Wow!
The Inaugural Warwick Rockbass refinishing project is over!
And it's been a wild success!!!
The bass looks absolutely fantastic, and I'd swear it even sounds better.
...OK - maybe I just think it sounds better because it looks so good...and maybe it's because of the new strings...but boy it sounds great, and maybe...just maybe the Tung Oil finish instead of the hard Blue Gloss finish has something to do with it
Humour me
Anyway - I've left it all week to allow the Tung Oil to dry fully. Yesterday I gave it a good rub back with 0000 steel wool (yet again
).
Yesterday and today I've been shielding the pickup cavities, control cavity, and a ground pad under the bridge with Stewmac conductive shielding paint.
I use a solder lug and self tapping screw in each pickup cavity with a ground wire going to the star grounding point in the control cavity. After screwing the solder lug into the pickup cavity, I give it a coat of shielding paint as well to ensure a good connection. I also paint a "grounding" pad under the bridge. This allows the bridge ground wire (also connected to the start gounding point in the control cavity) to enjoy an excellent contact with the bridge.
After the shielding was complete, today I set upon it with the Feast Watson Mastertouch Wax. The wax is great stuff...rub it in with the grain, let it dry for ten minutes or so, then buff off. I gave it three coats of wax just for fun.
The body looks beautiful! Trust me...the pictures don't do it justice!
....anyway, I've since put it together, and given it a preliminary setup with some fresh DR Hi-Beams...and WOW! It sounds great
Here are some pics:
Shielded pickup cavities and bridge ground pad:
Note the solder lug screwed into the corner of the shielded pickup cavity going back to the star ground point in the control cavity (without a connection to ground, the "shielded" pickup cavities wouldn't be shielded, now .... would they
):
Shielded control cavity with star ground solder lug containing all required ground wires:
Pots are prepped and ready to go in (I'm using A500k for vol, and B500k for tone. Wired vol, vol, tone, tone. I'm using 0.033uf caps for a nice bright tone).
Starting the wiring:
All wiring complete (sorry it's so messy still...I need to go out and pickup some cable ties tomorrow and clean it up
).
Beginning assembly of hardware:
All hardware fitted, and ready for strings:
Bass completed Yay!
Boy I love the look of that timber!
...and now for the obligatory before and after photo!
Thanks for looking
