Snow!

Well, whilst its getting all nice and Christmassy already, all I can say is....grrrr!

Finishing my bass has come to a grinding halt what with theedamp cold weather and now the snow = neither conditions good for spray finishing a guitar. I've gradually been doing a little here and there, and am ready for the final colour coat on the body and probably a couple more coats of clear on the headstock.

I can see it might be spring before I get going again :(

...I think I'm turning Japanese, I really think so

Well, not really...

The fret decals I ordered dropped in the post all the way from Osaka, Japan. Really impressed, as I thought I'd be waiting for them a couple of weeks. Anyway, that's what bought to mind the song lyrics I used as this blog title.

The fret decals look really nice, but I'm not so sure about the "go faster stripe". The colour isn't quite what I expected from the photo I saw, its less red and more pink than I was expecting, so I'm not sure whether I will use it on this bass. Perhaps it will be saved for a future project.

Shiny, shiny!

In the last couple of weeks, on and off I've been starting to apply the finish.

Whilst it may have looked like I primed the body some time ago, in reality that has been a bit of an ongoing saga (saga? geddit?). As I hung the body whilst spraying, what I found was that it was quite prone to runs. This ended up with me having to sand back and then re-prime in a number of different places. I've now got a 2" x 1.5" off cut of wood attached as a sort of temporary neck and clamped it to my workbench so that I can paint with the body flat.

In addition, the white primer highlighted the fact my earlier sanding of the bridge pickup cavity had not gone all according to plan. So I ended up filling the sides of the cavity, making a template from the pickup cover and carving it out again. So the body is now primed, everything smooth and ready for the colour coat.

The neck finish has not been without problems either. My plan was to have a satin finish, and I had bought a special acrylic lacquer on-line for this. After applying the decals, I then had to build up the layers of lacquer to ensure the decals don;t end up raised above the surface. As I got towards the end of the can of lacquer, either some dampness crept in from somewhere or most likely there were contaminates in the bottom of the can. This left some patches of pin hole, white coloured spots on the neck :(

So I had to sand all this out and then start with the lacquers again. Rather than the hassle of ordering the sating lacquer online, I decide to go with the clear glossy lacquer I had bought from the local motorist shop. This week I've applied probably 5 coats and its looking good so far (photos below are straight after the last coat, so its very wet here)

Its all looking very shiny! And I haven't even got to the polishing stages yet. I may well create a satin look/feel on the back of the neck with some fine wet & dry or 0000 grade wire wool, but I quite like the glossy look I'm achieving for the headstock. I remember, my old Bass Collection bass had a painted and quite highly polished neck and I always found it very comfy and fast to play, so I may leave it with the gloss effect. Not sure yet.

Found something cool!

Today I came across inlaysticker.com whilst browsing a guitar buidling forum. They provide some very cool loking decals that are designed ot look like mother of pearl and abalone etc. - So they have some cool fret inlay deals and all sorts of other stuff.

I thought they might snazz up that old acoustic a little and my jazz bass build. As they are not terribly expensive and not permanent I decided to take a punt and ordered for the bass....

a go faster stripe!

and some jazz bass fret decals

And then for the acoustic something a little more fancy...

Side tracked

I've been well and truly side tracked from this project in the last week or two, having discovered my old K acoustic guitar that only comes out once every blue moon in a sorry state of repair.

Basically it had dried out in a number of different ways meaning some TLC was required.

First of all the bridge was lifting off of the body and pulling on the nuts that  held it in place. The relatively cheap construction showed that the bridge had been fixed directly to the finish (oops). So I have removed it, cleaned up the body and ensured the base of the bridge was exactly flat before borrowing some sound hole clamps and reattaching it...

In addition to that little job, as you can probably see from the first photo I started attacking the fingerboard. It was made to look more exotic than it is , by dyeing a cheap wood and then putting lacquer over the top. The lacquer was starting to flake off and some cracks were appearing in the wood. So time to scrape and sand, fill the cracks and sort that out too!...

To be honest I probably over sanded the frets at the bridge end - not very clever. They are now flat-ish, but I've really taken them a bit too low. As I don;t tend to play all the way up there, I'm just going to make sure this looks presentable now rather then replacing the fingerboard altogether. For the remaining frets I'm carefully removing the existing finish with a 4" scraper blade, then P80 and P1200 lightly sanding.

