A1955Harley

Anyone bought bass pickups from Dragonfire and had issues with them? A while back I purchased a set of Jazz Bass Humbuckers. I put them on the shelf so I would have them for the bass I wanted to put them in. I recently put the bridge pickup in the bass and it has an issue with the coil that covers the D & G String being very weak. So weak when the tone is rolled back the strings have no sound. I contacted their customer service contact and they asked me for the invoice number. After giving it to them they told me the pickups were purchased a while back and there was nothing they could do. I was asking for technical support not money or a return. I needed to know how the pickups were made as they are not wired like a normal pickup where the wires exit one side of the pickup. One wire exits one side and another out the other side. A novice could install the pickup either way in a bass. Might it be an issue probably not providing they understand the other pickups configuration and how the pickup should be installed. They tell me they don’t have info on the pickups as they are older and the build on them changes constantly. The web site never changes so I am thinking they buy junk that has no standards of mfg. and no way to tell what is built. No matter how many times I ask them for help they just blow me off. I will never purchase from them again.

Yes you have it all correct. Post pics when you are finished. Nothing like walking into a pawn shop and finding a great guitar for $60. Yeah it needs finishing but that I can do nicely myself. I bought a Fender Strat for $65. It had been played and it was full of scratches etc. I had the materials here to refinish it. It was red. I hate bright red on anything. I used a heat gun to strip it. The poly finish comes right off in chunks with a little heat. Since it was going to be 3 color sunburst the wood needed to be sealed with clear. I put like 5 coats of clear on it and used the clear to level the body. I used 1200 as the last before coloring it. I put down the amber in the center with more coats of it around the edges to give it that orange cast. Then I shot black free hand around the edges. I put like 10-12 coats of clear over it all then buffed it out. I finished the neck with high shine gloss. The fret board was rosewood so I finished it with tung oil after using 1000 steel wool to polish the fret and clean the fret board. I changed out the electronics to better quality and added into it a push pull volume pot so it could have the bridge pickup and neck pickup togehter. I added a push pull pot on the tone control so the tone could use both the .22 microfarad or a .47 microfarad capacitors for changing the tone. I got rid of the two volume thing so the master volume handled the guitar. In the other control I put in a cut control so as you turn down the volume you can keep the bright side of the tone. When it was done a guy that plays in a local band wanted it so bad he was offering me $1000 for it because of it's custom everything. I let him have it for 800. I had roughly $250 in it with the parts and paints and original cost.

Here's a pic of a guitar I toned with StewMac's Starcast Ambur toner then did the black around the perimeter. It was done in Nitro over the existing black poly that came with the guitar. Came out perfect. The pic is before it was cleared over.

This is how it started out!! Yes you should clear over it first or the amber time will soak into the wood and show. Also bare wood will pull on your paint. You will see a line no matter what you do with it unless it is sealed over. The clear is what is used on guitars that show wood tone as the sealer. You can buy the expensive sealer or use the nitro clear to seal it with. Then you apply the toner on top of that and you will need to clear over the whole thing once the toner is on to protect it. The toner will lose it luster fast if you don't clear over it.

This is how it started out!!

Yes that is exactly how to do that. If you plan to rub out the nitro put enough coats on so you won't burn thru the nitro when you rub it out. Be careful on edges. Here is a few shots of a guitar I just finished with Nitro.

By the way you could use the poly base as your primer base if there are no places that need to be sanded out or filled to hide imperfections. Again use the 600-800 paper to insure the scratches don't show in the paint. Are you using rattle cans or a spray gun?

I like lacquer it will adhere fine to the poly since poly is catalyzed meaning it dries by chemical reaction and when dry top coats can't eat into it. Lacquer however can not have poly applied over the top. I have a custom shop I do this kind of thing in. I would shoot it with primer and level sand any scratches etc with the primer. If you are using lacquer the 400 grit scratches will show in the lacquer. No matter how many things you read that they may not believe me you are better off with 600-800 grit before puttting on your top coat. If you clear over it you can do that as soon as the base color sets. It can be done a bit later as well.