I customized another bass.

This time I went all out as I want this one to be more...legit. So I built it from the ground up.

Started out by setting some ground rules...

Goals:
~ Solid body (no cut down standard body then screw on shit made of different wood)
~ Proper finish (half-assed sanding and spray paint will play no part this time)
~ Sustain/Handle arm (given only Auerswald Guitars knows the science behind a functional sustain arm, mines for a different perpose)
~ Compact (compared to Scythe Bass...Easy)
~ Allows Conventional playing methods (Shouldn't have to teach people how to play seated)

With that in mind...
I shopped for my hardware. Pickups, a neck, tuners, bridge, controls...the works. Thank you eBay.

I found myself a nice piece of Alder, common wood Most electric guitars and basses are made of, at the nearest legit lumber yard (MacBeth Hardwood in SF...well worth the drive). Once I had all my dimensions set out from the parts that arived I started cutting my single-piece Solid body. My last custom was a two parter comprised of a cut down junk ply body and KNOTTY PINE from ace...worst combo ever but it was cheep and took a lot of the router and alignment work out of the project.

Following that I set the Neck. Once I got it to lay flush I just had to drill holes to match up the ones in the neck and neckplate cover...didn't work out so well...misalligned. Drilled new ones 1/4" below thru the plate body and into the neck in one clamping. Perfect match, much better.

Gettin that all anchored together, I threaded some fishing line from the neck tuner on the G side down thru the bridge, back thru the bridge one the E side and back up to the E tuner. Works nicely to position the bridge in the right position, that being a 34" scale length and strings centered on the neck).

With the fishing line in place seemed the right time to position the pickup slots. Simple outline of the PUps themselves spaced according to measurements taken from a standard PJ bass at the local music store made quick work of that.

Before any routing got started wanted to work on the control slots and cavity first. Spade drill bits save the day! I figured I'd have them recessed into the body itself with a relief hole drilled perpendiculare to the axis of the knob to allow manipulation (Kinda wish I drilled these before i cut out the body shape but a clamped in place piece of scrap solved the issue). with recepticals drilled to a nice depth the Cavity was ready to be routed followed by the Pickup slots and lastly a nice 1/2" round over all edges.

Control cavity cover was fabricated from a piece of clear acrylic sheet from the local Ace. A matching seat routed the same as the thickness finished off that (PRO TIP: leave the protective plastic on both sides till done painting the guitar).

Off to painting there after a nice fine sanding. I didn't use a primer as I wanted some of the grain to show thru the ligher painted areas as a kind of reverse white Sunburst...didn't work out but I kept a patch on the back where I had stained a stripe mostly transparent and spray to cover the rest. dozens of coats of clear Gloss Acrylic finish topped that.

Disaster! Painting hook sliped, Body fell on the concrete...sanded out the poc marks and repainted...stripe visiblily greatly diminished due to absent mindedness.

Headstock got a paint treatment too. Aswell as a transparency printed logo set under the gloss finish.

All nice and dry, peeled off the control cover plastic (nice and clear, not a trace of paint) and started assembly. White pickups and gold hardware everywhere!

I need to practice soldering more but finished it off by connecting everything and giving it a tune and a slap.

Strap has this nifty feature where the tied part can slide around a bit so to allow the traditional strap positioning or one (like pictured) that gives it slimmer more upright feel.