P Bass Bitsa

[Johnny Wishbone]

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.

[Johnny Wishbone]

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’.

[Johnny Wishbone]

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.

[SpondonBassed]

That was a good find.

[Johnny Wishbone]

1 hour ago, SpondonBassed said:

That was a good find.

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!

[Johnny Wishbone]

The pickguard. Not the best, but certainly not the worst. No doubt some subtle filing of the pickup hole will be required - it’s always that part that doesn’t seem to quite fit properly.

Ordered the bridge (same Gotoh-a-like as the Jazz builds), string ferrules and string tree this morning. Think I’ve got everything else (pots/strap buttons etc) lying around, but no doubt there’s something I’ve forgotten.

[Jimothey]

That's a great colour I would probably go black pickguard as I am a confirmed hater of anything Tort!! 😁 

[Christine]

53 minutes ago, Jimothey said:

That's a great colour I would probably go black pickguard as I am a confirmed hater of anything Tort!! 😁 

A confirmed hater of tort? You and me be mates!

But to be fair it does look good occasionally just not on my own basses

[Jimothey]

16 minutes ago, Christine said:

A confirmed hater of tort? You and me be mates!

But to be fair it does look good occasionally just not on my own basses

The only time I ever seen it look good was in the bin!! 😁 

[SpondonBassed]

52 minutes ago, Christine said:

A confirmed hater of tort? You and me be mates!

But to be fair it does look good occasionally just not on my own basses

 

34 minutes ago, Jimothey said:

The only time I ever seen it look good was in the bin!! 😁 

It looks good on tortoises.  I mean, you don't really want to be looking at a nude one.

[Jimothey]

7 minutes ago, SpondonBassed said:

 

It looks good on tortoises.  I mean, you don't really want to be looking at a nude one.

But I've always thought that they look better when they pimp the shell up a bit

[Johnny Wishbone]

Success on the neck. eBay has come up trumps with this little number - Jazz width, rosewood board and the all important curved headstock - all for the princely sum of £32.99. Obviously delivery won’t be for a couple of weeks, but consider I was becoming resigned to paying about twice that price for a Precision-width neck, I’m pretty chuffed. These are obviously the  eBay stock pics, but I’ll update when the real thing arrives.

I’ll probably get the pots/jack wired up and mounted today, in anticipation of collecting the newly refinished body at rehearsal tonight.

[bottomofthebarrel]

I've bought a couple of similar chinese necks and they are pretty good, but be prepared for a little work on the fret ends. They will probably start to poke out after a few weeks. The wood may be a tad fresh. It's easily fixed though.

[Johnny Wishbone]

51 minutes ago, bottomofthebarrel said:

I've bought a couple of similar chinese necks and they are pretty good, but be prepared for a little work on the fret ends. They will probably start to poke out after a few weeks. The wood may be a tad fresh. It's easily fixed though.

Yep, that’s to be expected. I already have a similar neck on another build and it needed half an hour with a file for sure. For £30 I think that’s probably fair!

[Johnny Wishbone]

Wired up ready. Purple wire is the bridge ground.

I never (possibly wrongly) bother using the ground tab on the jack as the socket is already grounded through the shielding tape. AFAIK something is either grounded or it isn’t, so as long as I have continuity (checked using a multimeter of course) across all points that are supposed to be grounded I just leave it as is. I don’t see what difference a bunch of extra wires makes.

Edited September 10, 2018 by Johnny Wishbone

[Johnny Wishbone]

Well, after waiting several weeks the neck has finally arrived and.......it’s not as advertised. I specifically ordered this particular neck due to it having the “classic” Fender headstock profile (see first picture, taken directly from the original eBay listing) with the curved bottom edge. The neck that has arrived does not have this headstock shape - it’s the more modern Fender shape with the straight edge along the bottom (second pic).

