Maude

I use the 'holding the bass while weighing yourself' method, but I only hop on the scales once, then deduct what I know I weigh. The only thing is most of my basses are between 35 and 40 kilos somehow.

They're not matching but I realised recently that I seem to have a short scale ice cream parlour thing going on.

This thread has made me realise that apart from acoustics, this is the only natural wood finish I've got.

The scratches are terrible. I gave it a go over with 800 through to 3000 grit and then compounded and polished, and although they've gone it looks horrible now. It's lost it's crisp edges and because I had to go in so deep to remove the scratches it's lost depth and just looks odd. It only ended up costing me about £1.50 and it served its purpose as a guide so it's no big deal. I've got a new one on it's way (from China though) for all of four pound something. I did consider cream pearl but looking at the pictures I think it needs to be black to go with the fretboard and the black shadow in the paint. Yes it's just going to be passive for now. Controls will be volume tone and a rotary switch is on it's way from @KiOgon which will select rear single coil/series/parallel/front single coil so should have a few sounds and it'll look like another standard knob. 🙂

Abso bloody lutely! I actually listened to some of our music yesterday and thought, that's not too bad. I've usually heard enough of it with gigging. Can't wait to get back with a band.

Oh my! Clare Grogan. 🥰

Nice neat work, it looks great.

It should be exactly the same process. Only slight difference would be if it was stripped back to the bare material then it would want the relevant primer rather than the traditional wood sealer coat. Any guitar refinisher should do it.

Ooh I like that. 👍 Is it fully hollow or has it got a centre block? Reminds me of an Aerodyne Precision, but hollow and fretless, and with an f hole......... OK the binding reminds of an Aerodyne P

Thank you Andy, that all makes perfect sense. It's nice to have it explained clearly. 👍

Thanks for explaining that clearly @Andyjr1515. All helpful info when I come to fit my stingray bridge. Just to clarify, if l wind the saddles all the way forwards and then put the peak of the saddle the scale length from the nut, it should be in the correct place? I'll wind the saddle back a couple of turns to allow for mis-measurements.

A set of ferrules is only a fiver and, surprisingly, the cheap ebay bridge has the holes for it so I may as well do it, and I've just ordered some fixings that will look similar but more importantly be a much heftier fixing deep into the body. They were 20p each. Both of these things can only help, especially as it's only going to be passive. Who knows though, if it turns out to be a nice player I could spend some money and put active electrics in there. I've lightened the body so it should be comfy. I've got a set of DR Hi-Beams I've had for a while but never fitted to anything as my go to strings are D'addario half rounds, I may put them on it.

Also the bridge I've got allows for string through body, is it worth drilling the body and getting some ferrules? How much difference does it really make, as strangely I've never had a string through bass? I'm going to source a pair of similar bridge fixings to the big screws on the Stingrays, partially to for looks but hopefully it'll help with sound as well. Every little helps, as they say.

Thanks for the kind comments folks. 🙂 I haven't actually screwed it together yet so it might sound terrible. 😆 I really pondered on the colour but then saw this picture, and thought yes. A long story but I mixed up some paint I had at home and came up with this red, The full story is here if anyone's bored enough to read it. 🙂

I meant Ray style hardware. Nothing is genuine. SX body, Harley Benton neck, Warman pickup, ebay bridge and control plate. The electrics will be passive with a tone, volume and rotary switch to select between bridge single coil/series/parallel/neck single coil. Obviously nothing like an actual Stingray but I used up a load of bits I had kicking about and spent about fifty quid on the bits I don't have. I now have a nice looking, and hopefully nice sounding bass for £50 and used up some bits that were in the way. 🙂

Pub gigs, are they worth the hassle? Hmm, if you enjoy doing them, yes. If not, no.

