Finished body

Well the color coats are complete, as are the clear coats and final buffing. I am still a little torn about this paint type, but it actually came out pretty well. It took some work but it was worth it for the final luster of the finish. This part of the process drives me crazy because of being a perfectionist. I’m not sure I’d use this color again though; I’d rather get one that comes in regular nitro lacquer. However, it is done and it looks pretty good, so it is possible! After finishing the buffing and everything I also applied the copper shielding foil to the pickup cavities and the control cavities. This shielding is necessary to reduce interference that causes hum when the bass is near the amp or other devices. The body before the shielding job:

And after the shielding:




Looks beautiful! I changed my mind on the pickguard color. Instead of using white I’m going to go with black. I think it will look nicer overall with this color. The hardware will be chrome and the headstock will most likely be painted the same color as the body for a nice look. I finally have decided on a neck to use as well. It’s an SX neck but in different dimensions than they usually are. Slightly wider at the nut than a typical Jazz style neck, but it is slimmer front to back which should make it easier to play for someone with small hands. My favorite luthier also is doing the work on the fret ends to make sure they aren’t sharp. The fret leveling and nut installation will be up to me though, as will be the sanding, sealing, and finishing of the neck since it comes coated with nothing.

More will come soon once the pickguard gets here. I also ordered all the electronics to wire it up. I opted for higher quality components than the ones I have on hand. No sense in going cheap on those! Only the best will do.

Painting...

I started the color coat applications on the body. So far it seems to be going well, though every little imperfection drives me crazy. Working in the garage under fluorescent lights gives me a detailed view of everything which is not actually visible most of the time. That, along with the fact that half of this body will be covered by the pickguard and hardware, and it’s probably not as necessary obsess over it. But I will! It’s going to be as perfectly smooth as I can possibly make it before I start with the clear coat. If something is worth doing, it’s worth doing correctly! I think the color looks good. I’m still trying to decide on a color scheme for the whole bass though. There are a couple directions I could take. I have time to figure that out though. For now I’m going to focus on getting the body finished as well as possible, and then it becomes assembly. The neck is something I keep going back and forth about, but I still have time on that as well.

Paint choices

I did some research trying to figure out which type of paint to use for the body. My first choice is usually nitrocellulose based lacquer, which I’ve used with good results several times before. However, the color I need is not available from my source in that color. I haven’t had much luck getting it from somewhere else either, so an alternative will have to be used. The best choice seems to be Krylon acrylic lacquer. I haven’t used this for a guitar project before (mostly just sheet metal applications) but it should be an adventure.

Priming

I spent a lot of time the past couple days prepping this body for a finish. This included a LOT of primer, sanding, spraying more primer, more sanding. The goal was to get the surfaces perfectly leveled out and the edges smoothed over so that the edges are rounded and as nice looking as possible. 2 cans of primer later I’m finally happy with how it’s looking, so it’s almost ready to be colored! I know what color I’m going to go with now, but I don’t have a finish type or brand picked out yet. I’m still weighing those options at the moment. The body looks good with the primer finished. Since I spent a good amount of time with the prep work, the color should go on fairly easily and should look great. The key is all in the amount of time you spend on prep work! The sealers and primers are where the leveling has to be done. Color won’t fill much at all, so if you don’t have the surface correct at the primer level, you’ll fight the color finish forever trying to get it right! I’m looking to avoid that, so extra care was taken to get it as close to perfect as I could in primer. I’m a perfectionist so this took quite some time!

Bridge alignment

Taking a break from exam studying! I did some fit up work on where the bridge is going to be mounted. Yesterday I figured out where it needs to sit from side to side so that the strings line up between the poles. Then today I had to figure out how far forward or back it needs to sit. I did some measuring of my other basses to get an idea of where they sit. On this measurement it is possible to be slightly off and still be fine since it can be adjusted on the individual saddles when you set the intonation anyways. Since I didn’t want to lose my measurements from yesterday, I taped along the sides of the bridge to make a “slot” where I can move it forward or backward for measurements, and taped it down to check and make sure everything is still good. As soon as one of the new necks arrives, I’ll make sure none of my measurements need to be adjusted, and then I can drill the pickguard and bridge holes. Once I do that, the body will then be ready to be primed. I don’t want to do that until I have all the holes drilled, and I don’t want to drill the holes until I have all the pieces fit up to make sure I only have to do it once. Here the holes are marked for drilling out the bridge holes.