Johnny Wishbone

Think it cost me 25 quid! Solid wood and just needed a rub down. No point stripping the rest of the finish off, it’s a great undercoat!

I’ve received word that the body has had its final buff and will be returned to me at rehearsal next week. I’ll be using much the same hardware as the Jazz builds. Picked up some Squier tuners and a MIM pickup from the BC Marketplace, plus a cheap tort pickguard from eBay. The pickguard isn’t great close up but for twelve quid it’s adequate.

The aesthetic aim for this project is along the lines of this picture. I’m a huge fan of Soundgarden, and their bassist Ben Shepherd used to play a Jazz finished in “Charcoal Frost Metallic”, which I always though was a great colour. Having been able to find the appropriate paint code (I think it was originally a Ford colour?) I’ve had a local paint supplier mix some up. Whilst Ben’s Jazz had a white pickguard, I always thought a red tort one would suit the finish better and I think the photo backs this up. I’m going rosewood board on this (just seems to suit the body colour better) ideally on a Jazz width neck. This has, up to now, proved quite difficult to source on a limited budget, so I may end up with a P neck profile instead. Despite being a confirmed sucker for block fret markers I’m also happy to go with dots on this build. It just seems to look ‘right’.

Following on from the recently completed “Jazz Bitsas” thread, I bring you the humble P Bass Bitsa thread. I actually bought the P Bass body before I started the Jazzes (I’m definitely more of a Jazz Bass guy) but as it required a refinish it went on the back burner. I have one good P bitsa (first photo) but wanted another to either (a) try flatwounds or (b) eventually convert to fretless. I’m determined to broaden my horizons somewhat. I was lucky enough to find a P body on eBay that someone had started trying to sand the poly finish off and understandably given up on (evidently not au-fait with the heat gun method that most of us know about). As mentioned in the Jazz thread, the singer in my band is pretty handy with anything involving paint, so I just masked off the bits I didn’t want him to touch (neck pocket, pickup/control cavity) and set him to work. The second photo is the body as pictured in the original eBay listing.

Yep, heat gun and a scraper will make short work of it. Please make sure you do it either outside or in a very well ventilated area - poly fumes are not pleasant!

Glad you got the binding issue sorted! I do love a bound neck so for you to forego it would have been a great disappointment. Just goes to show that the right materials (although sometimes more expensive) make a big difference. Obviously I'm a little jealous you were able to use 'proper' block inlays rather than revert to stickers like my build. Mock up looks splendid - nice work!

+1. To quote Chris Rock: "You can drive a car with your feet if you want to. That don't make it a good *expletive deleted* idea". The only thing I have in my FX loop is an HPF to trim off frequencies below 40Hz before they hit the power amp section (and my speakers). EDIT: I do understand the reason for guitarists putting reverbs/delays in the loop. I would think that's less of an issue with bassists.

Pretty much this. I have the Squier Troy Sanders Jaguar (not a fan of his band, incidentally) and it looks great, sounds great and feels great. I tried both the Fender and Squier versions and bought the Squier - it was easily the better bass for me, regardless of the price difference. If you want versatility then you can’t really go wrong with a P/J IMO.

The ones supplied with Sennheiser headphones are great. In fact I probably have a couple of spares - PM me your address and I’ll send you one.

Clone of the FDeck HPF-Pre 2 I did a while back. Probably the single most useful ‘effect’ I’ve ever built and I’d never go back to not using it. No footswitch as obviously I never turn it off! If I built another I’d probably omit the volume control (full volume is unity gain - I don’t need to turn it down!) and the phase switch, as that’s only useful for upright, really. Just sits happily in my rack, doing its thing.

Fair point. I guess there’s only one way to find out though!

Can’t help you there I’m afraid. Not sure any of our instruments are nitro’d. I would think however that given it’s more plastic than rubber foam (as you’ve mentioned) it’ll probably be ok. At the risk of stating the obvious, lagging comes in more than one size. Try and find the thinner/smaller diameter stuff if you can, if only because it looks a bit less like pipe lagging! Shame it doesn’t come in black, really.

Yep, pipe lagging. That’s what we used on ours at the rehearsal room when the original stuff perished. Still going strong many years later!

You obviously didn’t go to my primary school! Looking forward to putting it through its paces in a couple of hours. You can’t really gauge the sound through a small practice amp as all my basses sound roughly the same in that context. Will report back later. A short word of thanks to those of you who’ve followed this thread. Your encouragement and input has been invaluable, and the thread has served as a great inspiration to crack on with getting them finished rather than just leaving them “for a rainy day”. I know I’ve not exactly engaged in artisan craftsmanship here but there have still been issues to overcome along the way. I gigged the blue Jazz last weekend and was impressed with how the sound punched through the guitars - it was definitely much easier to hear myself at gig volume than normal. I did wonder if retiring the Warwick (see OP) was the right thing to do, but the blue Jazz has surpassed mine and my bandmate’s expectations so it looks like I made the right call. It’s a completely different sound, but a good one. I’m also glad I did the series mod when wiring these up, as the resultant volume boost and EQ shift gives a “good change of pace” when required. It’s also a good quick fix to combat annoying interference from stage lighting as it effectively turns your single coils into a humbucker when engaged. There’s a new P build in the pipeline - I’m told the refin of the body is at the “final buffing” stage - but that’s for another thread. I still have the lighter coloured Jazz neck that I ended up not using, which I think will probably end up in the Marketplace. The colour I’ve chosen for the P almost definitely demands a rosewood board, I feel.

More custard than mustard, I’m certain!

Neck shim would seem the obvious solution, or am I missing something?

Me neither. I can’t help thinking that would make it look a bit “80s”? And not in a good way!

Finito. The black hardware doesn’t appear to be forthcoming any time soon, unfortunately, so in the interests of drawing a line under this one I’ve used the chrome stuff I already had. Whilst the neck is definitely a Jazz width, it has a much deeper profile. This at least means it deals with the heavy gauge strings very well, although I’m not sure how comfortable it will be “in the hand” as it were. Rehearsal tonight so I’ll take it along to see how I fare with it. The enhanced thickness has meant there was very little adjustment of the truss rod required - I basically just took the slack out of it and that’s it. The relief has remained consistent over the last 2-3 days so I think that’s probably all it needs. I will of course re-check in a few weeks or so, just to see if it’s holding up as it should be. You may notice how far forward the bridge saddles are - when setting up the intonation it appears the bridge is slightly too far back from where it should really be. When I measure from the nut to the 12th fret it’s about 43cm, whereas from the 12th fret to the saddles it’s considerably less. I did manage to get the intonation almost bang on (maybe 1-2 cents out) so decided against moving the bridge. It’s a string through so I really didn’t want to go through that If I could help it. It’s one of those annoying things you only find out when it’s really too late! I think we’ll call this one done!

I agree with you - it doesn’t!

Bought a pedal from Sean. Great price and super quick delivery. Can’t say fairer than that. Thanks Sean 👍🏻

I used to use a TC Spark Mini to boost the output of my Warwick. Tiny footprint, up to 20dB boost and, at the levels I was using it at, quiet as the grave. Dirt cheap as well, IIRC.

I've just bought a Thomann hardcase from Neil. Good price, exactly as described, fast turnaround and good comms. Deal with confidence. Cheers Neil!

For some reason I keep forgetting to check Amazon. I think I get put off a lot of the time by some of their postage charges. The ones I’ve just fitted were about £10-11 on eBay, (including delivery from the US) but I’d be happy to check out other sources 👍🏻

And there we have it. Time will tell how robust they are but for now at least I’m pretty pleased with the look of these.