Silky999

New one on the bench which is a slow time build and this might divide opinion… 😅 This ziricote top has just been glued up and is to be attached to a sapele body, after which it’ll become a MM StingRay-style build. Except… it’s getting a Jazz bass neck. Because why not. I’ve always liked the StingRay pickup position and punch, but I’m also a Jazz neck tragic, so this feels like a perfectly reasonable life choice rather than a cry for help. Before I commit to routing, I’d love some pickup wisdom from the hive mind: • Classic StingRay vibe vs something a bit more modern? • Alnico vs ceramic? • Any particular MM pickups that play especially nicely with warmer woods like sapele/ziricote? Nordstrand, Aguilar, Delano, Seymour Duncan, Wizard, home-wound madness — all suggestions welcome. Bonus points if you’ve tried an MM + Jazz neck combo and lived to tell the tale. Cheers all👍🏼

Spent this morning flattening, cutting back and polishing the walnut and elm body that’s been in nitro for a while now. Always that slightly tense moment when you move from “looks alright” to “don’t mess this up now” 😅 It’s come up really nicely overall. There is a bit of grain sink in places, but nothing dramatic — and honestly on an open-pored wood like this, I think it just adds a bit of character rather than looking like a mistake. It still feels smooth to the touch and the gloss has settled well. This one’s very much in the nitro doing nitro things category: natural, slightly imperfect, and already starting to look like an instrument rather than a project. I’d rather that than bury the wood under half a gallon of plastic. It’ll be paired with a roasted maple neck with a rosewood fretboard, Guyker tuners, Fender Pure Vintage ’66 pickups, and a Hipshot bridge. The neck is already finished and set up, with the tuners installed, so it’s just waiting to be bolted on once the body’s had a bit more time to behave itself. Next job is letting it sit and behave itself before assembly. No rushing, Does this build make you feel “fizzy”?…..it doesn’t have a home yet…… This one is going to be a stunner and if it sounds and plays as well as previous builds, it will be immense. MGCS – made to play, built to last.

A lot of the sellers that I used have disappeared from eBay but they do seem to come and go as I suspect some of them get pulled for copyright infringement etc. .There are plenty of bass necks on AliExpress though. China YueTong Store https://a.aliexpress.com/_EuhSpbm This is one that I haven‘t used before but am looking at to use next on AliExpress but I have a few necks stockpiled already for future builds. As with all things when you buy on online selling sites….do your research!……how long have they been on that platform, What are their reviews and do the reviews look genuine and most importantly, do they appear to specialise in guitar or instrument stock? The one above appears to supply instrument components which are also orchestral string necks so I would hope they would know what they are doing. If you are expecting an out of the box, set up, ready to go neck then you will be disappointed. If you are happy to do some levelling, dressing etc then they are very good for the money compared to a real Fender neck. You would likely have to do the same to one of those anyway. I have a customer MIM neck in the workshop at the moment to pair with one of my bodies. If I put it next to a Chinese one, apart from the headstock logo, there is very little difference in the quality if at all. It is very much a do your due diligence and a bit of fingers crossed when you first order from a company but I’ve never had a bad or unusable neck from China yet nor I have ever had one not arrive or damaged in transit. perhaps I’ve just been lucky.

Quick update on this one Paulownia body is finally flat, sealed and mostly behaving after the usual prime → sand → spot fill → repeat cycle. Shellac down, primer back on, and it’ll get a couple more coats of high-build to properly finish it off. Paired with a MIM neck and then it’s onto Dakota Red nitro, which means it’ll look finished long before it actually is. As ever, slow progress — but very close to colour now. MGCS — Made to play. Built to last.

