Building a Precision Bass

[discreet]

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F331769206320

[BrunoBass]

47 minutes ago, Jimothey said:

Dartfords white nitrocellulose primer on eBay for the same price as Northwest Guitars 

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F191682601180

But they are out of stock of the Gloss aerosol aswell

Well spotted, thanks! No rattle cans though unfortunately, limited quantities available of the bottles though so perhaps I just missed out 🙂

[BrunoBass]

42 minutes ago, discreet said:

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F331769206320

Excellent, thank you 👍🏻

[discreet]

[T-Bay]

Have you thought about using car paint? The quality of decent car paint is superb compared to most off the shelf aerosols and a decent paint factors can mix it up to order in any one of about a million colours. My local one (Jawel) charges about £10 for an aerosol which easily do a guitar body, primer and lacquer are about £6 a tin off the shelf. If you want any specials like metal flake that usually adds a couple of quid.

[BrunoBass]

3 hours ago, T-Bay said:

Have you thought about using car paint? The quality of decent car paint is superb compared to most off the shelf aerosols and a decent paint factors can mix it up to order in any one of about a million colours. My local one (Jawel) charges about £10 for an aerosol which easily do a guitar body, primer and lacquer are about £6 a tin off the shelf. If you want any specials like metal flake that usually adds a couple of quid.

I hadn’t, mainly because I’d heard car paints can take much longer to harden. But then it was a specialist guitar paint supplier who told me that, so protecting his own interests probably took priority over accuracy...

There is a specialist car paint supplier in Banbury, I might give them a shout.

Thanks.

[Jimothey]

59 minutes ago, BrunoBass said:

I hadn’t, mainly because I’d heard car paints can take much longer to harden. But then it was a specialist guitar paint supplier who told me that, so protecting his own interests probably took priority over accuracy...

There is a specialist car paint supplier in Banbury, I might give them a shout.

Thanks.

Car paint dries/hardens a lot quicker than Nitro does, nitro is ready to wet sand after about 3-4 weeks 

I always use car paints and normally I wet sand after about 48hrs.......

[BrunoBass]

Auto Colour Match in Banbury sorted me out with nitro primer and nitro gloss clear, both for just under £12.00. I’m not sure how good or poor quality it is but ACM are a long established company in town and the chap recommended them for use on a guitar. And as it’s a fine evening and I had an hour or two before Mrs Bass and Little Basses got home I thought I’d get to work on spraying the body. 

A few lessons learned here;

Firstly, applying the primer has revealed a couple of previously unnoticed spots where the grain hadn’t quite filled properly...

Secondly, I was a little too enthusiastic with the spraying and I got a little run straight away (oops). I wiped it off and took more care from then on, hopefully it will sand out.

Thirdly, paulownia is a seriously thirsty material. Each pass of primer was touch dry within minutes (not the 20-30 minutes I’d expected). I’d also expected 2-3 costs but after that amount it looked like the body had barely any primer on it. I left it a while and did another pass, left it again awhile and did another pass, and now I’ve got good coverage but it’s swallowed an entire 500ml can. 

So now I have to decide whether or not to fill the grain again in the areas that didn’t fill sufficiently, or press on and disguise those patches with a bit of light relicing. If I do decide to go that way I’ll need to tint the neck to maintain the vintage look, which I hadn’t planned or budgeted for. The learning curve gets ever steeper...

[bertbass]

What you see really well up very close, no-one else will see at a distance.

[T-Bay]

Filler primer is worth a go, it hides a multitude of sins as my efforts on cars have proved over the Years!

[T-Bay]

Forgot got say that I use u pol filler primer, it is a dull yellow colour. It takes a while longer than normal primer to go off. Somewhere around an hour or so. I always spray a bit of scrap at the same time so I test when it’s gone off as I have lost count of the times I have thought it’s gone off only to find it’s just a skin which I put a finger print in.

[BrunoBass]

Thanks for that, I might give that a go. I need to sand the primer next I guess, It has dried feeling rough, almost abrasive so it will have to be smoothed down before I paint the colour, whatever that ends up being.

[Grangur]

4 minutes ago, BrunoBass said:

Thanks for that, I might give that a go. I need to sand the primer next I guess, It has dried feeling rough, almost abrasive so it will have to be smoothed down before I paint the colour, whatever that ends up being.

When this happens, don't sand it. Instead use the back of the sand paper to dust over the paint finish. This will remove all the gritty "nibbs", and doesn't remove as much paint.

