Building the P-Bass-Man PART THREE
(part one) (part two)
With my Squier P-Bass back in the Dynamo Theorem days, I had taken to letting the bass fall at the end of our shows, which progressed into more of a toss, resulting in a rough landing and a cacophony of sound. It was part spectacle and part foolishness. Although… I really wanted an Epiphone Jack Casady bass and I think I was making attempts to damage the Squier beyond repair. However those suckers are built to last!
So, the story of the P-Bass-Man build starts the first day I got it. Like I said, it was a birthday present from Jim and we were playing a show that night. As was now my habit I lifted the bass off at the end of the set and sent it flying. Shit. In the moment as the bass left my fingertips I realized this was not the Squier! It landed on an edge removing a good sized chunk of red finish and wood then bounced to the other edge removing a bit of the finish. Wow. That never happened with the Squier. I thought man, Fender should take note of the Squier division when it comes to durability. Lot of regret there—but, I suppose things need to get a little ugly before they can get pretty.
The wheels started turning that night, but it would be another six years before I did anything about it. I was starting to think less about music and more about what I would do for a living. Ladyradio (formerly the Dynamo Theorem) was getting ready to record a bunch of songs that we wouldn't release and then disband…
So, let's talk about the bass—this is afterall about the build, not a trip down memory lane.
Specifics:
Hecho en Mexíco
late 1996
34" (long) scale
Number of Frets: 22
Body: Poplar with Ash veneered top
Neck: Maple (bolt on)
Fingerboard: Rosewood
Width at Nut: 1.625"
Active electronics
Subspecific:
I recently discovered this P-Bass is referred to as the Cowpoke, dubbed such for it's oddly shaped pickgaurd. It's not super desirable and was only made for a couple years, but there's a little group of Cowpokes on TalkBass.com—you can call me Cowpoke #32. Basically the Cowpoke is a little bit Jazz Bass and a little bit Precision Bass. For instance: the body is a little smaller than a typical P-Bass and the neck gets a little narrower, but not as narrow as a J-Bass. The headstock doesn't seem to flair out as much as the standard P-Bass. It has a P-Bass neck pickup and a J-Bass bridge pickup. It has active electronics, but it's more or less to compensate for the subpar quality of said pickups.
First Attempts:
Initially I wanted to repair the damage I caused to the bass. Steward MacDonald talks a bit about the wonders of superglue. Those guys seem to use it for everything. As it turns out, I'm shit at working with superglue. You should be able to build up a finish, say to repair a chip, and it'll look like nothing ever happened. I did OK with the first chip, but the second got all white and cracked and ended up looking worse than ever.
So OK, I just put it back in the case. This was 2007 and I wasn't playing much. A bit later I made a very nice walnut pickgaurd with thumb rest. I was very proud of that (I would eventually ruin it experimenting with epoxy finishes).
Towards the end of 2009 I started playing again with Jon and Vel (Ladyradio & Dynamo) as well as our friend Joe, Jon's sister Angela, and my wife Teresa. Playing out again in Torch Singer made me want to make a change with the bass—kind of a new chapter. Remembering how easy the finish came off the Squier I decided to have a go at it. I started at the chip and the first chunk of red finish came off pretty easily. Now I had a massive chunk of finish removed and there was no turning back. I believe I spent several days chipping, sanding, stripping finish—it was a nightmare! In the process I removed hunks of wood. It looked like a mistreated barn. We were about a week from our next show and the bass certainly wasn't looking good.
The original plan was to make it look vintage—pickup and bridge covers, that blonde Fender finish, but now it seemed I would have to try something else. Green happens to be my favorite color, but the green stain was Teresa's idea. I stained, gave it a clear coat. What I didn't consider: the red finish was very thick—a good 1/8th of an inch! Removing that really threw off the balance. Luckily I had all these chrome covers to slap on which brought things back in order. I think the stain was still drying at the show.
First Attempts—secondly:
Let's plunge through space and time to 2011. I became enamored with Jaco Pastorius and I was getting some ideas about my old P-Bass (I was now playing an Eastwood Classic 4). Now that the P-Bass wasn't my main axe I figured I could really take the time to do a proper job of things.
There is just a ton of Jaco Mythology out there. Basically, the guy played the bass like nobody else before inspiring a whole new generation of bass players. There is also a ton of Bass of Doom (Jaco's Fender Jazz Bass) Mythology out there. But basically: he tinkered with it, it was fretless, the fingerboard (formerly fretboard) was coated in epoxy. Epoxy seemed like a good idea to me. It would allow me to repair the damage I had done to the body of the bass and I could also use it on the fretboard once I removed the frets.
What I discovered in round 2 of my customization was: I'm only marginally better with epoxy than I am with superglue. Which is to say it didn't go so well. After a month or maybe two (?) of applying layers of epoxy and then sanding I got the body in pretty good shape. It was essentially smooth and was closer to the original weight (with the red enamel). It looks like a misused barn, but feels like a new bass and I'm good with that. Epoxy coating the fingerboard was exceptionally tedious and by the time I got strings on there, I realized it was uneven (epoxy thicker towards the body). I had to raise the action way high to get the notes to ring. Additionally, the notes didn't swell like you hear on fretless instruments. Totally disappointing. But, I was moving on.
