Jump to content

Anyone here ever build your own bass or guitar?


satchmothesnowdog
 Share

Recommended Posts

I'd been looking around for weeks to buy a kit to build my own, but everything came with a bridge, strings and pickups, and who wants that cheap Chinese crap?

I finally found a few places online who sell bodies, necks and all the other goodies, but at a bit to a substantial amount higher prices. The neck I bought is unfinished with a rosewood fingerboard and a big head stock so I can create whatever style head I desire.

The body is on backorder, but its an alder jazz bass body.

 

My friend owns a paint store and he is getting me the polyester paint products and fillers to do the high gloss jet black at cost. The pick guard I bought is black, the tuners are black and the control panel is black, so I'm looking for a black bridge.

So now I want advice on bridges and pickups from you guys and gals who play. The wood and painting part is the easy side for me. I know zip about which materials sound better, however.

As an aside, I have a few other (3) bass and would love to upgrade the factory pickups. All three have the split neck and single bridge.

But this Jazz has cut outs for two singke coils, one at the neck, one at the bridge.

 

Ideally, I'd like to spend 100.00 or less on the bridge and between 50-100 on each pickup, with the 50 being preferable :)

 

So thanks for reading and any advice

 

David

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The neck, pots, wires, back plate, pickguards, jack, bridge, tuners and string guide have all arrived. Thanks to Eagle Moon I have been able to wade through the massive amounts of pickups out there and have bids on two sets. All that's left is the body, which is on backorder. The paint is here, waiting for me or.a spark to ignite it.

 

One thing I am.confused to all hell about, however. My reading online mostky suggests that rosewood fingerboards go unfinished. However, all of mine have shiny sides and the surfaces appear to have some sort of a satin finish to them. I do know that constantly conditioning your fingerboard will loosen your frets, so that's not what I want. Several people have said lemon oil, mineral oil or thinned down shellac. No poly or varnish, however because of the oily nature of the wood. This fingerboard is very dull and dry, not at all like the rest of my guitars

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12799199_10208826023557906_8385374188171948511_n.jpg?oh=bc77a75f631caf2d88bde3c3f1e56f15&oe=578DD544

All my parts finally came in, except the pickups. Those are an old set I had kicking around since Dominger is still winding my new ones

827_10208842065158936_1429396269907765117_n.jpg?oh=9f773477c8f65dd51963c9138f8eedd1&oe=575CAC0C

 

Fingerboard taped off, ready for sealer coat

 

10628232_10208842065398942_8874767381494504014_n.jpg?oh=833569ebda9b0c696796d1aff0edd95b&oe=578C316F

 

Sealer is applied. It looks like the grain is raised, but the thing is still smooth as glass. I tinted the sealer for kicks, just because I could. I do have to give it a quick sand before I spray the polyester black coating on it. Then a few wet coats of the clear polyester goes on top, I guess. This sort of painting is all new to me. I also still have to take the coping saw to the headstock and shape it properly.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Looks good. Make sure you let the poly cure for a few weeks before you put it together or you could get chipping.
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

10288789_10208911647578453_2682136998542372904_n.jpg?oh=b9740d13bac832da80e55310c566927f&oe=5786A06D

 

10262261_10208911647378448_4351821728662577376_n.jpg?oh=4c5c213cbcbfa0fbfe83d2a96706afd8&oe=5788D498

 

Used an auto primer to fill in the grain because i just wasn't sure how that was going to turn out. Wet sanded and Painted

 

10420006_10208915517555200_2431767882497625673_n.jpg?oh=aff48a895acaac96f745f5840ef6f23a&oe=575131FE

 

1425544_10208915517315194_4475392214830726390_n.jpg?oh=5d06a4a206dba9411883cd1e579c91b9&oe=578B12D7

 

The neck turned out great, the body, however is still showing a majority of that damn grain. For a body that was supposed to be fully sanded and sealed by the manufacturer, bah!

 

So now I will lightly sand the body again and spray about ten coats of that high build auto primer on it. Then wet sand smooth again and paint. At least the neck is done and waiting for clear coat :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10288789_10208911647578453_2682136998542372904_n.jpg?oh=b9740d13bac832da80e55310c566927f&oe=5786A06D

 

10262261_10208911647378448_4351821728662577376_n.jpg?oh=4c5c213cbcbfa0fbfe83d2a96706afd8&oe=5788D498

 

Used an auto primer to fill in the grain because i just wasn't sure how that was going to turn out. Wet sanded and Painted

 

10420006_10208915517555200_2431767882497625673_n.jpg?oh=aff48a895acaac96f745f5840ef6f23a&oe=575131FE

 

1425544_10208915517315194_4475392214830726390_n.jpg?oh=5d06a4a206dba9411883cd1e579c91b9&oe=578B12D7

 

The neck turned out great, the body, however is still showing a majority of that damn grain. For a body that was supposed to be fully sanded and sealed by the manufacturer, bah!

