Unknown_User

My Dad and I spent a few hours in my parents' garage yesterday thrashing out a plan of action for this. There is an ugly screw hole in the back of the body, behind the lower horn, so we've decided to cut right through that to put the pots in there. Which does mean a fairly long run of wire across the length of the body to connect up to the jack socket. We measured and marked up where the cavities for the neck and pickups will go. So Pa_User is going to work on making a router template for them this week. The next job will be getting a router bit and making the control cavity, the hole for the jack socket and a few channels to run wires between the back of the bridge, the socket, the pickups and the pots. There's a lot of work and learning ahead, but I'm getting excited about making a proper start on it.

That's my main job for today! Golden phoebe.

Thanks for the encouraging words everyone. I'm definitely going to take things slowly with the router and try and make some templates for all the different bits we need to cut out. @Jimothey for the shape I traced an outline around a picture of a Thunderbird from the Internet (my dream bass, hence me hanging around your Exploderbird thread like a bad smell) and then traced the top horn off a Jazz bass over that to reduce the likelyhood of neck dive.

Thanks @Jabba_the_gut. If I have a working instrument and all my fingers still attached by the end of it then I'll categorise it as a roaring triumph! I'm in Liverpool.

Inspired by all the threads in this here sub forum, I've decided to take the plunge and build my first ever bass body. I made a J bass from a kit last year and enjoyed doing that, which has given me the bug for it. I'm enlisting the help of my Dad, who has more woodworking skills than I (i.e. more than none). Mainly I thought it'd be a good excuse for us to spend some time together at something. Pa_User found some reclaimed mahogany in an antiques shop that'd work as the body: Out of this he's cut a shape from a template I made on the computer and printed out: Meanwhile I've been scouring eBay for the cheapest bits and pieces I can find to complete the build. The mahogany is only 35mm thick, so to get it up to 4mm (which is the thickness of my Squire P and kit build J) I got some top wood. It was the cheapest I could find and I thought it was alright from the pictures, but since I actually received it I think it looks absolutely gorgeous. I plan to go round tomorrow to see if we can work out a plan for putting all these bits together in something like the right order. Maybe have a test go with the router I bought and have no idea how to use. I'm hoping for the benefit of the experience of you all along the way. My tentative plan is that the next jobs are routing out the control cavity in the body along with any channels for wires to go through to pickup holes and behind the bridge, etc.. Then to try and get the top on. After that cut the neck pocket. Am I missing anything from that? Wish us luck!

I think the pickguard looks good, but might it be a bit close to the hole for the pot (I nearly put pot hole) on the right hand side there? Particularly when there is a knob on it.

Looking forward to seeing the finished article.

Nice. I've got a Thunderbird self build in mind myself which I hope will be some sort of white stained top wood over a mahogany body, with a through neck of some darker wood or other. Maybe with a mahogany stripe through it. Got some skills to work on first though! Going to do just a body first. Currently waiting for the neck for it to arrive off eBay but it appears to be stuck in Shenzen and that's holding everything up. Hurry up, the Chinese postal service you shower of useless gets!* * a great bunch of lads

I reckon then there's two ways I would go. I'd either: 1) Paint the back of it white. 2) Sand the back of the neck to bare wood and stain it with like a grey charcoal sort of colour that would still pick out the grain in the wood. Then oil it. Personally I'd go with option 2) as I reckon the neck would be nicer to play oiled. Or you could go with a white stain if you preferred.

I reckon that already looks better in white. I presume you had to strip the coat of black totally off first? As for the neck, what does the back of it look like at the moment?

Great thread! The finished bass looks great too. Can I ask about the finish on the body there? How and why was it clear coated before you put the stain on? It looks really effective with the very dark grain.

Something by The Supremes?

That was more or less my first thought at that red one, but then I remembered I saw a blue and white one a few months back and thought it looked alright. *adjusts Everton scarf and bobble hat*

You can never be too careful with weirdos on the Internet!

