No. 35 is alive...and ordered.

[ozzbike]

I have taken the plunge and ordered number 35 today. I have ordered the bass kit with the only upgrade being a bone nut.

https://www.pitbullguitars.com/shop/...-guitar-kit-2/

The Tele Bass kit.

I am going to try and make it like this one here....a Squier.

https://shop.fender.com/en-AU/squier...325202506.html

I have seen two things so far that may challenge me.

1. The yellow colour of the neck...I have not scored well on this in the past.

2. The Squier has a unique wiring setup on the 3 way switch plate. It will be fun getting same or similar tones as they get.

Plan...Spray can Black gloss paint body.....yellow translucent stain on the neck....with some sort of clear over the top...Tru Oil or polyurethane....or spray can clear I don't know.

The Squier has a classic/vintage style bridge. I may have to source one of these.

Order is in....and now some painting learning and buying of stuff to do it.

[McCreed]

Look forward to seeing what you come up with. You've certainly had "good luck" with your prior finishes.

[ozzbike]

Thanks McCreed, but I don't have that confidence. I have done one previous guitar with spray paint and it did not go well.

I have been chasing a couple of things online today. I found a wiring diagram that other T Bass builders have used....an Esquire wiring pattern. This appears to use the three position switch. But it needs a single resistor....that is fun to find. Also it uses 2 x 0.050uf caps and a standard 0.047uf cap. Are the 0.05uf caps different, and where am I going to find them? The resistor on the diagram is a 3.3k ohm resistor....I can find one that is rated for 1 watt....but no voltage details....and it is blue and not a cream/yellow colour. I enjoy wiring but serious electronics is beyond my skills.

Also the bridge I can find on E-bay...for a Squier apparently....but it is a string through design only.

The piccy above (in my first post) has a two brass shared saddle design, but with a back end on the bridge for a string from the back of the bridge design.

I may have to just use the Chrome with Brass four saddles Wilkinson Bridge I like.

I think it is time for some YouTube clips on using spray cans to paint a guitar.

I would like.....a gloss sealed body. A clear poly...or perhaps my normal oil/wax finish over a coloured translucent amber/yellow neck and fingerboard.

Body:-

(The plan in my head and the questions I hope I can answer from you guys and YouTube....thank you if I can pick your brains.)

The kit write up says the body is Basswood....so the figure is not something I will really need to keep to come through my normal colour and oil/wax finish.

I want to smooth it out.....fill the pores....probably prime the body. Then a base coat of BLACK...maybe three coats of that...then three coats or so of a nice gloss top coat.

Sanding is no chore for me....I enjoy the calm it brings me. But, I normally stop at 240 and then it is steel wool and oil and then wax. So with this do I pore fill at 180 grit...then sand the timbermate off at 240, and then keep going through the grits? When do I look at primer...how many coats...do I sand it...wet or dry...to what grit...600? The a base coat of Black...is it better to use a flat black or a gloss black, as I would intend to use a clear gloss top coat? How many coats of that black? Do I sand between each or after so many? Wet or Dry...what grade say 800?

Oh and the big one...what paint do I use...lacquer...enamel...acrylic?

Then how many clear coats? I know it will need to be sanded as high as I can go. I have the little foam squares guitar sanding kit from the sandpaper man that goes to about 3000 grit I think.

Final step would be auto polish and then wax.

(I wonder how hard and tough are the 2K cans of clear to use?)

The Neck:-

I have some yellow water based stain from U-Beaut and some Amber colortone stain from Stewmac. I like the finish Tru Oil gives, and I like the gloss result you can get with it. But, I don't know how a fretboard in Tru-Oil will last. I suppose no worse than the maple boards I have here now finished in just oil/wax. They seem okay.

I think I will try the yellow stain as Tru Oil puts its own amber tone over things...amber over amber will just be brown.

I have some Fender headstocks (templates) and I will have to have a look if they include a T bass....or maybe I will have to stretch a six string guitar one.

Off to YouTube time.

[jugglindan]

I have been chasing a couple of things online today. I found a wiring diagram that other T Bass builders have used....an Esquire wiring pattern. This appears to use the three position switch. But it needs a single resistor....that is fun to find. Also it uses 2 x 0.050uf caps and a standard 0.047uf cap. Are the 0.05uf caps different, and where am I going to find them? The resistor on the diagram is a 3.3k ohm resistor....I can find one that is rated for 1 watt....but no voltage details....and it is blue and not a cream/yellow colour. I enjoy wiring but serious electronics is beyond my skills.

You can get resistors and caps for guitars from a few places in Australia. Jaycar will have them if there is a store near you. They also sell online but it's a minimum $8 postage which kills small orders. DIY Guitar Pedals have reasonable postage rates and they stock a good range of resistor and capacitor values/types.
Edit: There is of course Real Parts. I am not sure of their postage rates.