A couple of dangerously pretty new bits of timber have snuck into the workshop today, so I thought I’d share before I start inventing excuses to keep them for myself. First up: ziricote. Because apparently what my life was missing was wood that looks like it’s been hand-drawn by a slightly unhinged tattoo artist. Dark, dramatic, and absolutely screaming “don’t you dare paint me solid”. Then there’s some curly ambrosia maple, which looks all innocent from a distance and then up close goes full jazz hands with spalting, curl, and insect-assisted chaos. Nature understood the brief. Both are earmarked to be paired with sapele(ziricote) and Lebanese cedar(curly ambrosia) for future builds, which should be a nice mix of sensible fundamentals underneath and absolute nonsense on top. Like a good rhythm section supporting an overconfident lead guitarist. I also have a set of custom USA Bartolini radius shaped soapbar pickups from a prestige Ibanez to use up, Also did a quick headstock branding test while I was at it. No big announcement, no polished marketing spiel — just a “let’s see what happens if I apply heat to wood and hope for the best” moment. Happy to report: the headstock did not catch fire, I quite like the scorching coming out from the brand and the logo is still legible. Always a win. I used shellac on the back and headstock of this neck and after sanding the back it feels gorgeous. The headstock isn’t sanded yet. As usual, this will all be very much warts-and-all when it turns into actual instruments. There will be learning moments, mild swearing, and at least one point where I wonder why I didn’t just take up knitting. Anyway — thought some of you might enjoy a bit of timber-based temptation. More to follow once these stop staring at me every time I walk into the workshop… 😅

Starting a new build for a fellow Basschat member, because this one deserves documenting properly — if only as a cautionary tale. The brief: a paulownia body, finished properly in nitrocellulose, going Dakota Red, paired with a MIM Fender neck. The timing: while fighting a genuinely world-ending case of manflu. The wood: paulownia, which has zero sympathy and even less respect for human suffering. As usual, this will be a warts-and-all build thread — no carefully curated highlights, just the reality of what’s involved in getting a nitro finish right on a wood that actively resists it. This is very much not a “quick colour and clear” job. Paulownia has a habit of revealing grain, pores and dents you were sure you’d already dealt with — especially once primer goes on and you’re already feeling sorry for yourself. The plan (and yes, this is the long way round): Multiple coats of nitro primer Careful flattening Shellac to lock everything down before colour Grain filler, because the grain will come back if given even half a chance More sanding than feels medically advisable Eventually… Dakota Red At the moment it’s firmly in the “primer shows everything you missed” stage — which is nitro’s favourite moment to kick you while you’re down. The aim here isn’t speed; it’s getting a finish that won’t sink, print through, or look like it’s been applied with a teaspoon. I’ve also added a cut out to the neck pocket as the neck is a heel adjustment truss rod. My cunning plan is that it will be covered by the pickguard in normal use but means that the neck can be adjusted in situ by just taking the pickguard off and not having to de-string, remove the neck, adjust, attach neck, re-string, tune and repeat until it’s right. Progress may be slower than usual, fuelled mainly by tea, ibuprofen and stubbornness — but it will be done properly. I’ll keep this thread updated as it goes along, warts, mistakes, fixes and all, including the usual sanding, swearing, re-priming, and pretending this was all part of the plan from the start. Dakota Red to follow… once both the finish and the builder are fully cured.

Arrr @HeadlessBassist, thank you for your lovely comments and your unwavering faith in me.

Great day in the workshop today. @HeadlessBassist popped over to collect his bass and we finally got to hear it properly through my Blackstar Unity 500 combo. Up to now I’d only heard it through headphones and already thought it sounded sublime… but through the combo? Superb. Genuinely one of those moments where you stop playing and just look at each other. For a passive Jazz it sounded almost active — but there isn’t a battery anywhere near it. Big, thumpy low end, proper growl when you dig in, and a clarity that just sits right. Soloing the rear pickup was a bit of a revelation too — loads of honk and that almost-slap snap even when played fingerstyle. Properly responsive and alive. Hopefully @headlessbassist will add some sound clips at some point, as he’s much better at that stuff than I am 😄 I honestly think it shocked both of us how good it was — always a nice surprise when a build exceeds expectations, even when you’re hoping it will. Cracking way to end the day.