[Groove Harder]

1 hour ago, Grangur said:

When this happens, don't sand it. Instead use the back of the sand paper to dust over the paint finish. This will remove all the gritty "nibbs", and doesn't remove as much paint.

Excellent advice from which I have learned the hard way 😁

[BrunoBass]

16 hours ago, Grangur said:

When this happens, don't sand it. Instead use the back of the sand paper to dust over the paint finish. This will remove all the gritty "nibbs", and doesn't remove as much paint.

That worked a treat, thanks for the tip. Neck next, while I try and decide which colour to paint the thing...

[BrunoBass]

The pick guard arrived this morning - £7.99 including postage off of Amazon, pretty pleased with it for that price. The edges are all smooth, everything seems cut out fairly accurately. It will need a little bit fettling, mainly around the neck pocket but for eight quid I wouldn’t expect any different. It’s started to look like something resembling a bass guitar now.

Hopefully my wet and dry papers will arrive today also, so I can prepare the laquer I’ve applied to the headstock to take the decal.

I’m still undecided on which colour to paint the body...

[Jimothey]

My vote goes for bright Orange!!!! Proper Tango style!!!

I buy most of my pickguards off Amazon or EBay for less than a £10er I don’t see the point in spending £30-40 on a proper fender one that looks exactly the same......

Edited April 9, 2018 by Jimothey

[Geek99]

31 minutes ago, Jimothey said:

My vote goes for bright Orange!!!! Proper Tango style!!!

I buy most of my pickguards off Amazon or EBay for less than a £10er I don’t see the point in spending £30-40 on a proper fender one that looks exactly the same......

and which is probably made in the same factory ....

[BrunoBass]

49 minutes ago, Jimothey said:

My vote goes for bright Orange!!!! Proper Tango style!!!

Ha yes the Capri orange is still in pole position! I I still like the idea of aged vintage white but I think orange will win the day 😉

[Jimothey]

54 minutes ago, BrunoBass said:

Ha yes the Capri orange is still in pole position! I I still like the idea of aged vintage white but I think orange will win the day 😉

I definitely think Orange as you see a lot of vintage white P Basses but I haven’t seen many Orange ones......

[kevin_lindsay]

Applying wood grain filler, here' what I do:

Apply a sealer coat of nitro lacquer. This stops the wood from simply swallowing the filler.

Then, apply the grain filler. The filler will then be able to provide a suitable "build" without sinking into the grain.

After sanding the filler smooth, apply more sanding sealer lacquer. This will allow you to achieve a flat finish before applying the colour or top coats. 

Incidentally, I was with Chris McIntyre last week and he's found the most amazing grain filler I've ever experienced. Water soluble, and sands super smooth - giving a sanded residue like flour - no clogging of your sandpaper. The finish is incredible. And, it takes colour stain too if you're applying that. And, it's not expensive either - result!!! (If you want details, drop Chris an email - [email protected] )

Edited April 9, 2018 by kevin_lindsay

[BrunoBass]

Pickups arrived this morning, Wilkinson ceramics as opposed to alnicos. I heard good things about them so decided to take a punt. 

[BrunoBass]

The wet and dry paper arrived yesterday so I had a bit of time this morning to flat the headstock and apply the decal (I love working from home!)

I’d never used Rothko and Frost before but the decal I ordered from them is excellent, quick delivery too, I’m impressed! I didn’t want to put a Fender logo on this build; I don’t have a problem with people using Fender logos on their builds but I wanted to name this one something different whilst maintaining the Fender aesthetic with a 70s style font. As my little boy Bruno has been interested in this build, and wants to help me with the assembly (I’ve kept the nasty nitro paint well away from him!) we decided to call it the Bruno Bass No.1 (same as my username too). We also signed the back of the headstock together for posterity too. So, I’ll give the decal 24 hours or so to fully set and then I’ll start the layers of clear coat over the top.

[Grangur]

Nice job. Let's hope it's a keeper. 

That's the worry; you never really know until you play it.

[BrunoBass]

2 hours ago, Grangur said:

Nice job. Let's hope it's a keeper. 

That's the worry; you never really know until you play it.

Thanks. Yes I’m certainly intending to use it and gig it, if it’s up to it. As this is my first attempt at doing this I’m not expecting it to be anything special, but I’ve learned a lot, and it’s been a lot of fun; the next one will be better! 

If nothing else I’ll have something cool to hang on the wall. I’ve definitely got the bug now, I’m thinking about doing a ‘from scratch’ build next...