Bass Re-build

Like with anything, there is a wide range of prices on bass guitars that, I think, follows name, quality, durability, and clarity of performance. I am sure name is something that frustrates people offering a new product. If you do not have a name, it is difficult to get a premium price. Also, the respect that follows name can be lost over time with bad decisions. Name is developed over time and comes to affect price. When I picked up this worn and weary machine, you could purchase a base for as low as $200, or as high as $4000. You could go higher, but that would be dreaming. I had done some research on the history of electric basses and what may be in guitars of various builds. I even listened to and compared to the playing and sound of the traditional upright double bass (fretless, of course).

I bought this shell of a bass for $80 and brought it home. I decided to try to emulate the Ernie Ball Music Man bass guitars. I ordered pickups and a wiring harness from Bartolini through Sweetwater. I chose the pickups in the p-j configuration with the classic sound and an active wiring arrangement. This is expected to have power, clarity, punch, and articulation, with a wide range of controls over the sound. I also ordered Ernie Ball slinky cobalt, flat-wound strings. Everything but the pickups arrived within a couple of weeks. The pickups took a while due to general availability of bass pickups at that time. I searched around and found that you just could not get the better bass pickups. The representative at Sweetwater stayed with me over that time, and provided updates. I had a lot to do for this guitar and not a lot of personal time to do it, so I was not too concerned. I ordered components in August of 2022, and I wanted the guitar to be playable by April of 2023 on its 25-year anniversary of build. I checked periodically and started getting concerned by January. The pickups arrived in February, in time for the final re-build. Thank you Sweetwater!

I had to modify the body for the pickups I had for installation. Originally, there was a pair of soap bar pickups in the bridge and neck positions. I had purchased a single-coil jazz pickup for the bridge location, and a set of two humbuckers for the neck location. (When I wrote this, I had a lot of figures to show the progress, but I was not able to import them into LinkedIn. Sorry about that.) This is the pj-configuration discussed in a previous section. This was a set of Bartolini pickups built to follow their Classic sound. I wanted the single coil bridge pickup in about the middle of where the original bridge pickup was located. I wanted the neck pickup a bit closer to the neck for bass notes with a rounder sound. I filled the original pickup cavities with maple wood like the body, glued and pressed in. I then drew the outline of the pickups where they were to be. I used a drill press to drill just to the right depth (over and over) and removed the material with a wood chisel. I cleaned it up and connected the cavities to the electrical compartment with a drill. I then sanded the pickup area down to the level of the rest of the top surface of the body.

I wanted the guitar to have a unique look and needed to work on the body and fretboard. There were a couple different finishes on the guitar as I received it. From the factory, the fingerboard was probably bare rosewood with a conditioner like a Danish oil. This ends up fairly hard, shows the grain well for a beautiful look, but may wear under hard use. The finish on the fingerboard as I received it appeared to be polyurethane, brushed on. As I noted in a previous section, the fingerboard on a fretless bass has direct interaction with the strings. Flat wound strings are not too bad, but round wound strings can be aggressive on the surface of the fingerboard. Some people prefer the sound of bare wood for the fingerboard. Some prefer a very hard surface finish to enhance the growl. TotalBoat marine wood finish is recommended by some for a very hard surface. Poly urethane is harder than wood, but less hard than an epoxy type of finish. A polyurethane finish is not too difficult to remove if needed, but some finishes are very difficult to remove.

For the fingerboard, my wife had recommended what some people use for furniture refinishing. She had seen the use of oven cleaner. I was somewhat skeptical, but I mostly go along with my wife’s suggestions. I have been married a long time. At first look, I saw that there was a coating of what appeared to be polyurethane with wear from the strings. The coat was thicker in some areas, but I didn’t think that it looked too bad. I applied a thick layer of oven cleaner and let it sit. When I wiped it off, I saw that a lot of finish had come off. There were areas of clean, bare wood that looked quite beautiful, but this made clear that there was still a lot of finish to remove. After several applications, I was left with an entire fingerboard of beautiful wood with clear note lines and markers. I then applied several coatings of Danish oil for the finish.

The blond body was made at the factory by putting a slightly butterscotch color finish over very light-colored wood with some grain lines and no blemishes. The finish on the body was the stock finish. I think it is an epoxy resin that is meant to be shiny, clear, and hard, to stand up to years of work and travel. I wanted to take the surface down to the wood to stain it in a unique way. I watched a few videos on how to remove an epoxy finish on a guitar body. I tried using the heat gun and scraper method. This might have worked ok, but I was not so patient. I moved on to grinding it off with a sander. This must be done with care to not end up with gouges in the wood. I took it down with a coarse grit, then smoothed it out with successively fine grits. Ibanez used some beautiful wood with tight and consistent grain and no blemishes.