I've also decided that on this guitar the fingerboard probably does look better dark, so I've got a small pot of dark oak coloured Ronseal wood dye intended for exterior woods, that should help prevent any future drying out and cracks. Then I will probably use 0000 gauge wire wool to clean the frets themselves. lemon oil it all and leave it at that. So still a bit of work to do on it before I return to the bass. Still, that's not going anywhere :)

What to call it?

Well, I'm not running this as a competition or anything, but I've been mulling over what to call this bass for some time.

Being a sentimental old fella, I've decided on something family related. I've been doing a lot of work on this bass and also fixing my old acoustic guitar on a Black & Decker Workbench that used to be my Grandad's. He had a family name that wasn't passed on beyond himself, as far as I know. It was actually used as a middle name and so I've decided to use that.

So I have the "Loche Jazz Bass". Although a yorkshireman like me, the name "Loche" comes from his Scottish ancestry.

I bought some inkjet water slide clear decal paper off of ebay (Sara's Texture Crafts) and played around with what seemed like a million fonts and effects, until I came up with something relatively simple.

The decal paper was pretty easy to use, printing straight on to it with an inkjet printer. Next you should use some acrylic lacquer (about 3 or 4 coats) to seal the ink on the paper. Wait for it all to dry and then cut out with a craft knife or scissors (I found the later easier). 30 seconds in water, then slide the decal off onto the headstock, adjusting the piosition carefully so not to rip the decal and then dab off excess water with a lint free cloth. Just like when I was a kid doing the airfix models!

I also decided to put a yorkshire rose decal and serial nuymber on the back of the down near the heel of the bass...

Once dry, I need to figure out how to sort this so the decals aren't proud of the finish. Time for some googling and advice from guitarattack.com

Another step closer...

Applying the finish

Now I'm on to the finishing stages. Everything has been P400/P800 sanded to allow the lacquer and primers a good surface to adhere to.

The headstock had some sanding sealer applied first of all where I had cut and shaped it. Followed by a first coat of clear satin lacquer.

Next, priming the body.

I wasn't sure whether to lay down the body flat and do a side at a time or to try and hang it. I went with the latter option and used an old office table up-ended and some plastic sheeting to create an L-shaped enclosure for spraying. Using an old coathanger the body then hung from the legs.

My initial coat of primer discovered the Car Plan stuff I've bought does seem quite runny. Therefore, I had some runs straight away and hand to sand them out. Here's a few pics after the sanding.

The old bit of wood you see is actually an old shelf I had lying around which I used to test the various lacquers and paints on.

So a few VERY light coats of primer should now see a good surface for getting the colour coat on.

Slowly getting there

After the initial flurry of activity things have been going quite a lot slower over the last month or so. Mainly the issue is time. I'd love to spend a week or so doing nothing but working on this project, but that's realistically not going to happen.

So the pickguard is finished :)

...to get the final fit and to ensure it is flush to the controls and the end of the neck, I attached it to the body and carefully, just a little at a time, filed around the edges at both positions, until the neck and the controls then attached nice and snugly. I did the same with the neck pickup hole until the pickup slotted through it just right.

I also then filed around the edge of the pickguard to ensure sure its edge is inline with the countours of the body and give it a nice bevel (top tip: don't do this at too acute an angle if you are doing it by hand, otherwise if you have a router a special bit can be purchased for the job)

Finally, I plugged the old pickguard holes in the body and drilled new holes in the appropriate places.

Back to Work

Back to building my bass guitar this morning after holidays and the like. The new pickguard material is a lot softer and really easy to work with. Should be abreeze this time around!

Off to see Forest v. Millwall this afternoon so not sure how much I'll get done today. COYR!

Large size pickguard material

Found a good place to get larger pieces of pickguard material on e-bay... Papa D's Music Store

Pickguard....grrrrr....

It seems like I have now been working on this blinking pickguard for what seems like months!

I've really been trying to do this without any special tools to speak of and without a router or any specail bits. So this has been a bit of a learning experiece.

First of all, I used the JB-10 kit's pickguard as a template to draw an outline on my new pickguard material. This included marking the screw positions and neck pickup position, however I also had to make use of my new pickup's covers to ensure this was the correct size and shape.

