budget bassist

Today I fitted the dot inlays. Little bit of a nerve wracking job, got a couple of them wrong where I drilled a tiny bit too deep and had to drill them out and redo them. The third fret marker looks a bit hairy but I’m otherwise pretty happy. I think the mother of pearl contrasts and complements the dark look of the guitar nicely.

Sold the SG to a dad buying it for his kid for $250. That’s a profit of $185 towards my house/car repair fund and a hopefully happy kid with a nice guitar. Win/win.

Some mother of pearl dots showed up today, test fitted one into a scrap piece of wood and was halfway through removing it before I thought I should take a photo. Much easier than I thought though this was a piece of soft wood. I used a piece of painters tape around the bit as a depth stop. I think I’ll try to make a neck rest out of some scrap wood before I try to do the real thing. edit: will try to get the photo in focus next time…

Finally got this properly set up, wiring finished and playing nicely. Ran into some electrical gremlins which the local shop took care of for me after I was ready to tear my hair out. Just need to get the intonation dialed in and the fret markers once they show up and I was waiting to sell the tuners to buy some nickel ones but I might just do it on my next pay check.

Well, I finally got it all together, strung it up and played it. It needs some work as far as setup and intonation go, but so far it feels good and it makes nice sounds. In my haste I realized I fitted the bridge pickup upside down and so it’s slanted the wrong way and thus very quiet… oops 😅 One other thing I’m thinking of doing is fitting some dot inlays on the fretboard, mostly because I like the look of them over a blank fretboard. I’ll try to get some nice photos of it when I have some decent daylight, but these will do for now

A little more work on the LP. Let the oil dry for a week or so and finally scuffed the top to 2000 grit then buffed using a drill mounted buffing set. It’s definitely better than it was and has a nice sheen but there are some slightly dull spots so I’m not 100% happy but for now I’m just going to build it and play it. I might try to buff it a bit more later on when the oil has had more of a chance to cure properly. Here’s how it looked last night.

It’s nice enough but if I’m going to have an SG I’d like it to be a set neck. There will always be more cheap guitars

Short side project, I found an Epiphone G310 SG on marketplace tonight for $60 - bad photo and the ad said it needed stings and a knob might be broken. I chanced it and snagged it. After getting home I found that it was filthy. I mean FILTHY. I had to scrape the gunk off the fretboard with a blade. Frets polished, board cleaned and oiled, body cleaned. I swapped the bridge from my les Paul so I could put the chrome bridge on the LP (it’s also in better shape). Tightened the nut on one pot, new strings, set up and it looks way better, plays and sounds good. I’m going to use it until my les Paul is finished and then flip this for a profit - I’d hope to get $150-$200 for it.

Such a simple and satisfying job. I can’t believe how bad some people let their fretboards get. I can’t stand the look of the gross black goop on the fretboard. This is what came off.

Polished the frets today and oiled the fretboard. Still waiting for the top coat of oil to cure before I buff it.

Thanks for the above replies, I should have mentioned that I plan on using this for guitar and bass so anything bass-specific is out of the running. Thanks - out of interest what do you mean when you say it could use extra gear for bass?

Hey guys, I'm on the lookout for a solution that'll let me practice at home without using my amp and the IK Multimedia IRig pro i/o or the Irig HD 2 looks like what I need, has anyone got/used one and can comment on functionality etc? I'd probably lean towards the pro simply because it comes with the full version of Amplitube but would appreciate if anyone has any input. I'm looking for something that I can connect to my laptop to use with amp modelling software and play along to music ie spotify etc. whilst being able to look at tabs etc. so if anyone has any alternate suggestions they'd be welcome. In terms of requirements it just needs to have the single 1/4" jack, connect via USB, I guess it'll have a headphone jack though I plan to use bluetooth headphones. The fewer wires the better. Thanks all

Yeah... I drilled the hole for a barrel jack like you might find in a warwick and I guess this was my temporary solution to use the jack that came with the preamp. Surprisingly it's not actually in the way when sitting, and I think I may have even gigged it like this.

I decided to glue down the small sections at the bottom with super glue. Looks okay, not amazing. Got a few coats of oil on now, I’ve learned some hard lessons about sanding - I wet sanded the guitar with a fine grit of sandpaper and it took the stain back just a bit in a few places. I guess I’m going for the ‘roadworn’ look! After that I tried fine steel wool and that seems to have worked a little better. Thinking about trying wax after the oil as I’m not sure I’ll quite achieve the satin sheen I’m looking for on the top. I really like the way the neck has come out however. Note that in the below photos the back is wet and the front is dry. I really like the wet look. Any ideas if wax will help me achieve a similar look?

My bass turned up yesterday - thanks dad! He shipped it to me from the UK for Christmas. It looks like I put a 3-band 9v preamp in there. It works and sounds pretty good but I need to figure out how to relocate the jack socket and probably put some foam around the battery. The bass could use a good setup, the action is pretty high and I’d like to replace the bridge eventually but it works for now. Photo with an ampeg ba110 that I managed to pick up for $20 not working. Looks like somebody had pulled out the headphone jack while the amp was on and made it go bang. Just sanded the contacts a touch and works perfectly.