Manton Customs

I’ve used west systems before to grain fill also, but preferred the z poxy as its a bit easier to work with. It also sands much, much easier than WS which really helps when a few coats are needed. Like Aquacoat its not cheap either but even the smallest quantity they sell should do a couple of basses.

Nice work :). Never tried brushing it! In case you haven’t already figured out what went wrong with the grain filling, it’s not you...it’s aquacoat. I’m surprised they get away with selling it, it’s really ineffective at filling grain and worst of all it shrinks like crazy. Which is a shame as I loved the idea and how easy it should be to use, but I’ve given it a fair trial on a number of builds and every time it’s disappointed. Get some z poxy instead, not as easy to work with but is totally stable. The RF thixotropic grain fillers work well also, not quite as effective as the z poxy, but a bit quicker.

Rosewood

You can’t unfortunately on gold hardware, even if it’s extremely minor. The playing is so thin any kind of polishing compound takes it right off and you’re left with the Nickel under plating. So bad news if you want gold hardware, good news if you fancy changing it to Nickel... as it doesn’t take long to get all the gold off.

Big thank you to @jebroad, family and all the other people who helped put the bash together. Was a great day and we’re looking forward to the next one!

Seeing as the frets have been recently levelled which will increase clearance from the string to the first fret it’s unlikely there will be any buzzing coming from a worn nut. Those symptoms do not sound like a nut issue either. My advice would be to take it back to your luthier and explain the issues. Chances are he will sort it for you free of charge.

Constant temperature is not too important, you just don’t want sudden changes, like cold to very hot or vice versa. Or extremes in general really. The fumes won’t be a problem from that sort of range (in the lean to). I just meant don’t sleep by it or something! I like to leave 4 weeks drying time if I’m doing a gloss finish, you may encounter some shrinkage if you sand and buff after two. Depends on how perfect you’re aiming for...But aim for the stars and you might reach the moon is a good saying for finishing :).

As above, the shed probably won’t harm anything at this time of year, but it will increase curing time quite a bit. Ideally you want somewhere indoors, warm and with good air circulation if possible. Preferably not somewhere you sleep or spend all day though due to the fumes. You could even build yourself a drying box with a heat source in (like a light bulb). That’s what I do.

Generally I spray quite wet coats with the clear, but obviously too wet and you’ll get runs! The surface on your bass may have had some roughness due to all the tiny metal flakes standing up, so you may have tried to bury it too quickly by laying on the clear too heavily. The thing is though - only your final coats needs to be free of orange peel, as your last coats will dissolve any rough texture from previous coats. You could of course finish up with a rough orange peel like surface and then level sand as you suggested, it’s just harder work wet sanding. When I spray Nitro I will often spray a final very reduced coat (called a flash coat). This is like 80% thinners so it levels out really well and takes away any sanding scratches and roughness. Obviously you can’t do that with aerosols, but you can try and spray a good wet coat at the end to achieve a similar result and reduce wet sanding.

Told you 😛 Seriously though it looks like it went quite well before the mess up and screw ups are always a possibility with finishing! They happen. Keep at it and aim for perfection and you won't be far off.

I like the ferrules too, they are a bit more work as you have to plot them out and recess them, but it’s not at all difficult. The disadvantage of a neck plate is they need to have a square area at the heel, which to me can look a bit blocky and unrefined. Whereas with the ferrules you can have any shape you like within reason.

It’s not so much it’s an unusual finish as it’s poorly done. It’s fine having a burst and leaving the middle natural, but the perimeter is completely uneven and the transition is terrible. Suppose I can forgive him though because it’s got a Bare & knuckle pickup. Seriously bare AND knuckle 😆

This might help. https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/338662-making-a-pickguard-scratchplate/

Yes...wasn’t being too serious there. Obviously best to use some common sense if attempting this.

It depends on the finish. Maple with no finish on it will actually get bleached/ paler in sunlight. Some finishes don't yellow either so it depends on what finish is on it. Old school polyurethane and Nitro both will though. The best way to get a yellower neck would be to spray some tinted clear. There probably won't be much risk from the suns heat...we're in England after all.

Lake placid Blue is not an easy colour to go for if this is your first time refinishing. But good luck! Remember you need to dust metallics on, too wet a coat and the metallic particles will lye flat and not very reflective. Also don’t try and sand the colour coats during the process as this will also ruin the metallic effect.

Now you’re going to make it again anyway, I would definitely do a small shim at the back of the pocket about a third the thickness of what you have there. That way the shim will be invisible and can be much thinner, so any dampening it may cause would be lessened.

The b2s I have had through the workshop have all had a thick polyester finish. You probably won’t be able to find anything similar to touch up with. But the usual fix for poly is drop filling with superglue. Or if you want to spend lots of money you could try the new Gluboost products which are being advertised quite a bit at the moment. But they are essentially very good/suitable Superglue. If it’s down to bare wood you might need to add a little bit of tint to the wood as Poly yellows and superglue is clear. So if you didn’t add tint the repair will be paler than the surrounding area. Google drop filling guitar finish and you should find some instructions. It takes practice to get it to look better than the damage did in the first place though! A poorly done repair always looks ugly and less honest than damage.

