New build - triple pickup franken reggae bass

[Duarte]

Hi everyone - I'm back with a build! 

It's been a little while, but it feels good to have found a project that inspired me. In a local guitar shop here in Sydney, I found some 'junk' they were selling. It was an abused and messed up body from a Tokai MJB50, an incredibly rare bass which I've never seen anywhere else. I found it in the 1989 Tokai catalogue after a little bit of digging https://guitar-catalog.com/guitar-and-amp/tokai/1989-vol15/en_03.html 

 

It is cool because it has 3 pickups, and space for some funky wiring. Unfortunately I didn't get a photo of the body as I got it, but it was dinged up, pickups missing, electronics seized up. It cost me $50. I've always wanted to make a reggae themed bass, with a rasta inspired colour scheme. We're going with a deep jungle green satin finish, black hardware (all gotoh), and each pickup coloured green, yellow and red (pickups from Herrick). Simple on/off switches for each pickup, with master volume and tone. I found a Tokai neck from an APB57 on ebay from Japan. It's a beautiful piece and fits perfectly- so here's what I've got so far! More updates to come very soon, as hmore hardware and pickups arrive.

 

Disclaimer: I'm a total novice working in my garden so I'm not going for pro results, I'm just having fun making and spraying on my washing line!

Thanks for looking and I hope you like the result

 

Body stripped:

 

 

 

Grain filled, primed:

 

 

first coats of jungle green, on the washing line of course!

 

 

 

Tuners and string tree fitted, and finish rubbed satin smooth on the back of the neck, musicman style:

 

 

 

Edited Sunday at 21:32 by Duarte

[Mediocre Polymath]

Nice work, and a very cool bass. Out of curiosity, what did you use to strip the finish? I've had mixed results with chemical strippers, including one that came highly recommended, but then just sat totally inert on the polyurethane finish like I'd poured it onto glass. I have a project on the horizon that will probably involve a fair bit of finish stripping.

 

Bonus picture of my own washing-line-based spray booth solution from a few years ago. The old bedsheet is there to stop myself spraying paint into next door's garden.

 

[Duarte]

Nice washing line!

I used a heat gun and scraper, it was a really tough, thick finish to get off. I do like this method because if you get it just right, you can take huge sections of finish off quite cleanly. I actually caused a few more gouges to the body as it was thicker than I anticipated. Ended up giving myself more work to fix everything haha.

[TheGreek]

With the description I thought it would be like my Spear ...3x pickups and hinting at being red, gold and green...

[TheGreek]

[Reggaebass]

Love it, I’d like to do one myself like the jazz in this 

 

[PaulThePlug]

More Slanty Pickups after the Fender Boxer 😉...

[Duarte]

9 hours ago, TheGreek said:

 

Wow that thing looks monstrous, I love it! I'd be interested to see the build process on that. Edit: just realised it's a Spear! Still beautiful.

My idea was to have the red/gold/green colour scheme on the pickup covers themselves, with the rest of the bass being that kind of military/camo green you see on reggae sound systems and things. Hopefully it looks half as good as yours!

 

9 hours ago, Reggaebass said:

Love it, I’d like to do one myself like the jazz in this 

 

 

I did conider this kind of thing! But I think it's above my skill level just yet - next time?

 

8 hours ago, PaulThePlug said:

More Slanty Pickups after the Fender Boxer 😉...

 

I knew I had to have it when I saw those little slanty guys. Not sure how I keep finding these weird basses in disrepair haha!

Project update coming soon, night shifts for the next few days, stay tuned

Edited 16 hours ago by Duarte
typos

[Duarte]

I did manage to dig out photos of the body from when I picked it up - just so you have the complete timeline of the project.

 

The bridge is actually still good so I will retain it for a future project. It's good quality Gotoh part, which is actually still in production. So, I ordered an identical bridge, only in black (because it's cooler).

 

 

Edited 5 hours ago by Duarte