Outlaw X610 Rehab finished - almost...

It's almost done. I just wired it up today following a "Jazz bass with a blend" scheme - a master volume, a master tone and a blend. Much to my pleasure (and surprise) when I plugged it in, it actually worked! I was utterly amazed. I fully expected bupkiss - I got much more!

Ok - there is a pretty significant buzz when the tone is turned up at all and when the blend is in the middle position (both pups on) the volume cuts in half. Clearly I still have work to do.

BUT - both pups work. The P-style sound as you would expect - the Magnaflux pup at the neck is fat and not very well defined, but it works. It does sound a little like the neck pup on a Jazz - nice and round and woody - but nowhere near as healthy.

But for taking a bass that was dead and ugly as sin to a bass that is not dead and no ugly, I am pretty damn pleased with my first project!

You can see progress pics here http://picasaweb.google.com/Tony.Zerbolio/OutlawX610Rehab

And I will upload sound files soon - after I reopen its guts and revisit my wiring. I learned that I really suck at soldering and I suspect that I have somehow wired the pups out of phase and did not ground them properly. Being that I do not know what the condition of the pups were prior to my experiment, I don't know if cleaning up my wiring and grounding will make much of a difference - but I know it won't hurt.

Before this project, I could have tossed this thing on a trash heap and not thought twice about it. Now, I can't imagine getting rid of it.

More to come!

 

Bumping - come on, gang - I've spent the last month working on this thing trying to teach myself how to strip, sand, prep, paint, clear-coat, sand, sand, sand, and sand some more... wire pups - all of this stuff is new to me... someone throw me a bone here... LOL

 

Thanks for the bone.

It sounds ok - not great at all - but I think that is mostly due to my wiring and partly due to the cheap and highly abused original parts.

It has a significant buzz when I turn the tone up at all. The P-Style pups sound the best - solid, real, useful. The Magnaflux pickup at the neck is less useful - it picks up the 'neck tone' but it seems to be unstable - prone to distorting when I dig in.

I tried removing the original finish with stripper - but ended up using 100 grit sandpaper and elbow grease.

Once stripped to bare wood I sanded, and sanded, and sanded some more using 220, then 320, then 400 grit sandpaper.

I put a coat of primer on it - Krylon auto primer - grey.

The paint and clear-coat was put on in a series of two coats of paint, one coat of clear coat - repeated many times - maybe five or six. Between each coat I would sand with 320 grit (remoing the crud with a tack cloth) to rough up the previous coat.

Finally I eneded up just putting about 6 light coats of spray on polyurethane on, sanding lightly between each coat.

After the last coat I spent a lot of time going over it with 0000 steel wool and rubbing frimly with a dish towel.

It's not a perfect finish, but it is not bad.

Things I'd do differently:
1. I think a sanding sealer should have been used. I spent a lot of time bumming out over the fact that I could still see grain after coats of paint. I wanted that perfect, un-grained finish - and ultimately it is really close - but if you look long enough, the grain shows.

2. I should probably go a few more rounds with poly then go to the real fine polishing techniques - the 3M polishing thing to get that shiny, perfect finish.

3. I am going to read up on proper soldering and wiring. I really want to be sure the pickups sound as good as they can and are not being messed up by my sloppy soldering, choice of wire, not coating the cavities with copper foil - all that... But that is all stuff I can still do - and plan to.

Again - thanks for the bone.
--tz

 

bkim - good old 'rattle can' spray paint from my local hardware store - Antique white is the color. I went through about 3 or 4 cans. I put a layer of polyurethane between every 2 coats of paint, then finished with about 6 coats of polyurethane - sanding between.

The finish looks pretty good, if I do say so myself. Not perfect by any stretch - But even up close it looks reasonable.