The blue resistor (metal film) is actually better than the cream/yellow ones (carbon film) in many respects. It's a different composition which has more accurate values. I always use metal film in my pedal builds.

The 0.05uF caps are different amount of capacitance, but if the circuit definitely has 0.047 and 0.050 uF caps, then they are effectively the same value. This is because the difference is a bit over 6% from the 0.047 to the 0.050, and standard caps can have 10 to 20% variation in values. You might get some small changes in the tone response depending on which values you use.

Finally 1 watt is quite high for a resistor. The smallest tend to be 1/4 watt which should be more than enough in a guitar. You wouldn't get anywhere near 1 watt. There is no harm in using a 1 watt resistor if you like the larger size, but it's not required electrically.

I hope that helps a bit.

[JohnH]

I didn't think the wattage rating of a resistor should matter in a guitar, as it's the maximum the component can handle (and a guitar pickup shouldn't be putting out anything like one watt?). Resistors come in lots of different colours, so the Ohm rating is what you want to check.

As for the 0.05uF, I'm curious to hear what others have to say. I understood that cap tolerances could be out by 10 or even 20%, which would mean a 0.047uF is likely to work just as well?

Otherwise, they definitely exist: https://www.guitaraust.com.au/body/e...er-0-05uf.html (although these are huge)

[jugglindan]

Regarding painting a basswood body with a solid colour, there is a fairly good description from Sonic on the first page of my build diary.

I ended up using SCA filler-primer, Duplicolor metallic blue, and SCA clear. All automotive acrylic lacquers. I have been distracted by getting the neck done, so my tele body is now at the 6 week mark since spraying the clear coat and I haven't polished yet. Might try to get to it next weekend.

[jugglindan]

I didn't think the wattage rating of a resistor should matter in a guitar, as it's the maximum the component can handle (and a guitar pickup shouldn't be putting out anything like one watt?). Resistors come in lots of different colours, so the Ohm rating is what you want to check.

As for the 0.05uF, I'm curious to hear what others have to say. I understood that cap tolerances could be out by 10 or even 20%, which would mean a 0.047uF is likely to work just as well?

Otherwise, they definitely exist: https://www.guitaraust.com.au/body/e...er-0-05uf.html (although these are huge)

Personally, I don't think that 0.05 is going to make any practical difference to 0.047 given the large tolerance on most caps. Even if you had very high precision caps (<5% tolerance) the difference in the frequency filter is not going to be that much anyway. I am assuming the diagram is for a standard tone control and a treble-bleed mod.

[McCreed]

jugglindan is way more knowledgeable than me in the electronics end of things (and everything he explained is pretty much the extent of my knowledge ) but exactly what I would have said. So you got that covered.

The only I'll add is about the hardware. IMO you're better off with the Wilkinson bridge because when it come to intonation, 4 individual saddles is going to more accurate than a 2 x 2.
The 3 x 2 saddles on Tele 6 strings has always been my least favourite thing about them. I know purists will say "blah-blah-blah, etc-etc" and I know tricks to get them well intonated, but really? Why?
Enough of my rant...

As for painting, phrozin is the man!
There's lots more info in the forum, but here's a good start:

Scroll down to #33

[Simon Barden]

Not a treble bleed, but a fixed tone roll-off. It's going to be pretty bassy, so you may want to try some smaller value capacitors. remember that the Esquire circuit was trying to replicate a bass guitar in the third position, so almost all the treble is rolled off. The tone control is disconnected, but you get the normal tone capacitor and the position 3 tone capacitor wired in series with an other 0.05/0.047uF capacitor and a 3.3k resistor. As the caps are the same basic value, that halves the overall capacitance value, so it's like a tone control with a 0.025uF capacitor but with the tone pot turned almost all the way down, with only 3.3k resistance in circuit between it and the output signal. Compare that 3.3k to the normal 250k when the tone control is in circuit and up fully, and you can see how bassy the sound is going to be. As you are starting off with a bass sound, not a guitar, you may loose far too much definition with those values, and a march larger value resistor may be better here.

Position 1 will give you a brighter tone than normal with a volume control and no tone control in circuit, position 2 your normal volume and tone control and 3 your volume but that fixed really bassy sound. Position 3 sounded really bad on the Esquire (I rewired a Tele that had vintage wiring similar to the Eqsuire and that position was pure mud). So you may want to ditch the extra capacitor and just keep the resistor there, but chose a value that suits you. You could hold off getting that resistor and first try out selecting a tone control position that you think useable, measure the pot value at that setting, and get a similar resistor value.

Or even fit a mini 250k pot inside the cavity wired in the resistor position, so you can pre-set but still be able to adjust the fixed tone.

[jugglindan]

I didn't realise the Esquire wiring was so complex. If it was me I would just use position 2 and adjust tone as needed.