Lyn #18 - P-Bass

[Brendan]

Cheers Brendan
Just tried to open & it says "invalid post" contact Admin..

Not sure why - navigation via menus is below. There's also a dodgy vid here starring your truly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yA4c4rTseY&t=144s

[robin]

For some reason I’m finding it a bit hard to maintain my momentum with this build but I have finally progressed a little so I thought it was about time for another update.


Now where was I……



Neck is finished...... so onto the body.


I find that the belly cuts on these kits usually need a bit more work so its out with a pencil and my favourite toy, the Japanese Saw Rasp.


Its a process of pencil marking the shape and removing what shouldn’t be there.



First, roughly pencil the shape and then….



Start removing unwanted wood. The File Rasp is a fantastic tool for hand shaping timber and it removes the wood fairly quickly but does not leave too many “chew” mark that you later have to sand out.


I wanted to keep the striking grain, so I thought I would try and enhance it with some dark grain-filling. But I didn’t want to remove the grain texture, so I mixed up a slurry of Walnut TimberMate and water to the consistency of runny custard and applied it all over. Not sure it was the right idea, but I wanted to give it a try.



When finished shaping, I applied the TimberMate slurry, let it dry.



Then sanded it off.

[robin]

The back of the guitar showing the belly cut. Plus, as most of my practice is done sitting down I also do (what I call) a “lap” cut. It’s a comfort thing. Lol.


Now the fun part, applying the Tru-Oil finish. AFTER applying a “soak” coat I apply multiple very thin coats of T-O. I find that applying the T-O in sections is the easiest way to go.



You can see 8 drops of T-O and this is more than enough to do half of the top of the guitar. By the time I have wiped this over the bottom half I can feel the application cloth start to drag as the T-O is spread out and starts to dry. Follow this procedure for the rest of the guitar and then you can hang it up for a few hours to dry. Do this about another 20 times and you will end up with a nice thin layer of T-O on your guitar.


Here in Brisbane I can apply 4 coats a day so, weather permitting, I can usually apply all the T-O in about a week.


I will now hang it under the house for another week until the T-O stops “gassing off” and then I will try and get a gloss finish.

[robin]

Hey Guys, sorry for the lengthy absence but I'm back now with a few updates.

I actually finished the bass a few months ago and have used it a couple of times at church so I thought I had better put this thread to bed with an update.

Front




Back




Headstock


All in all I am quite happy with the end result, but I need to revisit the electrics. The cheap pots are little more than on/off switches. All the control is within the first quarter turn of both pots. I have also noticed that compared to another bass used at church (a real Fender P) it lacks a wee bit of volume. I was a bit surprised as I updated the pups with ToneRiders which, in the past, have been excellent products and every bit as good as original Fender fare. I am hoping that better pots will address this problem.

I might also upgrade the hardware at some stage and get rid of the cheap and nasty bridge and replace it with a better quality string through. This might also help address the volume issue.

But even as she is, I'm very happy with her and she has earned a place in my bass arsenal.

Cheers guys
rob

[DarkMark]

Beautiful! Did you give the maple fretboard a coat of tru oil?

[Simon Barden]

Looks fantastic as always.

It's doubtful that better pots will improve the volume, though you may have a high resistance solder joint which is taking the edge off the output. The pots I fitted to my ES-3 kit suffer from all the action being in the 8-10 range, and these are Bare Knuckles custom CTS 550k vintage taper pots! Back to standard CTS 450 series audio taper pots for me.

Are the strings the same type as on the P-bass? A thicker string will give slightly more output, and some string materials give more output than others. Though your pickup height looks to be fine from the photo, if the P-bass pickups are nearer the strings, then again that will give that bit more volume. And the pickups themselves may have different outputs with different numbers of winds. 50's style PB pickups were wound a bit hotter than 60s style PB pickups. The DCR of the TR pickup at 10.6k is on a par with Bare Knuckle's 1965 style pickup, which is about 1k less than the BK 1958 style pickup. I'd be more concerned about tone than about a slight volume difference, as you can always turn the amp up but you can't change the fundamental tone of the bass. You can adjust it a bit with the amp's tone controls, but the bass's tone will still come through. So if you are happy with how it sounds, then I wouldn't worry too much.

I'd also suggest that string-through is more likely to affect the sustain and tone than the primary output volume.

[robin]

@DarkMark,
Yes mate, Tru-oil on the maple board. I am in the process of refurbing another guitar and noticed that when cleaning a very dirty fretboard that to remove all the gunk I also removed some of the TO meaning I had to redo the whole fretboard. Not a big deal but a lesson to clean the board periodically. Something that I am not familiar with

@Simon
Strings! of course. I don't know why I didn't think of it! It still has the crappy strings on that come with the kit. (Sorry Adam no offense meant). I will start saving for a set of D'addarios. I think I will still get some CTS pots as well.

Thanks Simon, your insight is most helpful and appreciated as usual.

Cheers guys
rob

[dozymuppet]

That's such a beautiful piece of wood. What a score.

Sent from my Pixel 4 using Tapatalk

[robin]

@Colin
Thanks mate, I couldn't ask for higher praise than that.

@Dozy
Yes mate I agree, of all my kits this has to be the best body yet. It's always a bit of a pig in a poke when you order kits, this time I just got lucky.

Cheers guys
rob

[Simon Barden]

Yes, the basic kit strings are known to be very poor, with low output and an uneven response from string to string. The kits would be better without them IMO, but then they wouldn’t be ‘complete’ kits.

Might be worth trying out a set of Artist Guitar strings (mentioned in another current thread for guitar strings) as they are considerably cheaper than D’Addarios but seem to be on a par for quality and feel. I can get a set in the UK for £6 including postage compared to £20 and upwards for basic Rotosounds. Looks like they are AU$15 including postage for you. Worth a try? If you can cope with the kit strings, then the Artists should be a definite upgrade.