That's valid point, but I have to ask, what if someone doesn't want a pickguard?For the body ding - Since it will be hidden by the pick guard I would simply fill with putty, sand and hide!
That's why I don't understand the kits that have pre-drilled pickguard holes. Especially if there may be other alignment issues that will likely effect the pickguard positioning.
I still think a customer should be left with the option of choice rather than dictated to by defects. Just MO.
Making the world a better place; one guitar at a time...
+1 , I do agree with this also.Originally Posted by McCreed
Maybe I should have stated "if it is going to to be hidden by the pickguard..."
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"
Imo once machining/shaping started and that knot was exposed the body should have gone in the bin. At the very most sell it as a second where customers get to see the product and decide if they want it or not.
Personally, I don't mind a bit of character on a guitar, but I'd be pretty pissed if I bought a kit and that turned up.
McCreed,
Thank you for your input. I will forward the pics to PB just so they can see the quality coming out of the factory. I should have remembered the CA glue tip from my model building days. Thanks for reminding me! I also agree 100% that I should not have to decide how it is finished based on how crappy the wood is. I am not totally bummed out about it as it is not a total POS. I have to be honest with myself and I understood before I purchased this kit that it would not wind up being anything near what a $1700 Fender P-bass is, nor could it rival anything built from a raw block of wood hand selected for it's character and grain. I have been watching a LARGE number of videos of various finishing products, techiques, ect form various youtube channels. ( I still want to make some T-shirts that say "I received my education from YouTube"). I hade three "ideas" (clear, stain, or paint. What else is there really?) in mind for a finish, all depending and what I think I could accomplish and be satisfied with as a first build with the skills that I have and the knowledge I could tap into on Youtube and THIS FORUM. The help from the forum is the unknown ( since I know some musicians can be a finicky lot! LOL) GEM that I am about to discover. Thank you for your advice and opinion!
The good thing about this forum is that in general, a lot of the guys giving advice are fairly old, and know enough to distinguish opinion from fact. There are so many ways you can do a guitar finish that there's no point arguing which one is best and which ones suck. If you want to do a certain type of finish we can probably warn you if it's unlikely to work, but as long as it's a viable method, then we'll try and help you to achieve the best finish you can.
My own personal expectations on body finishing differers slightly from others here in that unless you are really lucky with the body wood, I'd always expect to do a solid colour on basswood body. If I wanted a clear or sunburst finish, then I'd be looking at an ash body. I'd always let the body determine the finish, rather than chose the finish first and then try and make it work with the body, especially on these low-price kits.
Saying that, the knot should have made that kit a second as you don't have too much of a choice. You could still do a sprayed sunburst, as the solid colour on the edges will hide the knot and any remedial work to fill it, but a solid colour would be easiest.
If you haven't steamed out dents before, I find it easiest to do with a soldering iron and a damp cotton rag. Wet the cotton enough so it feels damp, but not soaking wet. I normally fold a piece of cotton material in two, lay it over the dent and apply a soldering iron to the cotton above the area for maybe 5-8 seconds, then remove the iron and the rag. Dampen the cotton rag again and repeat until the dent has either gone or it's not getting any shallower.
As water swells the wood, you want to try and keep that cloth damp, but not really wet. You can also use a clothes iron, but for small areas, I find a soldering iron is much better as you don't get steam everywhere with a lot more body wood swelling up from the steam. With a soldering iron you can be much more precise in where the steam is applied.
I've pulled out some pretty big dents in guitar bodies and necks just using steam.