In order to create screw holes that allow the screws to sit flush with the surface of the pickguard, I first drilled with a bit a little too small for the screw itself. Then I took a drill bit approx equal in diameter to the head of the screw, resting it on the hole as a guide and without applying pressure I let it slowly drill into the top ply of the pickguard only. Next, I redrilled the hole the correct size for the screws. This approach worked well, but you definitely need a variable speed drill to do this.

Next I used a coping saw to cutout the basic shape and I cut 2 or 3mm outside the shape I had prevsiouly drawn, to take into account the fact I'm not too handy with the saw and that I'd be bevelling the edge later on. I also cut out a hole on the inside of where I had marked out the pickup to be (starting out with drilling into the middle to allow me to get the coping saw in there)

Getting the bevel on the edge of the pickguard and ensuring the shape around the neck and controls was exactly right was time consuming. I used needle files for this, so time and patience required. The result looks OK, but it is easy to file at too obtuse an angle so not perfect all the way around.

Finishing off the pickup hole, I finally discovered my lack of coping saw skills - I'd actually created a not very straight hole and cut it too large. I suspect I may be able to correct this mistake and it may well not be noticable to anyone but me. However, I think its just going to irritate me like crazy.

So, this one I'm going to chalk up to experience and get a new pickguard blank and start over. Fortunately they only cost between about 10 and 12 quid, so not too costly a mistake!

Anyway, I'm on holiday for a few weeks now so the project will be temporarily on hold for a while.

Cavities Sorted

No, I haven't been to the dentist!

I successfully sanded and then filled the bridge pickup cavity to fit my new Wizard pickup. I used Ronseal Wood Filler (natural) and some wood glue. I put wood glue in first, a relatively large blob of the filler, then sanded down once dry - it reckons to leave the filler for 2 hours before sanding or painting, but I left it a whole day to be on the safe side. If you only put very small pieces of filler in, as soon as you start sanding they will come away from the body; the glue helps, but only so much.

Once filled, the first trick I applied to help sanding, was to create a paper cutout of the pickup and lay it over the cavity and then use a pencil to mark where I had to sand. Once the pencil mark dissappears, then you know you've sanded enough and not gone too far. I used 80 grit sandpaper on the inside of the cavity and on the top, where I will eventually paint, I went from 150, though 320 to 800. Sanding inside the cavity mounting positions to get a nice arch, I placed some sandpaper round the non-thread end of a drill bit with the appropriate radius.

Now to tackle the pikcguard...

Pickup replacement issues

So my Wizard Pickups arrived...booootiful...

However, there are differences in the size of the pickup covers and specifically the mounting screw positions compared to the pickups that come with the kit. I was expecting this, but thought there would be sufficient leeway in the existing pickup cavities to cope...there isn't.

I took a look at the kit's pickups to see if I could remove the pickup covers and reuse them on the new Wizard pickups, but it seems not possible without damaging them - they are all enclosed and glued together.

Now the neck pickup is fine, because the cavity in the body is significantly larger than it needs to be. However, it wil not fit the existing pikcguard, so its a good job I will be cutting a new one anyway.

The bridge pickup is the main problem. The differences in size are minimal, we are talking maybe 2 or 3mm, but this means I need to work on the pickup cavity a bit. Given the small difference, I have sanded one side of each of the mounting points. This allows the new pickup to slide in but leaves an ugly gap on the other side.

My plan therefore is to use some wood glue and filler stuff and then sand down so there is no gap. As I am painting the guitar this will not matter, once completed you won't know I had to do this (I hope!)

This next photo is of the sanded cavity and marked in pencil is where I need to fill. Not sure how things will go getting the wood filler to stick there, seeing as it will be such a small piece - will have to wait and see I guess.

So, it is worth considering carefully any pickup replacement wth these kits. Due to this sort of issue, you may choose to get pickup surrounds to cover the wrong size or adjusted cavities - you could end up having to rout different cavities altogether depending on the pickups.

Starting Work

Ok. I'll try not to make this one too long, but I've got a few photos to share.


First of all a few more purchases over the weekend, I think I have everything I need now.

