Another scratch build.

[Stuart D]

Spent a very pleasant (and rather warm) day in and out of the workshop with some sunbathing today. Yes it's the UK!!!

Measured and drilled and glued in the fretboard markers. Then banged in the frets, trimmed the edges, filed them, drizzled some superglue down the frets and filled the fretholes.



Fretboard levelling tomorrow which everyone is familiar with, along with some shaping of the nut end, cutting the nut slot and installing it, opening the truss rod access hole etc. Then other than tuner holes (to be delivered), I'm pretty much there for this neck.

Turning my attention back to the body. I've bought a Tone Rider P bass pickup. I've no idea what they are like, this was purely on someone else's recommendation. However it wasn't expensive, so it's not an issue to swap it out for a Seymour Duncan 1/4 pounder if it's crap. But I need to make a template to rout out the slot, so that's the next task.

[bassdude]

Looking good, Stu! I can see a glimpse of the body there, too ...

Peter

[Trevor Davies]

+ 1 for great looking fretboard, and neck.

[Stuart D]

Yet another long gap, but had some time to make some progress on this now.

Firstly, I decided to press ahead with the second neck, just to get it to a similar stage to the first. Same procedures really. Glue the fretboard on...



Trim it, radius it, measure and cut slots...



... Bang the frets in



... snip the ends, file, shape the neck etc



I haven't levelled the frets. I plan to apply lacquer to the neck and fretboard at some point, so I've read it's better to do this after the lacquer has been applied. The end will need cutting off (it was v.useful for clamping purposes, I shall do that again in the future).

So I now have pretty much two necks ready.

[Simon Barden]

Nice work.

You'll need to scrape the lacquer off the frets and sand the lacquer back anyway, so you'll certainly need to repolish the frets after doing that, so you might as well wait to do the fret levelling and just go through the polishing process once.

I'm not even attempting to do anything guitar-wise at the moment, it's just too hot. Over 36°C on my patio in the shade yesterday (a couple of degrees warmer than true shade temperature due to it being south-west facing and the house and slabs absorbing heat and warming the air up more locally). Should get much better tomorrow though, back to mid-20s and having now having a chance to acclimatise, should be pleasant to work in.

[Stuart D]

Turning attention back to the actual guitar now. Got the tuners and bridge delivered so I drilled the holes for the tuners.



Now time to cut the neck pocket. I don't have a template as it's a non standard neck, so it's a case of clamping the neck in position and then using the superglue/masking tape method, butt up some straight edges and a shaped infill at the heel. Two layers of masking tape round the edge makes it a reasonably tight fit.



Drilled out with a Forstner bit and then routed the rest and seemed to go ok as I ended up with a .... reasonably tight fit!

Now time to do the pickup hole. The P bass pickup is an awkward shape. Fortunately the Pitbull P bass I did two years ago has a pickguard so I took that off and used that to make a template. That made it much easier!



Routers don't square off (obviously) so a little chiselling was required and I ended up with this.



Little bit of sanding to straighten it all up and we end up with a bass!!



I couldn't use the rear cavity template I made last time as it encroaches on the laminate and that would have been really awkward to make a cover. So I had to make two new ones (one for the outer cover and the other for the inner cavity).



And that's pretty much where we are. There was a little bit to trim off the neck which I've done and the holes for the pickup and ground wires that I've done also. Some filling of cracks here and there, tidying up the neck pocket and some general other tidying up. Then there is a bucket of sanding to do (it's a little warm for that at the moment), drill the bridge holes then it's grain filler time and finishing.

I will admit that I haven't decided how to finish it. I don't have spraying equipment (yet), so that means it's a rattle can of lacquer type substance or similar. I don't know how good a finish you can get with them?

Or wipe on poly which I've done both times before. Would be nice to try a different technique though...

Or something like Tru oil, which again I have no experience of. I want to keep the natural wood colour and I don't really want to dye or tint it other than what the finish does to it. I'm just doing some searches on the forum for Tru oil finishes and sizing them up.

[Stuart D]

Nice work.

You'll need to scrape the lacquer off the frets and sand the lacquer back anyway, so you'll certainly need to repolish the frets after doing that, so you might as well wait to do the fret levelling and just go through the polishing process once.

I'm not even attempting to do anything guitar-wise at the moment, it's just too hot. Over 36°C on my patio in the shade yesterday (a couple of degrees warmer than true shade temperature due to it being south-west facing and the house and slabs absorbing heat and warming the air up more locally). Should get much better tomorrow though, back to mid-20s and having now having a chance to acclimatise, should be pleasant to work in.

Yes I was going to do some stuff today, but it is just too warm. Similar sort of temperatures to you (I'm Epsom which isn''t miles away from you) so it's a case of .... errr.... chilling! (Or whatever the appropriate phrase is!)

[Simon Barden]

Patio temperature has just hit 40°C in the shade, so I've got myself a large G&T and am relaxing.

Rattle can lacquer can be fine. Nitro paint can get a bit spluttery at times, and you get what you get in terms of how much it's thinned down and so how well you can get a nice level layer of paint. The thicker it is, the more if follows the surface contours. Nitro lacquer tends to be thinner, and I've often used tins of it when I couldn't be bothered to get the spray gun out for just a small bit like a headstock.

But if you go that route, I'd suggest using Shellac as a sealer/filler first. Rothco and Frost now do it in a spray can, and that worked well on my Tele body I'm working on. Easy to sand and I got a nice flat surface to spray onto (starting out on some mahogany-type wood that I didn't grain fill).

Have you checked that the bridge string spacing works with the neck? It's hard to tell from the photos, but it looks like the strings may run over the edges of the neck (or very very close to). Though that could all be an optical illusion caused by the body stripes.

I managed to get a 1/8" router bit with a profile following bearing (limited use bit due to wear and no bearings fitted to the follower ring - but I won't use it very often) which I used to rout out the pocket corners for my soapbar bass pickups on the Harley Benton bass I built. Not square, but as close to it as you are ever going to need and looks very neat. I'd give you a link, but I can't find it again!

[Stuart D]

If you do find it then do let me know, I'd be interested.

I did briefly when I was measuring the nut spacing, but now you've mentioned it I'm going to set it up and check!

[Simon Barden]

Obviously other bridges are available. I liked the Hipshot Kickass 4 bridge I put on the Harley Benton kit due to its adjustable saddle spacing. Just £60 from https://www.bassdirect.co.uk/bass_gu...e_bridges.html

The Schaller 3D bridge is another nice one with adjustable saddle spacing.

And if the strings do need to come in a bit and then look funny on the pickup polepiece spacing, you could always get some solid black covers to fit on them so you can't see the pole pieces. Sonically, they should be fine.