Trevor, Thanks for your input! I see you have a number of builds under your belt! No problem on the body ding as you mentioned, the pickguard will cover it. The CA trick, I had used long ago when I flew small airplanes for a hobby, I stress a LONG time ago. I am not disappointed in the kit for the amount of money I spent, it is in usable condition and certainly will probably suffer more after I get done with it as a first build! LOL. I tend to learn from mistakes, eventually. I just sometimes need multiple lessons on the same subject! I would rather listen to the advice this forum can provide and not have to learn the hard way. I agree that personal taste would definitely impact the 'feeling' the wood gives and the character of the wood whether it is straight grain, or knot. (pun intended) I had three, or rather two ideas in mind, both are ok with me, depending on how the body looked upon arrival. #1 a traditional sunburst found on the Fender P-basses. #2 A sky blue metallic painted finish. The first maybe still possible and I will decide after a good bit of finishing. Thank you for you opinion and advice.
Last edited by PB4ME; 26-01-2022 at 07:23 PM.
I have to admit, I was a little bummed out when I saw the joinery on the 4 piece body, and that knot. But I understand for the money it is one of the low end kits and I knew it would not be perfect. I am totally shocked it made it here without any shipping damage. I can't get a package shipped a state away from me usually with it being crushed or with a hole in it. (UPS are ya listening!) I frustratingly tell my wife they(UPS) must play football with the packages while loading the trucks. I was thinking a traditional sunburst or a painted body anyway. I should be able to get the body smoothed out and the black edging of the sunburst should hide the knot, mostly, I hope. The dent in the neck is the biggest thing that I see that I have to deal with. I have never used the steam technique to remove dents. ( I have built some furniture as a hobby). Being that it is near the glue joint and on the bottom of the neck where your hand can feel it, It has to be dealt with one way or another. This will test my patience and skills. Thank you for your opinion.
Simon, Thank you for the help and opinion. I have built a few pieces of furniture in the past and I believe the wood should "speak" to you as to the finish. I Would like to ask you to explain why you stated that you would look for a ash body to stain and a basswood would be better painted. Just curious on your thoughts there. Like I had stated in some of the other replies, I had no real expectations on the wood quality, I knew it would have some flaws. I did want the general consensus here of the forum group as to whether this particular quality is par for the course in these kits or worse than average as I have zero experience in this type endeavor. Whether or not certain people would accept this or chunk it is of a personal thing. I was thinking the same as you, the knot can be filled and sanded and then the dark band of the sunburst would hide it enough to be acceptable to me. I would not mind a sky-blue metallic paint job either which might be easier than the sunburst for a beginner like me. In some ways I think it would benefit me separate the mechanics of the build, ie the sanding, drilling, aligning, fitting, setup, ect. from the finishing part. I see that as two separate skill sets, one of which I know nothing about and the other just enough to get myself up the creek without a paddle. What are your recommendations now that you have seen the pictures? I really appreciate you shedding some light on the dent repair. My work is in electronics and I can use a soldering iron very well and own several. That was another AH-HA moment for me. Thank you ALL for your input, advice, and opinion. I realize there is a wealth of knowledge here on this forum and I totally intend to learn and listen to it where offered and take a consensus of all and make an somewhat educated plan after all is considered. To do otherwise is futile in achieving something other than firewood. Another question, do you think it is worth upgrading any of the hardware. I notice the bridge and other components are somewhat lightweight and cheap looking.
My next steps right now are, do some sanding, alot of sanding. Decide on the finish, get advice and education on the products and techniques involved after that. Practice on dent removal on scrap wood. Decide on any hardware upgrades and order them.
Anything else you guys suggest?
I am not ruling out the $1700 Fender Precision that I have popping up in my browser every ten minutes! One day...
I'm really going by what the manufacturers generally do. Ash and maple have long been the preferred woods for Fender and Gibson for their decorative tops. Fender generally switched to alder for their solid colour bodies not that long after starting production because even then, good light swamp ash was getting hard to find, but they stuck to it for transparent, translucent and sunburst finishes where the grain could be seen.
Both ash and figured maple (flame, quilt etc.) will take either dark grain filling or dark staining well (and then rubbing back) to further highlight and accentuate the grain patterns. Most other standard guitar woods don't, so you generally get what you first see when looking at the grain.