From playing a few basses over the years I've decided active electronics didn't work for me. I decided I would make the bass passive using the same p-bass humbucker and j-bass single coil pickups. That didn't really work. I doubted myself initially since this was my first real wiring job, but after a month of tinkering found that the pickups aren't balanced—meaning, they have different output levels.
(part one) (part two)
With my Squier P-Bass back in the Dynamo Theorem days, I had taken to letting the bass fall at the end of our shows, which progressed into more of a toss, resulting in a rough landing and a cacophony of sound. It was part spectacle and part foolishness. Although… I really wanted an Epiphone Jack Casady bass and I think I was making attempts to damage the Squier beyond repair. However those suckers are built to last!
So, the story of the P-Bass-Man build starts the first day I got it. Like I said, it was a birthday present from Jim and we were playing a show that night. As was now my habit I lifted the bass off at the end of the set and sent it flying. Shit. In the moment as the bass left my fingertips I realized this was not the Squier! It landed on an edge removing a good sized chunk of red finish and wood then bounced to the other edge removing a bit of the finish. Wow. That never happened with the Squier. I thought man, Fender should take note of the Squier division when it comes to durability. Lot of regret there—but, I suppose things need to get a little ugly before they can get pretty.
 |
| Ladyradio in West Chicago, IL 2003 |
So, let's talk about the bass—this is afterall about the build, not a trip down memory lane.
Specifics:
Hecho en Mexíco
late 1996
34" (long) scale
Number of Frets: 22
Body: Poplar with Ash veneered top
Neck: Maple (bolt on)
Fingerboard: Rosewood
Width at Nut: 1.625"
Active electronics
Subspecific:
I recently discovered this P-Bass is referred to as the Cowpoke, dubbed such for it's oddly shaped pickgaurd. It's not super desirable and was only made for a couple years, but there's a little group of Cowpokes on TalkBass.com—you can call me Cowpoke #32. Basically the Cowpoke is a little bit Jazz Bass and a little bit Precision Bass. For instance: the body is a little smaller than a typical P-Bass and the neck gets a little narrower, but not as narrow as a J-Bass. The headstock doesn't seem to flair out as much as the standard P-Bass. It has a P-Bass neck pickup and a J-Bass bridge pickup. It has active electronics, but it's more or less to compensate for the subpar quality of said pickups.
 |
| Vegas Bass: Dice strap and gold flake painted pickguard. |
First Attempts:
Initially I wanted to repair the damage I caused to the bass. Steward MacDonald talks a bit about the wonders of superglue. Those guys seem to use it for everything. As it turns out, I'm shit at working with superglue. You should be able to build up a finish, say to repair a chip, and it'll look like nothing ever happened. I did OK with the first chip, but the second got all white and cracked and ended up looking worse than ever.
So OK, I just put it back in the case. This was 2007 and I wasn't playing much. A bit later I made a very nice walnut pickgaurd with thumb rest. I was very proud of that (I would eventually ruin it experimenting with epoxy finishes).
Towards the end of 2009 I started playing again with Jon and Vel (Ladyradio & Dynamo) as well as our friend Joe, Jon's sister Angela, and my wife Teresa. Playing out again in Torch Singer made me want to make a change with the bass—kind of a new chapter. Remembering how easy the finish came off the Squier I decided to have a go at it. I started at the chip and the first chunk of red finish came off pretty easily. Now I had a massive chunk of finish removed and there was no turning back. I believe I spent several days chipping, sanding, stripping finish—it was a nightmare! In the process I removed hunks of wood. It looked like a mistreated barn. We were about a week from our next show and the bass certainly wasn't looking good.
The original plan was to make it look vintage—pickup and bridge covers, that blonde Fender finish, but now it seemed I would have to try something else. Green happens to be my favorite color, but the green stain was Teresa's idea. I stained, gave it a clear coat. What I didn't consider: the red finish was very thick—a good 1/8th of an inch! Removing that really threw off the balance. Luckily I had all these chrome covers to slap on which brought things back in order. I think the stain was still drying at the show.
 |
| Taste of Chicago 2010 with Torch Singer |
Let's plunge through space and time to 2011. I became enamored with Jaco Pastorius and I was getting some ideas about my old P-Bass (I was now playing an Eastwood Classic 4). Now that the P-Bass wasn't my main axe I figured I could really take the time to do a proper job of things.
 |
| Epoxy woes. Left: the epoxy not sticking. Right: As good as I can get it. |
 |
| Brothers: epoxied P-Bass and the Eastwood Classic 4. |
In 2011 I had been back playing with Torch Singer for almost 2 years and we had some free recording time coming up. I wanted to record fretless. Even though I was disappointed with the end result of the build I was calling it done. I had just under two weeks to become proficient on the fretless before recording. As you might imagine that didn't go too well either. Listening to play-back the bass sounded dead and my intonation wasn't there yet. So, I got home stripped off the epoxy on the fingerboard—adding a few more gouges here and there—zipped it up in it's case and let it sit.
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