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road worn…
There are definitely road worn areas on this finish. But it does buff out pretty shiny.
I know I still sanded through a few small areas. *sigh* So I don't know what I'm going to do with this finish just yet. I'm tempted to sand it down to the bare wood and just Tung oil it. But we'll see. I still have fret work to do, and of course final assembly. I just may move forward to that, because I'm really curious if I was able to actually make a functional neck.
Going forward, I don't know that I'll do any more gloss finishes. It's *a lot* of hard work. Tung oil is my friend.
On the other hand, my arms are sore from sanding all day. How do you prevent sanding through around the edges? That was the most difficult part, especially sharp edges, like around the perimeter of the headstock.
Thanks for the encouragement
Despite the finish challenges, the bass actually plays fairly well. It appears I did an ok job on the frets, no sticky outie frets ends, and there's only one note that buzzes, the "A" string, on the 9th fret. Which is weird since I was most concerned about the slight relief on one side and reverse relief on the other in that area. The middle was actually fine. I'll have to take a closer look at that tomorrow. The neck didn't blow out when I tweaked the truss rods, so that's another plus. I know that neck is likely too thin. Feels great though. I also may have to make a new nut - I think the g string is a bit too close to the edge of the fretboard.
The pickups sound pretty good, but the output is pretty low. I never made any setup for height adjustment - I was too focused on putting the thing together, but they could be closer to the strings, which may fix the low output issue. Additionally, the G string is noticeably lower output than the other strings. Perhaps the height adjustment will fix that. or a better spaced nut. We'll see. It could also be that I used the bridge pickup for the neck position and visa versa - I never marked which was which when I put them in the covers. Right now, I have a flat metal plate across the bottom of the poles, with neo magnets just stuck to the metal. I may have to put the neo magnets directly on the poles. (I didn't ever magnetize them) I still haven't shielded the control cavity or pickup cavities and the bass is noisy - until I set both pickup outputs the same - then the noise totally goes away. I reverse wound one of them, and put the magnets reverse to each other on each pickup - humbucker style, which apparently is working.
And finally, while most of the finish is nice and glossy - and I'm real pleased with that - the orange color is, well, not exactly my taste. I'm still deciding what to do about that.
This is definitely a learning experience, and I learned quite a bit on this one. Thanks to everyone for all the help and encouragement. I'm already thinking about what I'll do for my next build, now that I know I can build functional necks.
Oh, and as an afterthought, I'm impressed with the varathane clear coat, despite my learning curve. It fully cured overnight, and is less stinky than nitro. Just keep it in a cool place...
I really admire your dedication...So I've been living with this bass for a week, trying to decide what to do. I've decided I'm not too keen on the orange. It's not a bad color, however orange is not a color that I'd choose for a bass. If that were the only issue, I'd probably just live with it. There's also the issue of the frets/fretboard. This was my first neck with frets. I'm amazed that it's playable and in tune. But there's that dip on the treble side that occurred during the radiusing, and while I was able to compensate to some degree with the fret leveling, if these frets wear down, there's no room to do another leveling on some of the frets. So I'd have to pull them off and re-fret it. And there's that one low fret, somewhere around the 9th fret. If that were the only issue, I'd probably just live with it. And there's the headstock issue, with the truss rods too far north, when they should be level with the end of the fretboard. That would have prevented the crowding of the truss rod adjustment channel to the tuner, and the lumpy back of the neck. If that were the only issue, I'd probably just live with it.
That said, there's at least three major issues with this build, not including the fact that there's that bubble in the clear on the back which needs to be sanded out and redone, and at some point, one has to assess the situation and decide if it's time to set this aside, and just rebuild the darn thing. The amount of work to fix this - at least those items that can be fixed, is more than to build it again. Use this as a learning experience, and don't make the same mistakes.
So that's what I'm doing.
New wood. Maple for the neck, and I found this beautiful piece of walnut for the neck stringers and body wings. Clear coat only on this one. No dye, no paint, no drips, no runs, no errors.
So I cut this wood down, and clamped it up.
I think I almost have enough clamps.
Next up, body wings. But I think I've worked on this enough for today. Other chores beckon.
