PBA-4 Second Build

[Sonic Mountain]

Fret slots should tip away from the leading edge towards the tuners ideally, so the nut should sit upright. Is the bottom of the slot angled or the bottom of the nut? Or is it just a bit sloppy in the slot? hard to tell from the pics. A thin shim of some kind behind it might help.

I have a piece of 3mm aluminum that I have glued sandpaper to the edge of with superglue and trimmed to that thickness. It's really useful for tidying up nut slots and getting the bottom flat and perpendicular to the sides. Just go easy and check frequently or you'll end up having to shim under the nut.

[JoelDee]

Hi Sonic, thanks for the advice.

Yeah given it's so small hard to get good pics and also even confirm by sight but the bottom of the nut slot is parallel with the fretboard, it's the bottom of the actual nut that is not parallel with the top of the nut.

I think per your and Simon's advice earlier on I will need to very gradually sand/file the nut slot to a slight angle.

[JoelDee]

Been a while since I posted on this build given moving and what not but it is finally complete and I'm really happy with how it turned out. It feels great and plays really well.

I was able to loosen the nut with a scalpel by working it slowly into the gaps and ends between the fret board and bottom of the nut. I lightly sanded the glue away and levelled the nut slot out and attached the bone nut with no issues.

I probably added close to 8 or 9 coats of clear coat (SCA), gave it a light wet sand a final coat. I find this product easy to work with and have had no issues with adding to many coats ( another product i used never seemed to actually fully cure/harden). It just required leaving longer and longer time between each coat. The safe rule seems to be if it still smells of the clear coat it's not fully set. I really like the wood grain on the body so have not tried for a super flat or polished finish. And as for the neck, 5 or 6 coats of tru oil with some 0000 steel wool in the middle was enough given how great the grain on the neck is.

I upgraded the bridge and tuners to Gotoh which are really well made and feel nice a solid. Getting the scale length right and bridge positioning right was a struggle. I had to move it further back and reposition it after my initial attempt. There are a lot of videos on the length to go for but I just couldn't get it right at first.

I kept the other hardware as supplied - i just replaced what wiring i could to a better quality wire and replaced the cap with an orange drop I had spare from a previous build.

By good luck or good design, i had very little work to do getting the intonation right.

It's my first bass (owned or built) so as far as I can tell it plays and sounds great.

[dozymuppet]

Very nice. I'm not a huge fan of the burst look, but that's turned out great.

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