Bare bones no upgrades PBG build. Maybe?

[ozzbike]

I have to say that this was a quick and rewarding build. Very minimal changes have been made.....there are a couple I may do....the jack socket for one.

The plastic nut is okay.....the neck itself is a very "C" shape...and is a little too fat for my small hands. I think the more "D" shape is for me....the flatter back of the neck. I wonder if I can shave some off the back of the neck and keep the strength of it...and not go too far into the truss rod area.

I love the body.....magic Ash grain for the win yet again.

The pickups have a very low output.....seriously low....in Rocksmith 2014 Remastered I had to manually put in a setting for the gain on the lead to the guitar. The internal calibration would not pick it up at all. After I had used and played a song or three I could then internally calibrate and it worked.

Through my amp it has a really meaty fat string sound....the thin strings are very tiny and even jacked way up.....bridge string height adjustment...the metal sounds still remain.

I have managed to get the Bridge Tone knob mod to work.....but the Neck Tone knob makes no difference...even in tonality....sounds like a crap soldering effort from me. I think I may re do that one again.

Changes:- (I would normally have made.)

1. Tusq or Graphite nut.

2. Wilkinson of better Bridge with individual saddles and adjustments.

3. Due to control cavity size....need mini pots....so either four x Brauns or four x CTS mini pots.

4. I have changed to Orange capacitors.

5. A set of Black dome metal tele knobs with worm screw locks.

6. Maybe a set of modern style Gotoh tuning machines.

7. A set of Black strap lock pins for the body....too beautiful to drop on the floor.

Overall:-

Easy kit to build.....lovely finish and very lightweight bass is the outcome. It sounds amazing on my Roland 120XL....I can only imagine how it would sound in big PA bins.

Final clean and fix electronics to come....then some assembled piccies.

Number 33 is alive and has a big bass bite.

[ozzbike]

Today I gave this one a wipe down and the neck a coat of wax and a hand rub.

Things I did change from the kit....

1. The capacitors from kit to Orange Drop.
2. The wiring diagram....I used weirdys great idea....thanks mate.
3. The wire in the control cavity from the plastic coated stuff to cloth covered push back vintage wire.
4. Attempted recessing of the rear control cavity cover.
5. One business card segment under the heel of the neck to give some travel on the bridge saddles. Worked great.
6. Sanding/grinding paint off under the bridge and in the string holes to create connectivity. This I will check on all of my guitars now. I also secured the under bridge ground wire with a piece of two side conductive copper tape, and ran a small strip opposite this wire of the same tape under the underside of the bridge. Multi meter gives a big thumbs up.
7. Soldering a wire to one of the pots and then to the copper tape inside the control cavity.
8. The back of the neck and body joint was rasped filed and sanded down to meet closer to the neck pocket.

Things I may change:-

1. The jack socket. The kit one makes a lot of noise....still. I swapped it out this morning for a normal switchcraft jack socket and quiet as a mouse. This is the worst thing about this whole build.

2. The plastic nut. It was over 60 thousandths of an inch too tall....lots of filing to get the nut slots down.

3. The pots....or the nature of the control cavity. The pot holes are recessed and the radius used for this is too small. I have tape under and on the lugs of the pots to stop them contacting the control cavity copper tape I fitted. So it is either a grinding with my dremel or trying a different style....perhaps longer shaft...pots.

4. The tuning machines. The kit ones are the normal mix of good and bag...none are great...but they work. The strings appear to have settled and it does hold tune over night now.

5. The pickups. They are fine...but really low output. I have to crank my amp a little to get the same level of sound as my other pickups. (Strangely enough they work fine in their routes without having to resort to dremel work. The bridge height and the nut height are enough to allow the pickups to have the connecting wires pass through underneath without issue. They are 2.5mm from the G string and 3 mm from the E string.)

6. The depth of the neck. I find the neck a little too chunky for me. My perfect neck is the neck on my Yamaha TRBX 304. I have the candy red one of these.

https://au.yamaha.com/en/products/mu...l#product-tabs

It is thin across the nut...like a Jazz Bass...and is not deep...in fact it is nearly flat at the back and you can feel a distinct end to both curves on the side of the neck. A very flat D shape. My little fingers can find their way across the fretboard without issue. (I do wonder if I could copy this neck profile with one of those needle style gauges and try and rasp/file/sand that into this one...mmm)

Conclusion:-

What a great kit. I love how light the body is.....if you made some of the changes above I believe you could gig for hours with this little girl.

The neck is 24 fret and I am having to learn where the 12th fret etc is....not a huge issues...just retraining my left arm from the fender style neck lengths.

The body is yet another beautiful grain filled Ash wonder. The neck is actually a rosewood fingerboard with nice feel and grain in itself. The neck is a strong construction and I don't think any twisting etc is on the radar here. The headstock is pre cut into a very "I" styled shape...which I don't mind. The neck pocket was an amazing fit and it does not detract from the overall finish of the kit at all.

The soldering can be a challenge due to the suspect jack socket and the nature of the recessed pot mounting holes. But once complete the pots are smooth in their cycle and the tones from the kit pickups are really clean. Just a little low in output.

I like this kit and would highly recommend it to anybody. Honestly, this is a working guitar and could be used day to day to make a living.

[ozzbike]

Here are four more....with three to come...

[ozzbike]

The last entry from me on this build...the last three piccies.

[Sonic Mountain]

Nice clean build man.

[ozzbike]

Nice clean build man.

Thanks mate.

Honestly, it was one of the more enjoyable builds, and I like the end result. It plays very well.

[DarkMark]

Nice one Ozzbike. If I build a bass one day I might have to give this kit consideration.

[wazkelly]

Looks great Ozzie.

If you can raise the pups a wee bit that should improve output.

They are the same ones that came with hardware on my EX5. Resistance specs are quite strong but didn't translate to high output. Emg makes an affordable passive soap bar that fits the cavity but reckon if you can raise pups a fraction that might be good enough.

Cheers, Waz

Sent from my SM-A520F using Tapatalk

[Simon Barden]

High DCR can just mean that they used thin wire, maybe AWG44, rather than the more standard AWG42. The pickups aren't that wide, so the two coils within are going to be quite thin, so using thinner wire makes sense here. Resistance per unit length goes up by about 25% for each next smaller gauge of wire, so AWG44 wired pickups will have roughly 56% more resistance for the same number of turns compared to AWG42 wired pickups.

Output also depends on magnet type/gauss level and distance from the strings. It's difficult to tell with fully potted pickups how close the tops of the coils are to the top of the pickup itself.

[WeirdBits]

And maybe the strings too. Cheaper strings with questionable metals compared to quality strings could also potentially factor into the volume equation.