NBD (it held together a week, I guess it's safe now....)

It is my pleasure to present to you...Wollstonecraft.

Our story begins in 1996 when I bought a neck for $100 from a guy on America Online. (No, really!) Had it sitting around for two decades and decided to do something with it, so at the end of last summer I found a body I liked from Rosser Guitars in NC. Here they are at the start.

That's a gen-you-wine rattle-can black finish with urethane over on thet there neck. At the time the seller said it was a '76 Fender neck (more on that below). Whether or no, I figured at the time, it was straight and solid. Okay, now I got a neck and a body; let's get down to cases.

Over the holidays I sanded and sealed the body (it came sanded to 150 grit, I took it to 1200) and took the razzin frazzin rattle can finish off the neck...

...and what do I find on the heel but a J Torres stamp? Stranger things have happened. Finished the body with five coats of wipe-on poly and the neck with four coats (also dressed the frets a bit while I was at it). The rest of the components:

The pickguard came from Rosser, the (prewired) wiring harness from a shop in Skokie, IL, the pickup from True Custom Shop in Daniels, WV, the string guide from Kluson, strap buttons and string ferrules from Vintage Forge, everything else from Fender. (Is this starting to sound like a Hot Rod magazine article to anyone else? "She rang up 475 on the dyno and I think she'll run low 12s with the right tires....")

After assembly (f/x: "Powerhouse" by Carl Stalling), what came out the other end:

I know I did a crap job on soldering the pickup to the harness and grounding to the bridge, but everything works and it sounds pretty doggone good. A bit of tweaking to do and it's kind of a rat rod of a build, but it plays very nicely and intonation went easily. Overall I'm pretty happy -- it's a good companion for my '66 Precision.

 

I thought about the '51 myself but decided I wanted to go semi-hollow. I think it was around three weeks -- pickguard was about a week and a half.

 

Heh. Purple was my high school's team color (Barberton, OH Magics). My wife asked me, "Why isn't it red?" (Answer: mostly because I was afraid I'd make a botch of it.) If I could mate up a Coronado-type body to a long-scale Fender neck (maybe fretless while I'm at it), I'd be tempted to finish that in red.

 

Pretty good, especially considering the price. Mine's ash, at $125. I thought about getting a semi-hollow '51 P body from USA Custom Guitars, but that would have been more like $300.

 

Thanks. I didn't know there was a lefty bassists who play righty club. That's me as well -- have to check it out.