Homemade slab body P-bass

[M-rek]

Hey there!
I just wanted to share my latest project with you, which I finished last weekend. I wanted to do this for a while, and there is a thread around which inspired me - the NBD Frankenslab Precision bass.
It's a - you guessed it - precision style bass with a slab body. I shaped it with my dad's milling machine, sanded it and was going to lacquer it with some solid blue paint. But then I fell in love with its texture and decided to go with wood stain instead...

I tried my best to achieve some kind of "blue burst", blue in the middle and black towards the edge. I'm quite pleased with how it came out.

this little guy helped me with the soldering...

checking the results so far. The neck is "borrowed" from a cheap p-bass I had for a while. Liked the feel a lot and decided to attach it to my project bass instead. It was a little too pale though...

...so I stained that one, too, using yellow and brown wood stain and some water. I later refinished the neck with some oil.

Then I just had to assemble it and put some strings on it and now it's ready to go!

BTW, the pickup is a DiMarzio DP-122, Gotoh 201 bridge and Schaller BMFL nickel tuners, CTS 250K pots, Orange Drop 0.047mf Cap and a Switchcraft jack.

(here you can see where I messed it up a little... while drilling the hole for the grounding wire to the bridge, the drill came out in the bottom right corner on the back If anybody asks, I'll tell them it's for venting purposes)

And yesterday, I felt like there's still one more thing to do:

So, yeah. There it is, my new baby. I like it a lot!
What do you think?

 

[5StringBlues]

Brilliant!



The stain on the neck looks great.

 

[MrMoonlight]

I was loving it every step of the way until you slapped that silly sticker on it...but hey, it's your bass.

Congrats on you new baby and enjoy. Nice job.

 

[M-rek]

Brilliant!



The stain on the neck looks great.

Thanks! Yea, the neck looks much better than before the staining I think, it matches the body quite well, doesn't it?

I was loving it every step of the way until you slapped that silly sticker on it...but hey, it's your bass.

Congrats on you new baby and enjoy. Nice job.

Oh well, I had that sticker lying around for a while and I thought, why not... It's just the pickguard, so at least it doesn't cover up the wood I might just peel it off again some time, we'll see. Thanks for your comment!

 

[lostreality]

The stain on the neck gives it a nice old school feel without a relic job. Very nice work man!

 

[lug]

I also like everything but the sticker. If the sticker stays, you need to at least relic it as well!

 

[Runnerman]

Great job, nicely done. Wondering what it weighs??

 

[M-rek]

The stain on the neck gives it a nice old school feel without a relic job. Very nice work man!

That's exactly what I was going for! I'm not really into this heavy relicing-thing. For me, the staining on the neck came out just perfectly Thank you!

I also like everything but the sticker. If the sticker stays, you need to at least relic it as well!

never thought a (pretty plain) sticker would cause such a stir!
Well, like I said, I'm already thinking about getting rid of it again. I'll ask my drummer next time we jam, see what he thinks about it

Great job, nicely done. Wondering what it weighs??

Thanks a bunch!
just weighed it: it's about 5.1 kilograms (which converts to 11 pounds and 4 ounces I think? - I'm not familiar with this measuring system ).

Oh, I forgot to mention: the body is a solid one-piece chunk of ash!

 

[eaglemachine]

Curious, why did you prefer slab over a contoured body? I can't look at this without thinking how much it would hurt my right arm.

 

[M-rek]

Curious, why did you prefer slab over a contoured body? I can't look at this without thinking how much it would hurt my right arm.

To be honest, I just think it looks sweet
It didn't cause me any trouble so far. I never even noticed this before, but most of the time while playing, I don't even rest my arm on the bass. My thumb sits on the pickup while the rest of the arm kinda floats around. Sounds weird, I know...

 

[Callused Finger]

The neck treatment is spectacular. Maybe just a little radius on the body? Looks sharp!

 

[M-rek]

The neck treatment is spectacular. Maybe just a little radius on the body? Looks sharp!

The edges were pretty sharp after shaping. Maybe I didn't sand it enough on the back where the neck joins the body, it's still a bit sharp there. But I won't ruin my finish to fix this, it's good enough for me Thanks for the feedback!

 

[Aqualung60]

Very nice!, I'm really liking the color also. drool

 

[Chicory Blue]

Absolutely gorgeous color. I'm dripping with envy.

Wait, no, that's saliva.

Envious saliva.

--^@

 

[jjmuckluckjr]

Not my style but overall, nicely done. Hard to tell but is that a knot or crack in the top of the neck by the G-tuner? While my woodworking skills end at quarter round molding, seems like glue or wood-fill might help. Anyway, the blue came out nice.

 

[buldog5151bass]

Take a look at the '54 P body - slab, but round over for your left forearm. MUCH more comfortable.

 

[BBQisgood]

Really good looking. The color is super.

 

[Fat Freddy]

Nice job.....Shame about the sticker.....

 

[jhb138]

So much butthurt over a sticker....smh.

Klepto, please put *more* stickers on there! Just to hear the crying.... lol.

 

[bolophonic]

The bass is pretty sweet looking, but bro... that sticker makes it look like something abandoned in a craigslist ad.