• Replacement pickups. This is the most expensive bit really, other than the bass kit itsef. I've used Kent Armstrong pickups in the past and been really pleased with them. You get real bang for your buck. Only problem is they have now moved their hand wound pickup making to the US and the mass produciton stuff comes from Asia somehwere. So wanting to support UK business, I went to Wizard Pickups and ordered a set of their "84s". Andy was very helpful in sorting me out with specs and answering my quesiotns about them - he used to work for Kent Armstrong when they still had an operation in the UK, so he comes with a big rep. Can't wait to get these in the post later in the week!
• Acrylic Sanding Sealer and Acrylic Satin Lacquer for the headstock and neck. Had to order on-line as nowhere seems to stock it locally and the well educated B&Q staff don't know what sanding sealer is! I bought some Chestnut products in aerosol form from The Tool Post.
• What I did pick up in B&Q was a coping saw and some wood glue
• Finally I went to the local Motormania for paint supplies for the body. I'm using all Car Plan stuff; white primer, white gloss colour, and clear tetrosyl lacquer. Also picked up a range of wet & dry by the sheet (P320, P800, P1200) whilst I was there.
• Finally Halfords this afternoon to get some tack cloths (the guy in Motormania had never heard of them!) and a couple of face masks for when I start spraying.

Here is a few shots of the kit before I start any real work. All I've done so far is shop!

The frets will need dressing, they're a bit mucky.

Headstock needs shaping.

I won't be using these, but here are the standard passive pickups form the kit.

And finally what is it I actually started today? Well the clue was in the first photo. You may have spotted my pencil outline for the shape of the headstock. I cut this roughly with the coping saw and then sanded.

I have to say that this is certainly an inexpesive way of doing this job and its absolutely fine. However, I'm no master craftsmen and so I needed quite a lot of sanding after I cut the shape with the coping saw. I had to start with P80 sand paper, then P120, P150 and finally P320 wet and dry. IF you have a jigsaw or preferrably a router handy then I would suggets using those instead - the job will be done quicker and you probably won;t need to sand it as much as I did.

Here's the the final shape, a little fender-like.

The headstock will now get sanding sealer sprayed on it where I have worked on it (remember the whole thing comes already with sanding sealer on it) and then some P800 wet and dry before the satin lacquer is applied.

However, even though the maple wood has a nice bit of grain to it, I'm thinking maybe the front face of the headstock I will finish white to go with the body. What do you reckon? Maybe its too much of a faff?

Onwards and upwards :)

Arrived

The bass kit has just arrived. Everything appears to be in one piece, no parts missing or damaged.


I am actually impressed with the neck and fret quality- frets need a little dressing but that's it. Body seems good - no imperfections and sealed ready for a paint finish.

Glad I decided to replace the bridge as the one in the kit is hardly worth the metal its made of. The tuners too are an obviously cheap part, but can be replaced later. They may as well not bothered with the strings as they look a bit nasty.


All in all, looks good.

Dispatched!

Just received an e-mail from Andertons this afternoon.


YOUR ORDER FROM ANDERTONS HAS BEEN DISPATCHED
Please read the shipping details below carefully...


Your order has been collected by the courier & should be with you on a next working day service.

Dunno if I like this...

The Gotoh bridge, strings, strap lock buttons and pickguard blank have now all turned up.

Honestly not sure about the pickguard, its a lot darker and browner than shown in the picture I posted before. Will try and post a pictyure of the actual thing later. RED tortoiseshell pickguard material is available and I am quite tempted by that.

Looks like I'm going to need to cadge a router off someone in order to cut out the pickguard and I need to get hold of a special 45 deg. bevelling bit.

...and more Things!

So I have now also ordered some Schaller-style strap buttons for use with their strap lock system (my existing straps already have them fitted) and a tortoiseshell pickguard blank.


After chatting a few things over on the forums at Guitar Attack with fellow guitar builders, I figured that it was unlikely the pickguard supplied in the Saga kit would be anything like standard Fender issue. Therefore, I have just bought the pickguard material and plan to cut it myself....not sure what with, but I will cross that bridge when I get to it!

...and I've struck the nitro cellulose paint off my shopping list too. It appears that although some guitar builders favour this type of paint that it is a fairly specialist item, costing about £15 for a single 400ml aerosol (see Manchester Guitar Tech). It soon adds up when you consider primer + colour + clear lacquer for the body and then whatever you need for the neck.


