Lockdown P-Bass Kit Build (or 'The Woolworths Bass' according to Ricky 4000)

[Si600]

2 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Oh great @Teebs of Knowledge...

 

My Hardly-Bent-One Teebinator 2000 pea-green-bass kit has arrived.

To my untutored eye it looks like the body is already sealed with some sort of laquer, did you have to use sanding sealer?

By Thor's beard! Don't ask the Teebles things, you'll give him delusions of adequacy.

[benh]

On 04/05/2020 at 16:05, Teebs said:

The build took about 3 weeks, I made a lot of pink torpedo-ups, learned a lot, but thoroughly enjoyed building this bass, and it sounds like a 'proper' P-bass - the supplied strings are a bit crap, but functional (I'm going to replace them with Roto 66s).

As mentioned by others, I might change the hardware at some point, but not just yet.

The kit cost £85 plus £15 delivery from Thomann; the paint cost cost around £40 (it might have been less if I hadn't been so cack-handed!), transfer paper £5, copper tape £7, finishing compound £10.

I already had the lemon oil for the fretbord and carnuba wax for polishing, and the Schaller strap lock pins, so that saved about 50 pence!

One tip that I think I picked up from the Build Diaries threads was to coat the screws in candle wax to make it easier to screw them in - it works! Some of the reviews of this kit said that people were snapping screws - I managed to not break any - so thanks for the tip BCers

So, the finished item:

@Bridgehouse - the Aria on the left was the one I stripped the poly (dark brown tint) and polished with beeswax and carnuba. It has a lovely tactile satin finish

Thank you for reading my build thread  

Fantastic colour! Been eyeing up one of those HB kits myself

[Andyjr1515]

Somehow missed this!  Looks great

[Chienmortbb]

Hats off, That looks great. Where did you get the logos printed?

[Grangur]

On 04/05/2020 at 15:57, BigRedX said:

I like the colour.

Out of interest why did you only spray the front of the headstock and not the whole neck (not including the fretboard)?

If you're going to spray the whole of the neck in a colour, minus the fretboard, wouldn't you have a tough masking job to do to get the edge straight along the join, plus you don't want a ridge where the paint starts?

Surely, the easiest best way to do this, to get a good result would be to remove the fretboard, reduce the neck width by the thickness of the paint, then spray and re-fit the FB.

But that would open a whole new can of worms. Unless you can think of another way?

[Stub Mandrel]

13 minutes ago, Grangur said:

Surely, the easiest best way to do this, to get a good result would be to remove the fretboard,

Curiously that's exactly what the instructions tell you to do, but I think its a translation error...

Edited July 8, 2020 by Stub Mandrel

[Maude]

42 minutes ago, Grangur said:

If you're going to spray the whole of the neck in a colour, minus the fretboard, wouldn't you have a tough masking job to do to get the edge straight along the join, plus you don't want a ridge where the paint starts?

Surely, the easiest best way to do this, to get a good result would be to remove the fretboard, reduce the neck width by the thickness of the paint, then spray and re-fit the FB.

But that would open a whole new can of worms. Unless you can think of another way?

I'd use basecoat and clear lacquer. Mask the face of the fretboard first, then mask the right angle edge of the fretboard, and finally mask another line along the neck to fretboard (or binding) join, the three separate maskings will become apparent later. Colour with basecoat and then remove only the last piece of tape you put on along the neck/fretboard join whilst basecoat is still wet, this allows the edge to sink slightly, reducing the sharp edge. Once basecoat is dry apply your clear lacquer coat up to the previously masked line along the right angled edge of the fretboard, again whilst wet, remove the second length masking to allow the paint edge to soften,leaving the face of the fretboard masked to reduce the risk of introducing dust into your wet lacquer. This will give you a fully painted neck with no hard edges. 

Masking a straight line isn't difficult if you use one piece of tape. Stick one end of the tape where you need it, then whilst keeping the tape fairly low to the neck, pull the tape taught from the opposite end end just slowly lay it onto the neck. Don't press it down until you are happy with placement. This will allow you to get a perfectly straight line with ease. 

🙂

[invertigo]

@Teebs what paint did you use for this? I'm putting the same kit together and can't decide what type of paint to use, be it poly, nitro etc.

[Teebs]

On 21/07/2020 at 12:18, invertigo said:

@Teebs what paint did you use for this? I'm putting the same kit together and can't decide what type of paint to use, be it poly, nitro etc.

Apologies for late response - not been checking up on my notifications

I used poly spray cans, with a metal primer spray as a base.

So: metal primer spray -> colour poly -> clear poly.

 

[songofthewind]

I assume you mean polyurethane spray cans. Where did you get your paint supplies from? 

[durhamboy]

For paints and clear coats auto acrylics (not enamels) are worth considering. They dry as hard as nails and don't feel sticky like poly can. If you can find an auto paint specialist store, a place that makes up paint and spray cans for customiser's and vintage car nuts, they should be able to match nearly all Fender colours as the colour codes are readily available. 

I won't spray nitro anymore, my lungs have had a hard enough 60 odd years without adding acetone, toluene and the like to my life time contaminants load. Anyway, Lucite (acrylic) lacquer paints were used by Fender, some colours were exclusively Lucite. (Particularity the metalic finishes.)

Here's a couple of quick (and decidely average) shots of my  "Stang" type 6 string in Surf Green auto acrylic.

 

[Teebs]

5 hours ago, durhamboy said:

For paints and clear coats auto acrylics (not enamels) are worth considering. They dry as hard as nails and don't feel sticky like poly can. If you can find an auto paint specialist store, a place that makes up paint and spray cans for customiser's and vintage car nuts, they should be able to match nearly all Fender colours as the colour codes are readily available. 

I won't spray nitro anymore, my lungs have had a hard enough 60 odd years without adding acetone, toluene and the like to my life time contaminants load. Anyway, Lucite (acrylic) lacquer paints were used by Fender, some colours were exclusively Lucite. (Particularity the metalic finishes.)

Here's a couple of quick (and decidely average) shots of my  "Stang" type 6 string in Surf Green auto acrylic.

 

Good advice - and a lovely looking bass!

[Teebs]

On 04/10/2020 at 12:30, songofthewind said:

I assume you mean polyurethane spray cans. Where did you get your paint supplies from? 

As this was built during lockdown (#1 ), I ordered the polyurethane spray and primer cans from Amazon. I'll dig out the photos I took during the build so I can confirm what brands and colour codes were.

[songofthewind]

I found that the black rubbery foam on guitar racks will stick to auto acrylic, and is next to imposible to remove.