For the unique look, I purchased Keda Dye wood stains in the base colors of yellow, blue, and red. At one time, I had lived in a house with a living room that had purple and green as paint colors. I had loved those colors (picked by my wife) and wanted to do something along those lines. I had hoped to have purple on the perimeter of the body, fading through blue to green at the center. This works for part of the rainbow, so why not? I watched a few videos and made a few practice runs on some maple boards I had in my shop. It seemed like it would be somewhat like watercolor painting, which I had done some of in the past. Possibly with more practice I would have been able to blend smoothly from one color to the next but this turned out to be challenging. The alcohol-based dye tends to soak quickly into the wood and set up boundaries for each successive application. I worked at it for a bit and then went bravely to the guitar body. As I applied and re-applied and attempted to blend, I achieved a darker look than I was originally intending, but I did achieve a body that moves from purple at the perimeter, through blue, to green at the center. It has a dark and subtle look that in the end, I like.

People use various types of finishes on guitar bodies. Some are easy to apply but tend to wear more quickly. Some finishes yellow over time. Some are extremely hard and will wear forever but are very difficult to apply. A difficult application may be workable, but likely requires skills that are developed over the time of many applications. This may be a factor in product cost along with other aspects that I have mentioned. I was interested in trying new things and to do some practicing to a rational degree. I do wood working in my shop and I have a few skills in that area.

At first, I thought I wanted a very hard finish. One method is to use two-part epoxy, and another is to use CA glue. For the epoxy, I would have used a slow setting formulation. For that, you set up the body to be covered in a very level state and put tape around openings or protrusions to dam the flow. There needs to be paper beneath the part to catch run-off. The parts are combined in a quantity that should be more than enough. The fluid would be poured over the part with it running off all sides evenly. A heat gun is used to blow hot air over the surface to remove any bubbles. After it is set, the body is protected with a hard, clear layer. Though I have some experience with epoxy for my woodworking, I was concerned about getting a good flow and consistent thickness with no bubbles. Also, the top surface of the guitar body has some contours, and I was not sure about how the epoxy would flow there.

I tried the method using CA glue, or Super Glue. This is cyanoacrylate and many people have recommended it. This sounded intriguing, and I have experience with using CA glue to adhere accelerometers for acoustic testing. How hard could it be? A layer of the glue is applied with a paper towel or some expendable sheet, then the surface is sprayed with activator. Multiple layers are applied for a thick coat. If you are good at it, you end up with a tremendously hard, very clear surface. Mine came out hard and clear, but with humps and ripples. I was not successful. I ground it down with coarse grit, then successively finer grits to a nice finish. I applied two layers of polyurethane for a durable, but smooth and shiny surface. There are a couple places where I ground down through the dyed layer, but some people like a distressed look anyway. The body looks dark, foreboding, and rugged as you can see in the figure.

I assembled the guitar without much difficulty. I installed the pickups over a foam pad with long screws. This allows control over the distance between the pickups and the strings. The pad pushes the pickup outward and the long screws pass through the pickup. The screws go into the body at the back of the cavity for the pickups in the body. Shortening the screws forces the pickup away from the strings. I installed the wiring and soldered the needed connections. The original jack was loose inside, and I didn’t like the jack that came with the wiring, so I ordered a replacement jack like the original. The jack provides a signal connection and a ground connection. Because of the active aspect of the electronics, the battery is attached to the jack such that when the cable plug is pulled, there is no draw from the battery. Otherwise, there would only be two attachments to the jack.

After some initial difficulty with the wiring, I got the guitar re-assembled and ready to play. As described in a previous section, I ran through the several steps of the setup (or calibration). I am very pleased with the sound and playability. Playing the fretless after years of the fretted bass takes some work and practice. I was using my ear a lot playing the fretted bass, anyway, so it hasn’t been too bad. I play weekly with friends over the internet for a few hours using a platform called “Jamkazam”, and some on my own. It works well even though I am in the Northeast and they are in the Midwest. I also post a clip of me playing to music every now and again on YouTube. If you want, you can find me by searching on “Jeff Girard bass”. I currently have one clip with the new guitar, playing dubbed over “Lovely” by Billie Eilish and Khalid. I made that soon after I got the guitar back together.