SpondonBassed

If you are flatting between each coat, the primer should fill quite a bit of the open grain. In fact there is a specific "High Build" grade of primer that acts as grain filler and primer in one. Don't worry, I won't hold you to any one colour. I am just interested to see what a colour finish looks like on the IB5. Mine had such nice grain that I had to leave it natural.

Given that you already play a fretless DB fiver I am not surprised to hear you say that. I'm not set in my ways so much. If you recall a couple of years back; you were kind enough to let me have a go on that leopard skinned beauty of yours at a DB bash near Nottingham. I still wonder at how DB players can hold their arms at those angles and so far out from the body for anything longer than a few minutes. That is until I remember that it took me a long time to adapt to "wearing" the electric bass too. I'm keen to try it. It may well be harder than mono scale but I wont know otherwise.

This one is 34 to 37 inch and way above my aspirations so it's a good thing it's already on hold for someone.

I have a problem with barre chords along the entire length of the neck. I avoid them completely. I take your point however.

Good point, well made.

Yes. The saddle does gain more travel without the string but the thickness of the string itself stops the saddle from going as far back as it might because the break angle becomes so sharp. Dropping the saddle a little would help but I have the action where I want it at the moment. Thanks for the suggestion.

I've got it into my head that I need to spend more time with my old Vantage fretless. It is now on the stand in the sitting room where I can practice with my Zoom B3. It's a lovely thing for an affordable bass with it's P & J styling, its passive reliability and its overall simplicity. One minor niggle is that I can't get the E to intonate well at the twelfth because the saddle wont adjust back far enough. I think it would for lighter gauge strings but its fine. It is fretless after all. Whilst being tolerable, this minor snag got my GAS going in a small way by way of an excuse to sidestep the hardware upgrade pilgrimage and go for a new squeeze, as it were, from the outset. In simple terms: I wanna fretless five now! Heeheehee. I have to satisfy myself that I can get somewhere half decent with my four first so I am being patient while looking into what's being used by like minded players. Two new ideas for me to explore are: Short scale fretless five Multi scale fretless five In some respects the two notions are at odds with each other if you consider a multi scale to have a range of, say - 32 to 35 inches. Despite saying that I don't think it would be a hindrance to have a longer B than I'm used to because much of the convoluted stuff is played on the shorter strings. Having the shorter strings might help me intonate better without so much of a stretch (damn my "webbed" fingers). I don't see multi-scale in the Chowny range but I've really only started to look at this as of this morning. Opinions appreciated, especially from owners.

Do you think it would work?

Glad to hear you've made a measured response. Sorry to see there are such blatant liars out there. The trouble seems to be that these folk can't distinguish between exaggeration and deceit. They have a genuine problem with their moral checklists. Let's hope you can give the item a new lease of life somehow.

No. There is always the brush. If you look up the techniques that traditional coach painters use and then practice a bit with a quality brush and other sundries I am confident that you will get a decent result. You'll need an oil based paint, if I recall. It takes time and you still need ventilation if not a respiratory filter. Water based acrylic goes tacky before you can lay off with perpendicular brush strokes. On the mask issue, the proper filter (carbon granule cartridge with appropriate face wear) for nitro is specialised and not currently in demand for the crisis as far as I know. I'm wondering if @Andyjr1515's ever tried to slurry and buff a solid colour finish...?

Massive payback for your efforts Warren. It's a cracker!

Welcome Bert.

They don't tell you you're supposed to wear a cup with those...

If you have an old cow handy that's fine but it's a little wasteful of livestock. A whole packet of printer/copier paper is only a fiver... Cricketers. Cuh! This is just not cricket.

You're not wrong. Plain white paper for your printer has china clay as one of the constituents. It's a bit like jeweller's rouge.

I agree but then you go on, yet again, to state your distaste for the company: Good for you but how is that helpful now and to who?

Great timing for that link Rich. We'd just heard about the Sat deliveries changing on the BBC news. It was reported that the union sees the stoppage of Saturday deliveries as "cost-cutting" measures and at the same time the measure is said to be in response for a request to reduce the work load because the posties are overstretched in this crisis. The compromise appears to be that parcel deliveries will still happen on Saturdays but that letters will be Monday to Friday only. ...until the rules change again that is. Folk seem to expect some sort of stability in a situation that defies explanation and has little precedent. Why would they do that?

Very sorry to hear. I hope you make a full recovery. Good of you to use the experience to warn others how easy it is to have a serious accident at home. Well done.

Either. I used the word graphic as it covers a multitude. I just think that there are enough "branded" copies out there and would therefore take "Fender" or "Musicman" off the shortlist of ideas. Your raven idea is good. Did you intend for a graphic to appear with your post?

Words fail me. I mean... how are the farts authenticated? That's more a job for wetware than for software... Linkage or it isn't real and the search for The Brown Note continues. White could work out well though. I'm exited to see how @caitlin's kit build turns out if she stays with her idea of a white finish.

Since the headstock is currently shaped in a Fenderesque sort of style I'd love to see something graphic and original there. Please note that I do not necessarily mean vulgar, when I say graphic, although I do not discount the notion. I agree with the colours you suggest having seen the primed body but equally, it could have been green primer and I'd still have gone - Oo!

Now it's getting interesting. You've taken the Dingwall idea of having the fret that is perpendicular to the fretboard at the seventh position. If I recall, @Andyjr1515 has it at the twelfth in one of his builds. Perhaps the most comfortable position for the perpendicular fret would depend on which end of the neck you frequent most...?

It's reminiscent of coach painting. When you see how good a hand finish can be you wonder why folk don't insist on it. Granted, no-one wants adverts hand-painted on coaches or buses in the 21st century but there is still a place for the craftsman in the right setting. Agreed. "Top work"

Harsh for these times, don't you think? Maybe it's just me.

You should be okay with that. Using wax is a very good idea. It might be worth deciding if you have confidence in the screws supplied with the kit however. A close visual inspection should tell you if the threads are cut cleanly and the heads are free from deformities that would cause the tooling to slip or the heads to shear off. Often the screws are the weak link in an inexpensive kit. I replaced a lot of mine with stainless steel ones.