" mineral spirits and I'll add some essential oils (think "lemon furniture polish") I like sandalwood, the gf likes rose. (1)

(1) - The more beeswax you use, the shiner it will get with less effort but the softer the finish will be. With more beeswax it is also easier to just dip into and rub on. The more carnauba wax you use, the more durable it will be but it will be a little more difficult to put on. Heating a bit helps.

As long as I was working on the guitar, I did a round on our table since we are trying to sell it before the move. This is with the polish. Figured I'd take a pic since I'm sitting right here and it is a good example. Nice and shiny. If you buff it lightly, it is more semi-gloss. If you go for it, you can get it very shiny. It even fills in minor scratches like cat claw marks (little bastards). Speaking of which, excuse the cat hair.


I have yet to try this but I have a citrus based non-toxic all-natural solvent for cleaning bike parts that as I'm writing realize I could probably use for the polish, but I'm not sure if it would evaporate like the spirits. I may have to experiment. I can post some results if anyone is interested.

- end edit

As far as scale goes, this is 34" scale and from nut to 12th fret is spot on 17", so I'm guessing 17" from 12th fret to saddle is right. Just not sure if I set the neck first or the bridge first.

[wazkelly]

Hi Kenfu, treble side of things seems to usually have the saddles furthermost forwards with low E a bit further back. Thankfully these F style bridges have plenty of travel.

I would measure 34" from inside nut to top of G string saddle. Clamping neck is probably better way to go as you really need to run E & G strings so that you can see how neck is aligned within the pocket before you start thinking about screwing it in place. How the strings pass over the PUP's and spacing at this point is also highly important not just for appearances but also sound quality too.

I think this website/forum has a thread or tutorial on it somewhere. For my EX-5 I cheated a bit as there are a couple of P Bass styles kicking around and took multiple measurements off them as a starting reference point to eliminate much of the guesswork.

[kenfu]

Thanks waz. I had seen a couple of posts in my searches, and I saw a couple that said clamp first, and then there was the video in the "how to build" thread for Fitting the Bridge to a TL-1 and in it the neck was bolted before the bridge was placed. Then just now I was trying to find that post and I saw the "Sticky: Bridge placement on a bass" thread. How did I miss that?!?! Too many beers I guess. Or not enough. Whichever way, not the optimal amount of beer.

[Andy40]

Wow thanks Kenfu!