Rexel Matador

I have no idea why I routed the pickup cavity so close to the bridge. i think I just got mixed up with all the various pencil lines I'd drawn on it for various things! I'm thinking I'll maybe need to add another one closer to the neck, but I'm not sure I want to risk cutting into an already finished body. I guess I'll just see how it sounds first - it might be ok.

Just spent about an hour with youtube and a multimeter trying to figure out the colour code of the wires in a Wilkinson humbucker. Finally got it figured out, went to fit it and there was a little slip of paper in the bag with the screws with the colour code already on it 😂 Two positives though: 1) it's cool that they do that now because judging by what people have written in various places online, they haven't always, and 2) I got it right, which means I'm gradually getting the hang of this arcane world of wiring 😀

With the body drying, and me not really feeling up to a full-on neck carving session, I've done a little work on the headstock. I had the image in my head but I just couldn't get the angles to work on paper. It took me way too long to realise 3+1 was the obvious solution. An what's more, the person I bought the tuners from on ebay sent me the extra bass side one for free! I can't tell you how many times I checked and double checked that, due to the orientation, I actually needed a treble side one for the bass side. I almost got caught out with my reverse headstock build, realising about a second before hitting "pay now" that I would need left handed tuners! Anyway, I'm pretty pleased with it. It's starting to make sense visually with the tuners in place. I still need to carve a ramp of sorts into the top to accommodate the strings running down to the tuners.

The body is pretty much done. Actually it still needs a hole for the jack, but that can wait.

I'm currently staining a maple top with Crimson Guitars water based cherry red stain. I have two options for the finish - Crimson guitars finishing oil or pure tung oil. I'm tending towards tung oil because it worked quite well on my last build and I would like this very bright stain to be slightly tamed by the tint of the tung oil. Anyway, the tung oil will need to be thinned and I assume the Crimson Guitars penetrating oil has some kind of solvent in it too. The thing is, I have a sharp edge faux binding type effect on the edge of the top and was just wondering if the oil/solvent is likely to drag the stain onto the bit of the wood I want to keep natural. Or will that not be an issue as long as the stain is good and dry? I'll try a test run on some scrap but it's always good to pick the collective brain for advice/experience. Thanks!

And it's not as if they're not capable of thinking outside the box: https://www.andertons.co.uk/acoustic-dept/acoustic-guitar-effects-pedals-di-boxes/fender-smolder-acoustic-overdrive 🤣

@honza992 Thanks! That's all really helpful. That said, I've gone for a round over type thing this time around, but my next build is already forming in my mind and it will definitely have binding, so I'll be returning to this advice

Made a fair bit of progress this weekend. The line on the fretboard is from where I realised I'd made a slot in slightly the wrong place. I filled it with a piece of veneer and recut it. The fret itself will cover the off-colour veneer so it should look fine. Though as I write this I'm realising it will be visible from the side 🤣 You'd have to really be looking for it to notice though.

First ever attempt at an inlay seems to be going ok And the headstock cap is under the clamps. This headstock is a bit if an experiment. We'll see what happens...

Fair enough - it's frustrating when you can't easily find out such a fundamental piece of information about a product. You'd think they'd put the fact that it's 32" front and centre though, as it's not that common.

As I understand it, 32" would be medium scale. I think 32" scale Squiers are quite rare. I'd be really surprised if was actually 32". But I'm prepared to be surprised if anyone knows for sure!

It looks like it might be a mistake to me. There's no other mention of it being short scale in the description and a few websites have that identical bass listed as 34". I would just drop them an email or call them to ask. I'm sure they'll clear it up. It looks long scale to me. There's a Vintage Modified short scale one but it has a squatter body shape (top picture):

I'm toying with the idea of binding. I assume a single plastic strip, Les Paul style would be the easiest option for a first timer. Any thoughts?

Here's the body all glued up. I'm pretty happy with it so far. The glue joint between the top and sides: it turned out ok. It's not perfect, but I'm confident it'll stay together just fine. This is my third build and each is a little more ambitious than the last. I have to keep reminding myself of that!

Thanks for the advice and encouragement everyone, it's much appreciated! Tonight I cut out the top and glued it on, but I forgot to take pictures and now it just looks like a big clamp family reunion. I'll take a picture tomorrow though, unless of course the dreaded glue joint wasn't up to scratch in which case I'll just hide away in shame 😂

Amen - routers are the ultimate necessary evil. They can do amazing things but they're utterly terrifying.

Incidentally, I had just had a look at a video from Ben Crowe at Crimson Guitars (an absolute goldmine of luthiery advice) and he recommended planing the two halves of the top one at a time, instead of together, as I suggested above, the reason being that if you make a slight error vis a vis straightness, you're not doubling it up. Makes sense, I guess!

I know this is blasphemy to a lot of serious woodworkers, but I have been using the "scary sharp" method, ie progressive grades of sandpaper on a flat piece of glass (again, plenty of tutorials online) and it seems to work pretty well. I keep meaning to get around to buying some decent sharpening stones and putting some more effort into learning the technique, but it's working well enough for me at the moment.

You need a plane (ideally a long jointer plane, I think, but I used the one that you see in the picture because it's the only one I have) and a shooting board, which is a simple jig that holds the pieces in place, raised a little off the surface, so you can run the plane along on its side and shave the edges of both pieces at once. There are plenty of demonstrations of the shooting board technique on YouTube which can probably explain it better than I can. If the plain is sharp it should be pretty straightforward. Edit: I should add, as a caveat, that I am far from an expert. I am relatively new to this so you're only getting the benefit of my somewhat limited experience and what I have gleaned from watching many hours of guitar building videos online. If anyone else has any pertinent advice on this matter, feel free to jump in!

I'm questioning my memory now! I think the thin bit of the neck pocket broke when I was putting it in - so possibly my fault as much of anything. I remember it all being very awkward. The scratchplate definitely didn't fit.

I bought one of those Gear4Music bodies and I really think they should make it clearer they're not quite a standard P-Bass shape. I had a neck and scratchplate from a Squier Matt Freeman and neither fitted properly. I couldn't get the control area of the scratchplate to cover the cavity. Also, when I asked, they told me it was unfinished, and when it arrived, it had a thick glassy gloss finish on it!

Tonight, jointing the top and trying to learn how to wire a push pull pot I thought about adding a second pickup, but have now decided to experiment with a series/parallel switch instead. Onwards and upwards

Magnetized control cover. I did this in the last one too but it wasn't great. It was very nice to learn from my mistakes and have another go. It fits together perfectly this time 😀

I made a bitsa P bass with a cheap Pawlonia body. With a normal P-Bass neck and tuners it was far too neck heavy, but otherwise ok - sounded absolutely fine. With a shorter neck or lighter tuners it might be ok, but for me, something that light is not appropriate from a balance point of view.

Magnetized control cover. I did this in the last one too but it wasn't great. It was very nice to learn from my mistakes and have another go. It fits together perfectly this time 😀