Updates

After a few days off while waiting for parts to arrive, I got everything in the mail all at once! I love those days. It’s like Christmas morning with all those packages of good stuff. The black pickguard is here. I think this one will look nicer. I also received the new neck which will be my permanent choice, as well as the graphite nut which will give it a nice clean look.

New Parts:

The neck has no finish on it, and a pretty weak coat of sand and sealer. This means I’ll be doing some more sand and sealing to it, it’s a very good idea in Florida! I think the whole neck might end up being black. I thought about matching the headstock to the body color, but I think all black is going to be the way to go at this point. It just looks good and will match my own basses.

The key is to not mess up the pickup route on the new pickguard. My last attempt on the old one was not very good. This one was a failure:

So, the key is to instead of using the air powered dremel tool again, I’m going to do it by hand. It will take longer, but it will be a lot more precise. Patience is the key! Here’s what it takes:

I have the actual pickup in order to tell when the cutout is the correct size. Doing a little and then test fitting often is the best idea. The flat file will be used for the edges and the rat tail file will be used for the ears on the sides.

Conveniently enough, both these files are almost the perfect sizes to do the job on this!

About an hour of filing, test fitting, filing, and more test fitting and I have a result I’m happy with. Now the pickups fit in the opening and it looks clean!

Finished:

Very nice! The plastic on the top is to protect it from any scratches until it is finished.

The next thing to do is to mount the pickup in the body, and see if everything lines up right!

Let's try:

Lines up great! The neck route is slightly smaller than the one on the body and slightly smaller than the actual neck as well. Once the neck is finished I’ll file that down as well for a nice clean fit around it. Since the pickup cavities are already shielded and the paint work on the body is also finished, the pickups can be mounted. Mounting foam is used since I like it much better than the spring or surgical tubing that can be used around the screws for the same purpose. The foam keeps it much more secure and keeps the pickup in exactly the same place I put it. The other types can move around a little.

I think that’s all I’m going to get to today. Tomorrow I might get to work on the sanding and sealing of the neck. It’s starting to look like a bass now! The electronics still need to be put together and mounted also, but here’s how it looks after today’s work:

I’m starting to like the finish on this thing. I wasn’t too hot on it at first, but it definitely came out pretty nice. I’m still not sure if I’m going to any special decorating on it. I think it looks good by itself, so I can’t make a decision on that.