Tone wise there is a little bit of extra brightness to me with the SS wire, they can also feel a bit slicker too when you bend a string. But mainly it’s about the durability as SS frets will last a seriously long time. They’re a little harder to work with but it’s generally over exaggerated as long as you’ve got decent enough tools.

Ok here goes. I don’t know your experience and don’t mean to sound like I’m not giving you credit of having any knowledge, so please don’t take it that way! How do you know the depth of the truss rod and are you aware they are routed into a curved channel on the vast majority of basses? So if it doesn’t look close at the adjustment end, it may get quite close at the middle of the neck. Its most likely the profile shape which makes the neck feel like a baseball bat rather than the actual thickness, so you can safely alter this without touching the wood directly above the truss rod rout. Though you would probably be safe to reduce the thickness by a mm or two above the rout, you should take great care and check with a magnet throughout. Some Fender necks have as little as 3 mm of wood above the rod at the middle. If you go through to the rout the neck is finished. Whatever you do, do not use a router. It’d be complete overkill and would not create a finished shape. Some people use a round over bit as the very first step on an uncarved blank just to remove some bulk and then continue with safer tools to get the profile right (but the video above has taken it a step further). The actual amount of wood you’ll need to remove from your already carved neck will be surprisingly small and it’d be very easy to take too much off, slip up etc with a router. It’d only take about an hour using hand tools anyway. If you did want to use a router, you’d have to come up with a jig for the bearing to ride against like the one in the video (may even be a pin router) and it’d still need finishing by hand. So if you’ve got some experience, you could definitely do this with hand tools but leave the router alone and don’t try and take too much off the middle. You shouldn’t have any problems with the neck warping, I never have on the necks that I’ve shaved down anyway. Hope this helps without sounding too condescending

I was making a pickguard for one of my basses recently so thought I'd take a few pics along the way in case anyone else might want to have a go at making one. I'll be using a router, but if you don't have access to one it's easy enough to make a guard without one and the steps would be similar. I'm making this one for one of my own builds which is a Walnut bodied 50's Precision style bass, this is the first 50's style one I've done but intend to do more, so I'm going to be using a template for repeatability. I first draw my pickguard on the body, I'm using a chalk pen here which cleans off very easily and can also write on a finished bass. You could also use a chinagraph pencil or anything else which fits the bill. Ignore the inner lines here, that's for the chambering which I've yet to cut. Next I lay a piece of clear Acetate on top of the body and using a DVD/CD pen I trace onto the Acetate from the line beneath. You could skip step one and draw directly onto the Acetate, but I prefer to draw onto the body first so I can see it clearly and don't have to worry about creases or positioning too much. Then I cut the Acetate out and transfer that onto a piece of 1/2" ply wood. This will be my template for the router to follow, if you don't have a router, I'd still advise to use a template but you could use much thinner Ply, or even thick card. Then the ply is cutout, if you've only got hand tools - a coping saw, file and sanding block would be all you need. You can see I changed my design slightly where that black line is towards the top. I've also drilled all the mounting holes so I can use these to index the template. The neck pocket the area around the control plate are rough at this stage, we'll take care of them next. Here's the router (with wide base attached for stability) and a bottom bearing guided bit. I attach the template using a couple of the mounting holes, then use the router on the basses neck pocket walls to cut the template flush to the pocket. Now I rough cut the pickguard, I used a bandsaw with a fine blade, but you could use a jigsaw, scroll saw, or a coping saw if you're using hand tools. Then the template is attached to the rough cut pickguard using double sided tape (you could also use the mounting screws) and cut using the router and the two bits here. One is a bearing guided flush cutting bit, the other is the bevel cutter which cuts a very neat bevel onto the pickguard. If you were using handtools you would use a file and scraper to get both the correct shape and the bevel. I actually follow up a with scraper if there's any little bits which need taking care of, but usually it's pretty good straight from the router. Then I polish the edge with 0000 steel wool. Next I countersink the mounting holes. I use the drill press and set a depth stop, so that every countersunk hole is the same depth. The finished pickguard! The bass body now finished and with its chambers cut And the finished article! Hope this has been of some help, or at least mildly interesting!

I was talking about the possibility of this bass using a similar construction to that of the 70s Gibsons. I was just using Gibson as an example of another manufacturer doing a similar thing (except without the MDF).

https://www.wood-database.com/european-beech/ https://www.wood-database.com/english-oak/ Check out the averaged dried weights @Grangurcompare it to some other woods like Ash and Maple too. You might be surprised.

Unless I’m missing something, nothing would need to be inlaid. It’d be just a case of laminating enough thin (which means much cheaper) wood to make the central core. Then they can cut out the “tone chambers” with a jigsaw or similar. Then glue the top and back on. Not sure what type of tools they have there but for a small shop this would actually be quicker than routing out chambers, which would have to be done in multiple passes and still require a top to seal them. It would also save money as the timber wouldn’t be body blank prices. Some 70s Gibson’s (known a pancake bodies) were made like this to save on costs of full thickness Mahogany. As to whether or not it’s MDF, I can’t tell from the pics.

Glad to see you putting it to good use already!