Not impressed. Have raised a return request with the seller via eBay as this neck is exactly what I DIDN’T want. I have all the other parts ready to complete this build and the neck was all that was required - very disappointed at having waited this long only to get the wrong part. Sure, it’s only a small detail but (a) I hate this headstock shape, and (b) the decals I have are curved specifically for the other shape.

*sigh*

Edited September 26, 2018 by Johnny Wishbone

[bottomofthebarrel]

ebay is a gamble that usually pays off, but I hate it on those occasions it doesn't.

[JohnDaBass]

From the pix it looks like there's enough "meat" on the  wrong neck to reshape it to the shape you want.

Occasionally with Chinese shippers they would rather give a full refund without asking for the item to be returned. It may turn out that you get the neck you want with a bit of reshaping work for no money( assuming they give you a full refund) 

[Johnny Wishbone]

32 minutes ago, JohnDaBass said:

From the pix it looks like there's enough "meat" on the  wrong neck to reshape it to the shape you want.

This did occur to me, but I think in actuality the curved headstock is slightly larger - it’s almost like that’s the bit that’s been cut off with the straight line. I may be able to reshape it but in all honesty I don’t think there is actually enough wood to do so satisfactorily. I really didn’t want to go to all that effort in the first place, otherwise I would have just bought a neck with a ‘paddle’ headstock and cut it myself. Woodwork isn’t really my forte if I’m honest.

Almost every low-priced rosewood neck I can find has this modern shape headstock, so I was pretty pleased when the one I thought I was getting showed up in the listings. Unfortunately it looks like they just send out whatever is to hand. As bottomofthbarrel says, eBay is always a bit of a gamble but I’m still disappointed to have come out the loser on this occasion. I’ll see what the seller has to say but I suspect I’ll just get offered a refund. Whilst that’s better than a kick in the teeth it does rather leave the build at a bit of an impasse. The only other suitable necks I’ve seen are around £150 minimum, which is easily more than the rest of the bass put together. Admittedly it’s not an unreasonable price, but certainly more than I’d want to spend, especially when you consider this one was £32.

Having had problems with purchases from the Far East before, I suspect I’ll probably end up with a refund and not having to return the offending neck. That at least means I’m not left out of pocket and will also likely be able to sell the neck on to someone with less discriminating tastes. My best option long-term may well be to wait and see if something suitable comes up in the BC marketplace, but that could take months.

[SpondonBassed]

6 hours ago, Johnny Wishbone said:

Having had problems with purchases from the Far East before, I suspect I’ll probably end up with a refund and not having to return the offending neck. That at least means I’m not left out of pocket and will also likely be able to sell the neck on to someone with less discriminating tastes. My best option long-term may well be to wait and see if something suitable comes up in the BC marketplace, but that could take months.

If you end up keeping the neck, you have the option of going ahead with the wrong neck and the intention of replacing it down the line.  It's hateful for a project to be held up in this way.  My sympathy.

[Johnny Wishbone]

57 minutes ago, SpondonBassed said:

If you end up keeping the neck, you have the option of going ahead with the wrong neck and the intention of replacing it down the line.  It's hateful for a project to be held up in this way.  My sympathy.

True enough. That certainly seems to be the path of least resistance, so to speak.

[Johnny Wishbone]

Update: the seller has offered a partial refund if I wish to keep the neck. How partial has yet to be determined, but this seems an agreeable outcome until a replacement can be sourced.

Nothing on eBay or Amazon as yet (not for under £100 anyway) but I suppose I can at least have a playable bass in the interim.

[JohnDaBass]

Good result then, you can now crack on with the build knowing that there's a final solution on the horizon. 

[Jimothey]

@Johnny Wishbone just saw this on ebay don't know if its any good to you as its got the vintage style headstock but it's maple board? 

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F392132491696

Edited September 28, 2018 by Jimothey

[Johnny Wishbone]

Thanks @Jimothey but this one has to be rosewood - I don’t think maple will suit the body colour. That said, I may well place a bid in anticipation of another build.