Rexel Matador

I answered an ad for a punk band looking for a bass player. They already have a drummer: tick. Gigs booked: tick. The sent me some rough demos - pretty catchy and the singer can hold a tune: tick. I went to try out for them last night. They were lovely guys but my god they were terrible. The singer/guitarist/songwriter was fine, but the drummer seemed to barely know the songs and the "lead" guitarist was out of tune for the whole two hours and seemingly oblivious to that fact. I was still considering it on my way home though - it's just something fun to do of an evening and a way to hang out with nice people - that's clearly their approach. But I concluded that I can't bring myself to get up on stage as a part of that. I shouldn't be going to my first rehearsal with a band that's already played live knowing the songs better than anyone else in the room. Am I taking it too seriously? Do they just need some time to get it together? I feel like I'm too old to start from scratch like that and have been to a shocking number of try outs in this vein - people who just don't know the material or don't put in any effort to play to a decent standard. The leader really didn't seem to mind that these songs he's spent time putting together were being butchered - I would despair in his position! I by no means consider myself a remotely exceptional musician, but learning a song properly and playing it in tune is the bare minimum, surely?

What on earth is going on here? Is it because David Ellefson went toxic and they're trying to shake off the association? https://www.premierguitar.com/gear/reviews/jackson-x-series-concert-bass-cbxnt-dx-iv

No, but now I really want one 😔

Wait, so Fender claim installing a hi mass bridge will give you more vintage tone even though their old basses didn't have hi mass bridges on them? I put one on my MIM P and swapped back pretty much immediately. I can't guarantee it wasn't all in my head but it seemed to make it lose its edge somehow. So in my experience the effect on the tone is somewhere between nothing and slightly worse!

Also, you can do stacked coils for hum cancelling I think, rather than concentric

I've done it - it can be frustrating if/when the wire breaks but it's totally doable. I did it using a hand drill just like you're suggesting. I downloaded an app on my phone called Magnetic Counter. I stuck a neodymium magnet on the chuck of the drill, and then placed the phone as close to it as I could - it counts each time the magnet goes past so you can get an accurate count of the windings. You may have thought of this already, but it's a good tip if you hadn't!

Getting there - I couldn't resist screwing everything together to get a look at it, but it's far from finished. It's finished in oil and wax, the finish is not great, so I might give it a rub down with wire wool and apply another coat of wax or two, and see where I'm at then. Still to do: Wiring - mostly solderless thanks to EMG, but I'll need to solder the jack and the switch. Nut - I have a piece of lignum vitae so I'm going to use that as an experiment. If it's useless it's not a massive job to replace it with something else Control plates - there's one for the switch and one for everything else - they're made from the same wood as the top and attach with magnets. They're shaped but still need to be sanded and finished, so I'll show them in the next update. Overall I'm very happy - the colour really helps the "super-modern take on the earliest telecasters" vibe

Branding iron for me...

So the neck is pretty much done, save for a nut, a fret job and a bit of a clean because the fretboard god a bit messy during finishing. I left the little crack to its own devices in the end - it doesn't really bother me - and made a matching magnetic truss rod cover. You can't really see it in this pic but there's a layer of rosewood under the matching wood Back to the body now. I'm figuring out all the cavities and holes before I get on with the serious sanding. I'm a sucker for a scratchplate though, and as I never really make the same design more than once, they end up taking up a lot of time. It's pretty much shaped, but still needs the neck pickup cutout doing, as well as the semicircular cutout where the first volume knob goes - an "implied control plate," kind of similar to my last bass build (pic at the bottom for reference). I still need to bevel it too

And I can get my roulette wheel finished at the same time! Thanks for the recommendation 👍

Who should I send a newly made body to for an old-school nitro finish job - solid shell pink or something like that? And roughly how much could I expect to pay? I'd love to do it myself but the fumes/mess/sheer level of skill involved has got me thinking I should outsource! Any advice much appreciated!

