satchmothesnowdog Posted February 17, 2016 Share Posted February 17, 2016 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 More sharing options...
treeduck Posted February 17, 2016 Share Posted February 17, 2016 Yes, my name is Brian May and I'm smarter than you and Neil Peart combined and anyone else on here. I'm a fuckking scientist! Do you understand me??? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
satchmothesnowdog Posted February 17, 2016 Author Share Posted February 17, 2016 God, I'm so sick of hearing about him. One musician actually finishes high school and it's a big effin deal 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treeduck Posted February 17, 2016 Share Posted February 17, 2016 God, I'm so sick of hearing about him. One musician actually finishes high school and it's a big effin dealHe's worth 50 of Peart, who is clearly a pseudo intellectual. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cooheed2112 Posted February 17, 2016 Share Posted February 17, 2016 Hi David,yes I built a Sportscaster. Turned out fantastic. Check out my posts for details n clips 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
satchmothesnowdog Posted February 17, 2016 Author Share Posted February 17, 2016 Hi David,yes I built a Sportscaster. Turned out fantastic. Check out my posts for details n clipsthank you very much :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CygnusX-1Bk2 Posted February 17, 2016 Share Posted February 17, 2016 Everything you need is here:http://www.stewmac.com/ 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
satchmothesnowdog Posted March 1, 2016 Author Share Posted March 1, 2016 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 More sharing options...
satchmothesnowdog Posted March 13, 2016 Author Share Posted March 13, 2016 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 Fingerboard taped off, ready for sealer coat 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. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Digital Dad Posted March 13, 2016 Share Posted March 13, 2016 Bad ass dude. Rock on!!! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EagleMoon Posted March 13, 2016 Share Posted March 13, 2016 Looks good. Make sure you let the poly cure for a few weeks before you put it together or you could get chipping. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
satchmothesnowdog Posted March 13, 2016 Author Share Posted March 13, 2016 Looks good. Make sure you let the poly cure for a few weeks before you put it together or you could get chipping. Yes, that is going to be very difficult :( 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
satchmothesnowdog Posted March 14, 2016 Author Share Posted March 14, 2016 Carved the headstock out of that weird looking rectangle it was off a picture of a Fender Jazz head. It came out pretty damn close for just using a pencil and a can of spray foam to draw the circle at the top of the head :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EagleMoon Posted March 14, 2016 Share Posted March 14, 2016 Not bad at all! :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
satchmothesnowdog Posted March 14, 2016 Author Share Posted March 14, 2016 Not bad at all! :)Thank you :) I'll be waiting for the cease and desist order from Fender any day now 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
satchmothesnowdog Posted March 19, 2016 Author Share Posted March 19, 2016 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 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 More sharing options...
EagleMoon Posted March 19, 2016 Share Posted March 19, 2016 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 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 More sharing options...
satchmothesnowdog Posted March 19, 2016 Author Share Posted March 19, 2016 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 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
satchmothesnowdog Posted May 9, 2016 Author Share Posted May 9, 2016 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 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EagleMoon Posted May 10, 2016 Share Posted May 10, 2016 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 More sharing options...
satchmothesnowdog Posted May 10, 2016 Author Share Posted May 10, 2016 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 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EagleMoon Posted May 10, 2016 Share Posted May 10, 2016 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 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HemiBeers Posted May 12, 2016 Share Posted May 12, 2016 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 just keep sanding until you have half the body thickness. that should reduce the weight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
satchmothesnowdog Posted May 20, 2016 Author Share Posted May 20, 2016 (edited) 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 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 May 20, 2016 by satchmothesnowdog 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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