I think that will come up nicely with the Tru Oil. How many coats are you planning?
Ok, so, sorry for this next question... but I can never help myself looking at stuff in the background of peoples guitar photos!
What is the thing behind the body that appears to be made with copper pipe? Is part of a hot water system or something?
I don't know, maybe I have some kind voyeurism disorder.
Making the world a better place; one guitar at a time...
Ah! gotcha! Now I will starting planting all sort of strange & random objects in the background to mess up with you !!
It's a DYI made camping boiler that belongs to a friend, temporarily stored in my garage...
After about 6 or 7 TO applications I started sanding from 240, re-applied TO, sanded to 320, and so on to 2000. The last 5 or 6 coats were diluted (50:50 TO and turps).
When I got to 600 i thought "well this is very nice! what higher grit could possibly do?". I got to 2000, and I'm glad I did! it feels great! I am 100% happy the way the neck and body feels, the neck in particular.
The timber aspect of the build is basically done, I am now doing some tests with some pick guard options and will move soon to laying the copper tape. The electronics are all pre assembled in this kit.
Will then put it all together for a test run for a week or so using an old set of Daddario strings (the strings I want to use on this build have not arrived yet), and will mark the side dots in the "fretless" position.
Then will take it apart to drill to side dots, finalise the pick guard and a couple of details.
PS: the bridge screws in this kit are VERY bad!
I have predrilled the holes, used soap on each screw before screwing by hand, and 3 out of 7 screws bent! Luckily I was able to screw them out without breaking them... an of the 4 remaining screws, 2 of the heads are already in a very bad state, although I was screwing very slowly, by hand... will replace all 7 screws very soon.
Anyway this is where I am at in terms of timber and finish:
The fretboard looks actually less dark than that, the photo below shows it better (lemon oil already applied)
back
Last edited by FaustoB; 16-10-2021 at 08:48 PM.
That's looking very elegant indeed.
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Kit builds: JBA-4M | STA-1M | AIB-1Q | TL-1 (in progress)
Side projects: Artist TC59 | Sheoak Dreaming | Spalted Marri Metal | Randy Vs | Sassafrassin' | St. Vincent
Hah! That could be fun! Like "Where's Wally?" but "Where's Fausto?"Originally Posted by FaustoB
Ah! gotcha! Now I will starting planting all sort of strange & random objects in the background to mess up with you !!
It's a DYI made camping boiler that belongs to a friend, temporarily stored in my garage...
I was kind of close with the water and heat part anyway!
Oh, and the bass is looking good too!
Making the world a better place; one guitar at a time...
The guitar is looking good.
"When I got to 600 i thought "well this is very nice! what higher grit could possibly do?". I got to 2000, and I'm glad I did! it feels great! I am 100% happy the way the neck and body feels, the neck in particular." This is great.
PitBull Builds: FVB-4, LP-1SS, FBM-1, AG-2, TB-4, SSCM-1, TLA-1, TL-1TB, STA-1HT, DSCM-1 Truckster, ST-1, STA-1, MBM-1.
Scratch Builds: Pine Explorer, Axe Bass, Mr Scary, Scratchy Tele's.
The little voices in my head keep telling me "build more guitars"
Thanks for the encouraging comments!
Over the weekend I've put it all together. Realised that my old set of Daddario strings were cut for a different bass, so I had to use the strings coming with the kit and I must say that this time around I am surprised how good they sound!
On my first build the strings provided with the kit where almost unusable, way too bright (like.. waaay too bright) and unpleasantly "dry" (dry in the sense that they felt like sand paper under the fingertips) with the E strings being completely dead with no volume in it, to the point where initially I thought that I've messed up some pups wiring or something... the wiring and pups were fine the moment I swapped set of strings.
On this kit the bridge screws were pretty bad, but the strings are pretty good!
Anyway, the bass after an initial rough test sounds very good! I need to do a proper set up (neck, action etc..) but the tone is very interesting, smooth, and I like the simplicity of the 2 knobs, volume and tone...
I am happy with the rounded cut on the neck pocket.. I am by no means a virtuoso, but I always felt very unergonomic that the palm of my left hand could hit that flat part of the body... I always found it very distracting for my playing, and unpleasant. With the rounded cut, the palm of my hand never hits the body, I can reach notes up high, without ever touching the body of the bass guitar.
This is particularly important on this build because I intentionally set the bridge a fraction shorter, like a 34" scale minus few mm, in order to gain an "extra fret".
Traditionally Fender Precision & Jazz have 20 frets, but there's in fact a fair bit of fretboard after that 20th fret.
On a fretless neck I just needed a few more mm, enough to have a "21st fret" there, just enough space to press down with my fingers comfortably to make that note happening.
In other words I have a higher E on the G string, which is a note that I really like to have. (and a high B on the D string an so on, but these are less important somehow because I can get them somewhere else on the fretboard).
I guess this is one of the benefits of building a fretless, I will have to re-drill the side dots anyway, I might as well turn this into my favour I thought!
Last edited by FaustoB; 18-10-2021 at 06:35 PM.
So, almost a medium scale fretless. Nice thinking.
Correct, but much closer to a full scale 34".
The scale of this instrument is 85.7cm, +/- equal to 33.74", just enough to have that high E note comfortable, instead of being 86.36cm for a classic 34" bass.
The difference in scale length is unnoticeable by naked eye or when playing
Last edited by FaustoB; 19-10-2021 at 07:39 AM.
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