So some acrylic paints appear to be the order of the day. You can pick these up much more cheaply and down the local motorist discount shop :)

Strings and Things

Yesterday saw a few ebay purchases for the new bass:-

• D'Addario Chrome Flatwound strings (ECB82, 50-105)
• Gotoh 201 replacement bridge
• Self-adhesive copper foil shielding tape (for the body cavities)

 

Still on the shopping list I have:-

• replacement pickups
• red tortoise shell pickguard
• various nitrocellulose lacquers for the finish
• some strap locks

 

I've decided to stick with the kit's tuners and not replace them on day one. I figured these would be relatively easy to replace with Gotoh or Grover tuners at a later date.

 

I really like the Gotoh hardware having had their stuff on a couple of previous basses. The 201 bridge is quite a bit heavier than a vintage jazz bridge and greatly improves the sustain. Plus they are very good value for money compared to say the Leo Quan Badass bridges.

If only Mark Bailey could hear me now...

...I'm sure there would be much wailing and gnashing of teeth, over the fact I'm doing a kit build! I've just been reading his own blog of his latest full on week long guitar building course.  Congratulations fellas, those are some great looking guitars!

Where to buy?...part 2!

So, as I mentioned before, looks like the US ebay option is not going to be so cheap after all once you take into account shipping costs, plus the fact you may be stung by customs.

I also checked out Guitar Fetish in the US, but currently they offer no bass kits. However, it would be worth checking them out if you are looking for a guitar kit or parts.

One of the main UK retailers for Saga kits that seems to come recommended on guitar building forums is The Music King.  Currently though, they do not stock the jazz bass kit (JB-10), but do offer the precision bass kit (PB-10) at a very good price.

So I've ended up at Anderton's - although not immediately obvious from the description on their website, they do offer the Saga JB-10 (I emailed them to check) and at what seems to be the cheapest UK price I could find (at the time of writing!). The only downside is, that there is a bit of a lead time on them, so I'm off to put my order in now and then go off thinking about other parts on the kit I'm going to replace when it arrives. :)

Where to buy?

Well it seems like these kits might not be so easy to get hold of in the UK as they are in the US....or at least not at such a good price! They appear to be around the £180 mark, but more like £80 from US e-bay sellers. So at the moment I'm going google mad trying to find the best place to buy.
Any suggestions?

Choosing the kit

So I've decided that rather than building from scratch, I'm going to start with a kit, maybe upgrade some parts and concentrate on the finish. But which kit?


There seem to be limited options out there for bass kits and more of a selection for guitar. Whilst for guitar you get a choice of Les Paul, Strat, Tele, Flying V etc. for bass its simply precision or jazz based off the Fender classics.


Check out on e-bay and you'll find quite a lot of these, including some "no name" kits that whilst seem well specified, I would be uncertain about the quality of.


So the weapon of choice amongst guitar builders for this kind of thing seems to be Saga kits. Luckily for me, they seem to have recently bought out a Jazz bass kit the JB-10.

Apparently quality of these kits can be variable and I have read of the nuts not being well files or placed and inconsistencies in the body wood needing repair. However electronics, neck and fretwork seem generally OK and that's the difficult bit. I expect I may have to do some minor fixes once I get the kit, but that's not really a problem.


As you can see from the above picture, the minimum work you need to do is carve the headstock, finish  the wood parts (Danish oil is usually most simple) and put it altogether. However, I'm going to do a bit more than that I think and improve on the bass as a whole...

It's a Jazz!

Okey dokey. So first things first, what sort of bass am I building. It's going to be from a kit, but what style? I have a nice little collection of basses going on already so I need something different...

• Bailey self-build - 4 string ash body, natural finish, gotoh tuners, Kent Armstrong soapbar pickups and active circuit
• Fender American Deluxe V Precision Bass - amber, rosewood fingerboard, tortoiseshell pickguard
• Rickenbacker 4003 - clang! montezuma brown
• Michael Kelly Dragonfly 5 - fretless acoustic bass, natural finish and a work of art!

So a Jazz bass it will be and I think I will be going down the traditional route something very much "Fender like"...