It's annoying isn't it - I didn't see it until it was glued on. You're right - it will be less visible with the strings on, and yes, a truss rod cover over the whole thing would be massive. I definitely want a cover though. I didn't do a great job on the hole, so would rather it were hidden from view!

When the light hits it right...

I've finally got back to work on the T-Type baritone. I'm using a mahogany body and a top which I've had lying around for a while - I think it's Golden Phoebe, which apparently is Chinese. These days I'd probably give a bit more thought to where my wood is coming from, but as I've got it already I should use it. Here's the body - much sanding and routing still to be done: The headstock has an offcut from the top as a veneer - looked pretty good freshly planed. Unfortunately that crack at the top left became pretty prominent. I might cover it with a nice truss rod cover, or just live with it: Further shaping: Some neck carving: Heel end: Volute - I might make it a bit pointier - we'll see. I could veneer over the back too to cover the scarf joint, but I don't really mind it Frets in - it turns out my strat scale notched straight edge fits the 27" board perfectly if you shift it along one fret!

The saddles are the ones that came with it - and the bridge was stashed away in a box while I was doing this, so it's just a happy accident that they look so good on it

I don't actually use the thumb rest and, to the best of my knowledge, neither does Matt Freeman - it's just there for a bit of vintage flair, I think

I really should have given the scratchplate a cursory dusting before that close up

And there you have it - just a quick project really, to get this bass up and running again. The body was a bit thicker than the old one and I realised the screws wouldn't actually be going very far into the neck - so rather than getting longer screws or reshaping the body, I decided to use ferrules instead because I happened to have four spare ones. I sometimes find impatience to be the mother of invention (not that I invented ferrules, of course). Anyway, I love it - it looks so 70s to me. If I was Matt Freeman I would have had it sold like this from the start!

I have to say, it's an absolute game changer. I've been very fortunate. I built my first six or so instruments in the spare room in a little flat - my very patient wife accepting me indulging my passion and at least trying to clear up all the dust! Finally having a garage to fill with machines is a whole new world.

Getting oiled up - the light in the garage wasn't great but it's looking pretty nice I made a couple of knobs from the offcuts too - I think they'll look pretty nice on the black scratchplate

Not bad for a day's work. I messed up the pickup cavity a little - thank god for scratchplates. The wood doesn't look so great in its rough sanded form - before I sliced into it it was a beautiful red colour. I'm hoping with more sanding and an oil finish it'll look pretty sweet. Whether it looks good with that shiny yellow neck remains to be seen. It'll be nice to have this bass (or a version of it) back on the squad

2 years later... I've finally moved house and am no longer attempting to make basses in the tiny spare room of tiny flat. Got my workshop set up in the garage and thought this relatively simple project would be a good way to ease myself back into it. I had a chunk of mahogany that I bought for another project but it wasn't right. Planed down it's pretty gorgeous. More pics of that soon. So far I've just cut it roughly on a bandsaw and am now routing the shape using a template The new Bosch vacuum is no match for the router, it would seem 🤣

Looks good - what kind of finish is it?

Hi everyone, sorry this isn't a build diary, but this is where people who know about this kind of thing hang out, so I figured it was the best place for it. Please feel free to have it removed if it's not appropriate... This is my headstock logo: I usually use a custom branding iron, which is fine on lighter finishes. On one occasion for a darker wood, I used the iron to force an impression into the wood, to which I then added metal leaf - not the most hard-wearing solution, it seems: But I want to find a more efficient way of adding headstock logos. Decals are out as I usually finish with oil, so won’t be building up lacquer to hide the edges. And I’m not very experienced at inlaying, so doing that to a high enough standard would probably take longer than making the instrument itself! Does anybody know of anywhere where I could perhaps get the three letters cut from thin aluminium or similar, which could then just be glued on? Or are there any other options I haven’t thought of? Feel free to add links to other threads if this has already been covered. Thanks everyone!!

Thanks again everyone - I've been away from the computer for a few days so have only just read the last few posts. Some really useful information here. Seems like second hand might be the way to go - I'll see what's out there!