I have a mortgage and many hungry mouths to feed, you callous swine! Plus I've already decided my outfit and it would be knee high silver platform boots and nothing else.

I think what you actually mean is that I don't need another bass and have many other things I need to spend £521 on. *wavers*

This thread is not helping me at all! https://www.gear4music.com/Guitar-and-Bass/Epiphone-Thunderbird-Vintage-Pro-Bass-Alpine-White/1X0O 😍

I think as others have said that it depends what was happening in music when your opinions were getting shaped. My main years for listening to contemporary music were the late '90s and early '00s. I find a lot of the British music I listened to then has aged pretty badly and I now find mostly a bit boring. For example the whole Britpop thing and Indie stuff. Although I was never really into either. The only UK bands from that era I still regularly listen to now are Queen Adreena and Dodgy. Also a local band called Zombina and the Skeletones but they did very US style music. At that time the US had lots of what have become my favourite bands that I still listen to and enjoy now. Marilyn Manson, Tura Satana/My Ruin, Foo Fighters, PUSA, Everclear and so on. Grunge and nu-metal were big and authentic sounding movements in music at the time and dominated by US bands. By contrast Indie and Britpop seemed a bit insipid and preening to me. I agree with this. The UK have produced a lot of very good bands over the years, but a lot of it in reaction to what was going on in the US.

I'll be interested to know how to oil a colour on. Looking forward to how this develops.

I'm am completely self taught and when I first started I was similarly didn't want to be constrained by having to learn a set way and preferred to feel may way around learning in a very ad-hoc way. Learning songs and going from there. However since picking it up a bit more seriously a few years ago I have found stuff like YouTube videos by Scott Devine and Daric Bennett really useful in filling in massive gaping chasms in my knowledge of musical theory and I've found it much more useful and rewarding than I had thought twenty years ago when I first started. If I had the money to not have to work for a living and could sit down to practising for an hour a day then I'd be able to justify signing up to SBL or something and I think I'd really like to and get lots from it. Playing in a covers band I've had to learn a load of songs I never would otherwise have given the time of day. I have learned lots and improved a great deal from doing so. Songs such as the following I wouldn't have listened to, never mind learned how to play, but now make me happy to pick up and play include such hits as: Rebel Rebel - Bowie I Want You Back - Jackson 5 Rescue Me - Fontella Bass Respect - Aretha Franklin Heard It Through the Grapevine - Marvin Gaye Love Me Two Times - The Doors Asides from the other songs I have up and coming to learn for the band (I'm enjoying "I'm Coming Out" by Diana Ross more than I thought I would but I'm going to insist on a shortened version!) I have an ever expanding list of songs I'd love to learn from bands that I'll probably struggle to find tab or YouTube bass lessons for. So I will need to improve my transcribing skills, which are currently pretty hopeless. It's just getting the time to sit down to it. I'd love to learn "Son of a Preacher Man" and "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go" as the bass lines in them are fantastic, but I think both would involve too much learning and possibly beyond my capabilities anyway.

Thanks. I've signed up to gixen.com and it looks like I've got it all set up. The question is how do you pay if you win? I haven't saved my card details into eBay so if I win the bid through that will it fail because I haven't set up a payment method? Sorry, I'm a total novice at this eBay thing!

Thanks all. That was the thread I meant. I just couldn't remember that it was called sniping. I will check out the links you've all posted.

I'm sure I read something on here the other day about websites or applications that automatically throw bids in at the last second that are like 1p over the highest current bid, thus winning the day with no time for others to react. Unfortunately I can't remember what it was called, what software it was and I'm brand new to eBay and confused generally. Are there any vulture fund, disaster capitalist algo traders out there who can point me in the right direction for how to out-snide Internet people for cheap access to goods? Thanks in advance! 🍻

Same here. The craftsmanship that's gone into them is amazing. The wood that's been used looks stunning too.

I'm looking for a cheap neck at the moment so I looked on those sites. Good grief! Over £300 for just a neck! There's too much money in the world (and not enough of it in my pocket).