It's cut, drilled, filled and painted, although the lacquer needs doing again but shhh 😄, so this is just a mock up but a Precison body, lefty Jazz neck and Ray hardware works. I'll lacquer it again tomorrow and then rebuild time. 🙂

He hasn't gone and invented purist green has he? 😆

I think it's more about preferring a satin finish over gloss. If a natural neck is finished in a gloss lacquer the same as a coloured neck then, yes, it will feel the same, and lots of folks will be happy with it. But if you prefer a satin neck then it'll need rubbing down a touch to put very fine scratches in the finish, making it matt/satin and reducing friction. On a natural finish this looks fine but not so much on a painted finish, and most people aren't willing to rub down a painted neck. The other option with a natural wood coloured neck is that it can have sealers other than acrylic or cellulose lacquer, applied making it satin, that can't be used with a painted neck. Personally I'm happy with either but there's no denying there's less friction with a satin neck.

As this is single pack aerosol lacquer I'm letting it fully harden before I flat and re-lacquer it. I fear that if I re-lacquer today then it will never fully harden as the solvents will get sealed in. While waiting for it to fully harden I couldn't resist a quick mock up to see what it'll look like. Even if I say so myself, this colour is bangin' (see I can talk street 😆). It works really well with the fretboard colour, and will only get better as that darkens with age. I've thought about getting a vintage white pearloid scratchplate as I think that could work well, it would have to be very creamy though. I don't even like pearloid, much like I don't like red, but I think it could work on this. I'd like the white laminate of the current one to be more yellowed and I might try soaking it in a strong tea or coffee solution, I don't think it'll work but there's no harm in trying. I said earlier in this thread that I see Ray's as a more modern design, I know they're not but it's a testiment to their great design, I think this colour bridges that vintage/modern gap as well. It's a modern pearl metallic but being so dark it works well with creamy vintage tones. The eagle eyed among us may have noticed a recess cut into to top of the headstock. It needs some sort of decal/logo and I decided that as this is really a collection of shiny bits I've picked up here and there then it should be my 'Magpie' bass. I've got a little magpie decal on it's way and I've got an old sixpence which will be inlaid in the recess, then all lacquered in. I realise I'm waffling on about this now so I'll shut up 😆

Very kind of you to say so, but it really isn't. 🙂 The finish is really dry but I'm letting it fully harden before I flat and re-lacquer. The colour I'm really happy with though.

Excellent stuff, I love that colour @Teebs. It reminds me of a Yamaha Attitude Special that I had years ago. Always loved that colour. 🙂👍

This is it with a bit more light on it, artificial house lights though.

Hmm, things haven't gone well. After the basecoat issues I lightly sanded the marks out and successfully got the basecoat on, but waiting for it to dry midway through put me behind schedule. I'd arranged to pickup some gardening tools from about a mile away as my little stroll for today. I was hoping to get the lacquer on before I went but as I was running late I had to go while the basecoat dried, waterbase basecoat has to be thoroughly dry before putting solvent lacquer over the top. By the time I'd got back the wind had picked up and my workshop is a little draughty (another job to sort this summer). Anyway as I was using aerosol lacquer and couldn't be bothered to fire up the compressor and use my air fed mask I left the door open a bit to let the overspray blow through (I had a cartridge mask on), which wasn't the cleverest thing I've ever done as after the first couple of coats I had a couple of tiny flies and several bits of dust in the finish. I've let it dry and will flat them out and re-lacquer tomorrow, possibly a touch of colour if the flies leave bits behind. The good thing is I'm really happy with the colour. The red I found is a deep red pearl, but the flake is quite silver as opposed to the usual gold most pearl reds contain. I also found some pearl black shadow, which is clear but adds darkness to the shaded parts. Too much and it adds a blue hue under certain light so you have to use sparingly. The silver highlights and black shadows in red pearl have really given it a sort of chrome appearance, albeit red, if that makes sense. A candy effect without the troublesome application of candy paint. This is the colour but the proper finish comes tomorrow, hopefully if I can get the aerosol to play ball.

You've got to love a good lash up. 😆 I've got the left hand Jazz body from the neck I'm using and I tried a few mock ups of using the body upside down with the control plate cavity filled and a Ray scratchplate and control plate, it looked quite cool in a reverse thunderbird sort of way and quite bizarre, but in a good way. The main reason I didn't go for it is because the lower horn became the upper horn, and being so short it just wouldn't have balanced well. Neck dive city!