Final update – walnut body / graphite neck Jazz bass Thought I’d close this thread off as the bass is now finished and heading home to @HeadlessBassist Solid walnut body, finished simply to let the wood speak for itself, paired with a full graphite neck for stability and consistency. Classic Jazz layout, clean hardware fit, and set up to play properly straight out of the case. This one’s been a good reminder that while graphite necks are brilliant, they come with their own rules. No compression, no forgiveness, and no tolerance for “that’ll probably be fine”. Everything from drilling to mounting hardware needs thinking through properly. Do that, and the reward is a neck that just doesn’t move and quietly gets on with the job. There were a few moments along the way where it tried to turn into a learning experience, but it all came back together in the end. Structurally solid, cosmetically clean, and exactly what the customer was after. The tuners are on upside down but @HeadlessBassist decided that returning them to swap for the correct orientation was a faff so we made it work! Just the bridge pickup screws to swap for black ones when they arrive tomorrow. Why the strings don’t run between the pickup poles when i used a template to route is annoying but it doesn’t affect the sound and the bass sounds phenomenal especially with the tone rolled off. Very clear and quite a lot of mids and highs. Thanks to those who followed along and chipped in — always appreciated. On to the next build.

Wenge / Elm bass update: it lives. Thought I’d share a quick resurrection story in case anyone else needs reassurance that instruments can come back from the brink. This one very nearly became “that bass I don’t talk about”. What started as a simple refinish escalated into: poly having a meltdown heat gun decisions I immediately regretted a drop-top seam briefly auditioning for independence and a small chunk of wenge making a bid for freedom near the pickup route At one point I was genuinely Googling “is relicing a legitimate coping mechanism”. Anyway… slow down, walk it back, glue where glue belongs, patch where wood went missing, black grain fill doing some very heavy lifting, and a lot of patience later — it’s back on its feet. Still some sanding to do to remove the grain filler then oil and shellac ready for nitro clearcoat. I also took the opportunity to do a comfort carve into the wenge to make it more hmmmm. It still needs some tidying sanding around the carve but nearly there. The seam is solid, the top is flat, the grain is doing that wenge thing again, and structurally it’s absolutely sound. More importantly, it looks like a bass rather than a cautionary tale. Lesson (re)learned: Heat guns are not subtle tools Wenge forgives, but only if you apologise properly Fixing your own mistakes is annoying… but also oddly satisfying Onwards now to finishing, hardware, and pretending this was all part of the plan. Builds aren’t always about the glossy photos at the end — sometimes they’re about dragging something back from the dead and quietly nodding at it when it survives.

Quick build update, in the spirit of mistakes building character. Found a small scratch in the poly on my wenge/elm bass and decided to sand it out. Poly responded with witness lines, I responded by sanding more, and together we agreed this was now a learning exercise rather than a repair. Several poor decisions later I was stripping the entire body with a heat gun. The poly came off, my confidence followed, and the heat encouraged part of the wenge/elm joint between the pickups to lift slightly, just to make sure I got full value from the experience. It’s now re-glued, clamped, and will be reassessed once cured. There’s no finish on it, so it’s all fixable — just slower than planned and significantly more educational. Upside: it’s moving to nitro. Builds aren’t always about the good stuff — sometimes they’re about standing in the workshop looking at your own handiwork and thinking, “Well… at least I won’t do that again.”

Another thing I would check if the new string doesn’t sort it is the nut slot height for the string. If the string is slightly thicker than the old string, it may be sitting higher in the nut slot. Also check your relief again, too much relief may be causing a bigger gap and more movement therefore sharpening the string especially 7 - 9th fret where relief may be greatest. This is the order I do my setups; Set relief Cut nut slot correctly check relief Set action check relief Set witness points Then intonate at 12th

This one’s a customer commission, so the customer is always right… unless it’s truly horrific, at which point we pause, laugh nervously, and then have a sensible conversation about why maybe we shouldn’t do that. I always try to use one-piece bodies where I can — so far, that’s been the case on all my builds — as it forms the main structural backbone of the instrument. I’m perfectly happy with a two-piece drop-top, but I like the core of the bass to be a single slab if possible. Entirely unnecessary? Possibly. Deeply satisfying? Absolutely. A P/MM in full stealth black is still whispering bad ideas in my ear though…I found this matt black nitro paint from a paint brand I’ve used before and think it might make an amazing finish on a bass; https://ebay.us/m/3sJlTs Paired with either a full matt or satin nitro clearcoat🤔 You know where I am if you feel the need to. 😄