Harley Benton Jazz Bass kit build

[Simon Barden]

I got the spray gun out. And I did walk away for a while because I washed the body down with water to remove the sanding residue so had to let it dry off fully after wiping it down. But the body was resting in the sun before it got sprayed and I started to get a few small bubbles appear in the paint before I sprayed. After a couple of weeks of really overcast days with mid-winter levels of light, the sun came out and it was at leat 32°C in the shade in the back garden. I pressed the bubbles down and sprayed 3 more coats on the back (the front was fine). So it's back hanging up in the garage.

[McCreed]

Fingers crossed!

[Simon Barden]

Should have crossed them harder!

The front wasn't as fine as I'd thought, as a section had a rippled finish from some kitchen towel I'd used to rest the front on (on wooden blocks) when spraying the rear. When I discovered this (after a week of it hanging) i sanded it down, but this then exposed the lighter paint so I got a flat but patchy area. And there were a few small paint bubble holes on the rear.

So I touched those up with a paintbrush, left it another week and had ago at sanding those areas down yesterday. Back was fine, but the front still showed ripples and then a slight 'tide mark' around the sanding area where I'd gone down a paint layer.

This paint is very changeable in colour depending on how much of the white settles out and then gets re-included when mixing, despite a jolly good stir beforehand.

So out came the spray gun and more coats went on yesterday. It was a great day for spraying, about 22°C and still, so I applied 4 good coats, which will now dry for a week before I do another initial sand and hopefully it sands OK, after which it will be left for another couple of weeks before final sanding and polishing. It's got far more coats on that I like, so I'm hoping it dries OK, as it has been quite a while since the first new coats went on and it's had a lot of sanding back flat in the meantime.

[McCreed]

Man, this one has been a bugger!

It was a great day for spraying, about 22°C and still...

I'd call that perfect!
Hopefully the next sanding session goes without incident.

[Simon Barden]

It certainly has been bloody awkward! I expected this one to be plain sailing.

[Simon Barden]

And finally!

Sanded it down with P600 today (10 days after the last spray). No sand-throughs, no slightly different paint layers showing.



There are a couple of very tiny pinpricks on a bottom edge, which can stay as they won't be seen. Also small dimple on the top; but that will sit beneath the bridge so I won't be doing anything about that (I'm mystified as to where it came from though).

I could definitely still smell paint/solvent when I was sanding, so I'll definitely leave it to hang for a couple of weeks before finer sanding and then polishing.

[McCreed]

Well that must be a relief!

It would have been hard to read about another sand-through, or blister, or one of the 1000 things that can go wrong with our pursuit of a nice finish!

Look forward to seeing it all shiny next time

[dozymuppet]

The excitement is building...

Sent from my Pixel 4 using Tapatalk

[Simon Barden]

The excitement is building...

Badum-tish!

[Simon Barden]

Well, after a long spell of doing nothing build-wise, the weather improved enough over the Easter holidays to work outside and make the scratchplate and rout out the neck pup body cavity a bit (as the scratchplate pickup hole and the body rout didn't quite match up). I was very happy with the pickup routing in the body and scratchplate as it gave just a very small gap around the sides.

At least the long wait period allowed the paint to harden nicely and take a good shine.

Here's the result:





Controls are:
Stacked master volume and master tone.
Pickup blend pot
Neck pickup parallel/Series/Single coil rotary selector switch
Bridge pickup parallel/Series/Single coil rotary selector switch

Seymour Duncan NYC pickups.
Hipshot ultralight tuners plus a Hipshot Xtender (for a drop D via a lever) on the E string.
Hipshot Kickass Bridge (the adjustable saddle positions really helped top set up the string spacing nicely).
Hipshot string tree.

Cavities are shielded with a mixture of conductive paint for the body and copper foil on the underside of the pickguard.

The pickups give a nice variety of sounds. Thick but not to powerful in series mode, a bit brighter in parallel and very much a standard jazz bass sound in single coil mode. And there's not a huge change in volume level when switching between the modes, which is nice. There is a slight difference in levels, but not enough to make you want to reach for the amp volume knob.