Building the P-Bass-Man PART FOUR
(part one, two, three)
Let's plunge through space and time to the late fall of 2012. The dream of a fretless future remained, despite remaining in the dream stage. In November (2012) I started the piccolo bass project—sound samples here (…more on the Super Short Bass Experiment build). It was a great learning experience—gained some confidence with my wiring skills and came to embrace tung oil. Sorry Jaco, I'm a tung oil man—down with epoxy!
Before the piccolo was such, it enjoyed a brief stint as a 2-string slide bass (yes, I'm a huge fan of Mark Sandman). I pulled the split p's out of the P-Bass for this project, leaving half-functional electrics and the bridge pickup. Then, in December I pulled the guts out of the P-Bass for the piccolo (also removing the functionless bridge pup). I left the P-Bass leaning against the bookshelves in the guest room and found myself picking it up just about every day to noodle around acoustically. Having removed the epoxy in a bout of frustration, the fingerboard looked a bit rough, but it sounded leaps and bounds better than my wonky epoxied fingerboard.
Side note: After learning that the frets were the reason for naming the bass Precision, it's funny that I removed them—essentially removing the precision from my bass and my playing (sounds about right).
Idea Formed
In January of this year (2013) I had a Mighty Mite Music Man-style pickup that didn't work for the piccolo project and a pickup-less P-Bass. The idea of combining two of Leo Fender's bass guitars (the Fender Precision Bass and the Music Man Sting Ray) was more a result of looking around at what I had than anything else.
Starting Point (top down)
The Plan
(part one, two, three)
Let's plunge through space and time to the late fall of 2012. The dream of a fretless future remained, despite remaining in the dream stage. In November (2012) I started the piccolo bass project—sound samples here (…more on the Super Short Bass Experiment build). It was a great learning experience—gained some confidence with my wiring skills and came to embrace tung oil. Sorry Jaco, I'm a tung oil man—down with epoxy!
Before the piccolo was such, it enjoyed a brief stint as a 2-string slide bass (yes, I'm a huge fan of Mark Sandman). I pulled the split p's out of the P-Bass for this project, leaving half-functional electrics and the bridge pickup. Then, in December I pulled the guts out of the P-Bass for the piccolo (also removing the functionless bridge pup). I left the P-Bass leaning against the bookshelves in the guest room and found myself picking it up just about every day to noodle around acoustically. Having removed the epoxy in a bout of frustration, the fingerboard looked a bit rough, but it sounded leaps and bounds better than my wonky epoxied fingerboard.
Side note: After learning that the frets were the reason for naming the bass Precision, it's funny that I removed them—essentially removing the precision from my bass and my playing (sounds about right).
Idea Formed
In January of this year (2013) I had a Mighty Mite Music Man-style pickup that didn't work for the piccolo project and a pickup-less P-Bass. The idea of combining two of Leo Fender's bass guitars (the Fender Precision Bass and the Music Man Sting Ray) was more a result of looking around at what I had than anything else.
Starting Point (top down)
- Fingerboard was in rough shape—some gouges here and there, uneven wood filler where the frets used to be.
- The body, tuners, bridge, and nut, were all in good shape
- no electronics left, but the Mighty Mite waiting for installation
- no pickguard
The Plan
- The first order of business was to repair previous damage. Using Plastic Wood to fill the imperfections on the fingerboard, sand, then stain with ebony. Right up close you can still see slight imperfections, but it looks pretty respectable from a couple steps back.
- In addition to fingerboard repair, I decided to remove the coating on the play-area along the back of the neck and finish with tung oil. I did this with the piccolo and really prefer the feel—kind of naturally warm and my hand sticks less during humid weather (or sweaty practice spaces). The original finish would remain on the headstock.
- Wiring. I had to consider the 3 holes already drilled into the body from the previous wiring setups. This got me thinking about some options. I knew I wanted a kill switch (something I find useful during practices). …An interesting feature of the Jack Casady signature bass is the Varitone switch. I found plans for a Radio Shack version of a Varitone switch—a 6-way Varitone that costs less than $10! So after consideration, I decided to wire it with a kill switch, a 6-Way Varitone, master tone control, and master volume.
- The best part! The pickguard/belly. Like I mentioned back in part two, I was reading about violin making. Violins have "bellies." The top and back of a violin aren't flat and the top/soundboard bulge is referred to as it's belly. I decided I would take the stock Sting Ray pickguard, but sculpt it to create a P-Bass belly. Aside from cleaning up the fingerboard, I saw this as the element to really finish the bass—a nicely finished piece of wood juxtaposed on the rough green body.
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| It's always a bit nerve-wracking to slap on the plastic wood— momentarily ruining the fingerboard. Things get a bit ugly for a bit… |
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| The play-area polyurethane finish removed and ready for tung oil. |
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| Left: the wiring. Right: the plan for the wiring. The master tone is a little superfluous, so I probably would leave that out for the next time. |
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| Finishing the pickguard was a multi-step process. I started by burning the oak to bring out the grain, then put on several coats of different colored stain. |
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| The bass was feeling a little headstock-heavy so I added this high-mass bridge which, lucky me, I had around. |
Nothing left to do, but practice…
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