Back to the future...

My first bass - an unbranded Precision finaly went under the knife. It came down to a simple decision: hold on to it as a keepsake that I never really cared about anyway, or turn it into a bass I wanted to play. When you look at it like that, it's not a hard choice.

The only thing I really intend to keep is the body. It's a nice bit of wood - it doesn't look much in this photo, but polished up it's sweet. The neck is a nasty maple thing with the lower edge of the headstock glued on to save wood. ugh... So it all came apart.

However when I tried to fit the new neck (the P neck Mandy bought me for xmas) I ran into a glitch. It didn't fit!!! The DrParts 21 fret necks have a particuly long heel that goes right to the 21st fret, so the first big task was to chisel out an extra 1/4" of neck pocket. Just as well I got lots or practice routing that Sheehan Mudbucker.

I then had do design a couple of logos. I decided to go for a simple "Precision Bass" on the front of the headstock in a light cursive font, and designed a DCTSystems Custom Shop logo for the back (you can see it here on the back of Craig's bass). They were printed onto Laser printer Waterslide, and went on with few problems. I went for "extra thick" gloss laquer so only needed a couple of coats on the headstock (and then had to sand out a couple of runs). That all went as smoothly as expected, as did fitting the machine heads - I HATE that job, but only stripped one screw, and was able to get it out.

I splashed out on chrome covers, red pickguard, new electronics, and a super expensive 50's pinup engraved neck plate (it'll match the one Mandy got me for the Jazz).   Once again fiting the pickguard proved a pain - you'd think it would be easy to make a piece of plastic that just fits! Anyway that's all in, and looks AWESOME. I'm just waiting for the new Pickup (a Tonerider P+) to arrive, and the I can drop that in, complete final assembly (screw on the pickguard, and covers), and we're ready to go.

I also ordered a set of flat wounds... We'll see how I get on with those. I love GroundWound's, but I never used full flats. They're the right thing for a 50's P bass, so that's whats going on.

Pretty in Pink

I wanted to avoid a pickguard in the Pink bass, and as  I was doing some respraying, I decided to try spraying the P pickup cavity with silver paint - seemed like a good idea. I masked off the surrounding area's, and took it outside to spray... Too bad it was a bit more windy than I figured, and... oops a fine mist of silver droplets over half the bass!!!! AARRGGHHH... I only masked of AROUND the cavity, but the spray has gone MUCH further... they're not coming off... Think fast... Actualy that looks pretty cool!!!! OK, lets run with it... The result is my pink bass is now a pink with silver sheen. It actually looks pretty neat. But it's pretty hard to tell in photo's.

The neck for this bass finally arrived, and it's pretty nice too. The neck pocket is a bit big for this neck, but it should be OK when it's all done. I've decided to try a spare Jazz neck pickup in the Mudbucker position - mainly cause I had it around, and wanted to see if it would work. In theory it should have more top than the mudbucker, but because of it's position should still put out a good thump.

Merry Xmas

It's all got a bit out of hand...

Firstly I managed to sort the bridge alignment out on the precision - I shifted the neck a fair way to one side, and now the strings and neck match up well. The pickup is still out, so the real problem was definatly the bridge, but it's pretty much sorted. It's playing GREAT - I used it on a a gig, and have messed around with it a lot at home. It's a really nice bass, and I hope it's owner loves it as much as I do. However until then it's taking up space in the workshop, and also in my head...

I ordered a Jazz neck for the "pink" bass over christmas, but it's not here yet. Just something cheap, but it means I can get the thing put together for not much cash...

The bug news is my Xmas present - a Jazz bass! or at least it will be when I put it together. Mandy bought me pretty much everything I need to make a "classic" J-Bass, including a REALLY expensive body - all new unfinshed wood, in a SINGLE piece. That's right... one of the expensive bodies! It's going to look awesome in some kind of stain, hopefully with a clear pickguard to show of the wood, but that's an EXPENSIVE piece of wood, so it's currently stashed away in a safe place until I finish of a couple of other projects, and get a but more practice.

The neck that she bought was a P neck, which is really lovely, but I think it would be nicer on another bass. My "first" bass - bought for £40 back in 1989 is a nice piece of wood but not something I really WANT to play. The plan is to take the body, which really is sweet, put a new neck on it, and add some trimmings to make it a real retro bass... Should look great.

Then there's the "secret" project I can't talk about. I got a neck for it, and chris at CHGuitars sorted me out with some special tuners... It's another custom cut headstock. I've got all the parts for the neck now, so I'll probably get that done before buying the body. The body is also going to require some serious reshaping.... Can't say more... Hush hush... 

Meanwhile Trev has been on the case and has almost sorted the artwork for the Sheehan bass!!!! Oh yeah - that's what I'm writing about... He gave me a rough printout at the gig last night and it looked great. It needs a bit of resizing, and it's good to go, so we should have the finsl transfers in a week or so.

As you can imagine it's getting tricky to keep track of everything. When I had one project, I worked on it. With 6 on the go at once, it's a bit of a mess. I need to put some of them away, and work on one or two others, or it'll end in none of them getting done.