I have been building guitars for the last few years,mainly strat types.I am a bassist first though but it seems all my freeebie parts and junk have been strat type stuff,actually made a few good one.I just built a bass for a kid in our church praise choir.He takes lessons at school and his father is out of work with a broken back so I built a bass for him.It was a Yamaha left outside in the rain.The electronics were shot and the body was pure garbage.It was painted with a brush black and a bunch of stickers on it.With hind sight I should have just bought him a pawn shop squier as this bass was hell to build.I painted it Red and used elecronics from a First act Bass along with the neck.I then put this Vintage Yamaha BB 300 neck on a Madeira black body and was given a good P an also a J pickup.I just finished this and am starting a 3rd bass.It is a 70's Univox Violin bass,I am sanding it down to bare wood and staining it blue,I want to consider powder coating the knobs and tuners a darker blue and also use blue strings.I have 3 holes in the body and a 2 pickup set up but I want to use one pickup.I want to try a Bartolini.With the 3rd hole instead of a knob I am using a toggle switch.I am leaving the neck pickup out because the neck I plan to use cant be adjusted from the headstock but has to be adjusted from the body side.I want to put up blue sparkled pickup surrounds from Greasygroove.I am going to put a blue gel behind the open pickup hole and also put blue gel's behind the F holes because I want to havethe switch control blue lights behind the F holes and open Pickup.This bass will be a fair amount of time and money so I for now just have the kids First act/yamaha and my Madeira /yamaha and soon enough maybe this blue violin body.I know with all the clubs on TalkBass I have not spotted any hopme built bass clubs or groups so would like to correspond with like minded bassists.So if there is interest in a home built bassist club lets rock,I am also a member of CT bassists and the 5o bass's or more owned club.I have some not home made bass's also including a Cherry Red LTD EC(looks like a Les Paul) I own a Black Cherry Hofner #106 of only 150 and a transparent green Hofner #46 of only 150 and my newest is a seafoam green Hofner Galaxy which I see no action on TB for this model.I actually traded a few homemade strats for it and like to have the one solid body Hofner to go with the 2 hollow body ones.I built the Madeira because I always feel I must have at least one Fender or Fender style bass and built a nice one and feel there might be interest in home made jobs.I would like to hear what you guys think is a good company for necks,I am not sure if I want long or short scale but I do want a maple finger board on the blue univox because I want to dye the board blue.I want it all blue.My wife also owns a Pink Hofner Icon it is #7 of only 40 so I guess by accident we are a Hofner house,I am even on a first name basis with the Hofner rep.I slightly modified my 2 Icons but saved all the original parts.I am really enjoying the home builds but the economy makes it hard to unload.Pawn shops are not buying either are music stores.I will give you home builders a little tip I learned along the way.Go to a pawn shop and ask if they have any old broken guitars or bass's out back because for cash they sell them mad cheap and it is a good start to get a bunch of parts.Good luck if you do build your own Ron P.S sorry for the lengthy run on sentence but Im a player not a secretary