The current shortage of ash in general due to disease has forced Fender to drop ash except on custom shop models, so they generally use alder or poplar now. You can still do a sunburst on alder (and they do), but the much finer and straighter grain pattern makes it far less interesting to look at than a highly patterned ash body.
Basswood is very soft (softer than alder) and varies between pretty bland looking and reasonably figured, but still makes decent sounding guitars. So as it's cheaper than alder, it's become a firm favourite for solid colour guitars, especially where there's a relatively hard finish like polyurethane or polyester applied. Typically a veneer layer is applied for sunbursts and other fancy finishes.
That's all pretty sweeping statement stuff, and there are any number of exceptions, which is why I believe in letting the wood decide what the best finish for it is as you may get a basswood guitar with some really good grain patterns that will look great with a clear or tinted finish.
But the factories don't spend any time matching up planks for body blanks for best effect, so on a multi-piece body you often get a bland piece of wood sandwiched between two highly patterned ones. Which makes a veneer topped body quite appealing, except that the factory workers seem to have no basic training in using glue and not getting it all over the veneer, so you are likely to have a large number of non-absorbent glue areas all over the veneer, which either ruins the finish or takes a lot of effort to remove with a glue remover.
The hardware is all generally useable and of a quality similar to that used on Squiers. On the basses, the tuners aren't as good as those supplied with guitars, and you may find that one or more are very stiff or loose to turn, or go stiff the loose, so I'd check the operation of those now. If they are all relatively smooth for a full rotation of the spindle, then they'll be fine.
Note that all the fixing screws are made from poor quality metal and the heads are prone to snapping off if the pilot hole isn't big enough. In my view, all the smaller screws are best replaced, especially if you do think of hardware upgrades, when you don't want screw heads snapping off when removing the old hardware..
I haven't used any of the kit hardware or electrics on my builds, that's all been replaced from day one. But it's not difficult to replace the kit hardware or electrics later on. Especially for a first build, it may be worth sticking with the kit hardware, seeing how it turns out and then deciding if you want better hardware or not. There may be some hole filling required to do so, but almost all holes should be hidden underneath bridge plates or pickguards.
This has been interesting to read, and there has been a lot of good advice.
One thing that I would suggest is showing pics of the body to Adam. The cost of return is high, but he may give you a discount on something to offset the poor quality of the body. One thing I would suggest if you purchase one in the future is to ask Adam to take a look at what they send you before you get it. This won't catch everything, but would probably have caught whatever is going on with the horn.
Australians can send their kits back for free, I think, so the "check" is not as necessary, but he's been willing to do it for kits that go overseas. From hard experience I can tell you that the US kit suppliers and even high end suppliers like Warmoth will make you eat return shipping, and they typically will not go to the trouble of checking what they send before it goes in the mail.
Couple of thoughts about the finish. I think what Simon says about basswood is mostly true, but YMMV. This is a basswood back on an ES style bass:
I liked it so well that I just sanded lightly and clearcoated. I have also seen basswood with almost no figuring.
I also have a Fender Coronado with an Antigua finish. I have read that it was probably intended to be a "wildwood" top and back, but on some the glue used to attach binding stained the wood so that they could not finish clear. for that reason they developed the weird solid color burst. Ever since I have wondered how many solid color Fenders (and others) started off with clear. Not sure about this, but I can say with certainty that you can find a failed stain attempt under one of my builds ;-) I also have one successful stain as well where I had already picked out the solid color for if I botched the stain job.
On your build, it would be interesting to see what the "flaw" will look like if you do stain it. The conventional wisdom is that it's a flaw, and the conventional wisdom is usually right. If it sucks you can always paint a solid color.
On the other hand, I have a PB neck with an eye in it (not a birds eye). This would generally be considered a flaw, albeit one that does not affect the stability of the wood. I finished it clear anyway. I was pleasantly surprised by the chatoyancy it developed. It actually looks really cool.
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