 

So now I will lightly sand the body again and spray about ten coats of that high build auto primer on it. Then wet sand smooth again and paint. At least the neck is done and waiting for clear coat :)

 

Black is the hardest color to get to look good because even the tiniest imperfection will show up. Ash takes a LOT of grain filling which is why Fender generally used ash bodies for clear finishes and alder wood for the opaque ones. You might want to check out the reranch forum. There's a wealth of finishing info there.

 

http://www.reranch.com/reranch/

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've been lurking that forum for awhile, it's where I found George. George makes custom waterslide decals for guitar heads and the fonts are very close to the real thing.

 

This body was supposed to be grain filled and sanded, and it eas smooth as glasd when I bought it. However they didn't do I good enough job. Zar makes an excellent guitar body sealer, but I'll use thst on the next one. For now, building primer layers will do the trick. Yes, black shows everything, that's why I have to be really careful when I sand. You can get finger marks in the primer from oressing too hard

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

13131434_10209394651973261_627332478751648489_o.jpg

 

13131327_10209394651373246_4172294678250468507_o.jpg

 

13131532_10209394651053238_8188686831533151834_o.jpg

 

13131407_10209394652413272_4733924677247625345_o.jpg

 

13198645_10209394653173291_5473203666964623077_o.jpg

 

13147737_10209394653773306_4970553563589950918_o.jpg

 

13173392_10209394653653303_4533300385406468142_o.jpg

 

13173392_10209394653653303_4533300385406468142_o.jpg

 

13130952_10209394653733305_11429107836172191_o.jpg

 

13087014_10209394654213317_5064744637644673706_o.jpg

 

13179281_10209394654613327_2041851707228683116_n.jpg?oh=933e672c6f26d986239f3106b3d9fca4&oe=57E02B9B

 

 

It's finished. It needs to be repainted, but I was running out of time before my busy season started, and I wanted to play the damn thing. A friend who paints his own cars is going to repaint it for me this fall.

 

A lot of the parts I.E. the pickguards, the rear neck plate(fender copy from china) string guide(which is not on this picture) are knock off copies.

 

The tuning pegs, pots and jack are from Warmoth. Pickups were custom wound by Dominger and the bridge is the Omega, which is an almost identical copy of the Badass. The only real differences are the Omega is slightly heavier and I had to cut my own grooves in the saddles WTF???

 

The body is a Mighty Mite Swamp Ashand I honestly cannot recall who made the neck, but it's a Jazz neck and has a Rosewood fingerboard.

 

My only beefs with the thing is it's tremendously heavy at 13.5 pounds, which is almost double my Yamaha 170 and Ibanez Gio

 

But it sounds awesome, albeit a little dead because of these DL black coated strings.

 

I'm totally happy with most everything and I learned a ton for my next project. Even cutting my own headstock was a fun project in itself since I did it freehand and wound up using a can of spray foam for the circle and just eyeballed the contour from a picture of a Fender head on my phone.

 

There's a guy named George on the East coast who makes the Waterslide decals if anyone is interested in a custom name

 

All in all, this cost less than $700.00

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wow, 13.5 lbs.? That's like a Peavey T40. :) Its fun doing things like this and you do learn a lot.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wow, 13.5 lbs.? That's like a Peavey T40. :) Its fun doing things like this and you do learn a lot.

I had to fill a lot of grain and wound up using an entire quart of primer on it. I think that could be where the extra weight is :LOL:

 

:LOL:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wow, 13.5 lbs.? That's like a Peavey T40. :) Its fun doing things like this and you do learn a lot.

I had to fill a lot of grain and wound up using an entire quart of primer on it. I think that could be where the extra weight is :LOL:

 

:LOL:

just keep sanding until you have half the body thickness. that should reduce the weight.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wow, 13.5 lbs.? That's like a Peavey T40. :) Its fun doing things like this and you do learn a lot.

I had to fill a lot of grain and wound up using an entire quart of primer on it. I think that could be where the extra weight is :LOL:

 

:LOL:

just keep sanding until you have half the body thickness. that should reduce the weight.

I'm only partially kidding. When I was drilling a hole to ground the bridge, I chipped the finish by the bridge PU and I swear the paint is a quarter inch thick :laughing guy: Edited by satchmothesnowdog
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...