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The "other" zombie bass build

#21
Another hour in the shop last night, routed out the pickup cavities, cut the clearance for the bridge, and cut the fretboard to width.

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He helped with the measuring and marking and I operated the router. I don't think he's quite ready for that yet.

Was not really paying attention when we marked the width on the fretboard so it got cut too narrow. We decided to keep it and pick another wood to bind it with. Probably will be maple or cherry.
 
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#22
Glued on some maple binding, drilled for markers and glued them in, cut the electronics cover to size, drilled the mounting holes for the hardware, and did some finish shaping.

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My son did most of these steps himself, just with guidance from me. He's starting to get very excited about finishing this.
 
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#24
Glued the fretboard on late last night, just pulled it out of the clamps and re-profiled the neck to match the new fretboard width and get things cleared up.

My son was curious to put it next to my 6 string for a size comparison so we took it upstairs to see. This is the bass the original 5 string was based on before we cut it up, so the bodies are near-copies:

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No surprise the neck looks smaller, but the extent to which it's smaller is much more clear when you put it next to my strat:

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With the 30" scale and the bridge so far back, and no head - it's downright tiny!
 
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#25
Rough sanding done over the weekend and last night we started on fret work. I figured there would be some parts of this process that he had very little interest in. Turns out fret work is one of them. We didn't get far. :D I'll probably finish it myself, although we are leaving on vacation tomorrow so it'll be a few weeks.

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#28
We finished the hardware install and strung it up last night, we hit a "complication" with the bridge and didn't finish until late, so I didn't get any photos.

Two of the bridge screws snapped off while we were driving them in, so I need to fix that. Also, even with the saddles bottomed, the action is still higher than I'd like to see it at. So I may pull the bridge off and route a little shelf 1/8" or so into the body for it to sit on, and fix those screws at the same time.

It's definitely playable as is and he was all smiles while playing it last night, but I do want to fix this stuff!
 
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#29
Dang, I should have warned you about those mounting screws. The first thing I do when I buy a cheap bridge is throw away the screws and replace them with stainless steel. The ones they ship with are pot metal or aluminum, it's entirely too easy to strip the heads off them. Also I always put wax or soap on the threads of the screw before putting in it - someone warned me soap can degrade the screw, though I've never seen that myself.
 
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#30
Jisch said:
Dang, I should have warned you about those mounting screws. The first thing I do when I buy a cheap bridge is throw away the screws and replace them with stainless steel. The ones they ship with are pot metal or aluminum, it's entirely too easy to strip the heads off them. Also I always put wax or soap on the threads of the screw before putting in it - someone warned me soap can degrade the screw, though I've never seen that myself.
Click to expand...

Yes, if I’m iffy on any screws there’s an Ace Hardware a few minutes away with a big selection of stainless wood and sheet metal screws.
 
#31
I should have known better. I should have stopped after the first one broke but we were both just so eager to get it playable - he's off on a trip for a week today so last night was our last chance! Now I get to pay the price I suppose. At least I can do it at the same time as when I recess the bridge.
 
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#32
Got the screws extracted and chiseled out a 1/8" deep pocket for the bridge. Got some nice stainless screws. Everything is back together and the bass has a proper setup now. I needed a quarter turn on the truss rod and a few other minor adjustments but my guess at intonation was dead on, which is good because the intonation screws on this bridge are hard to reach.

It's pretty much done at this point. Once my son gets back home, all we need to do is pick a spot to put my brand on it. I usually do the back of the headstock, but, well, that ain't gonna work!

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I really love the head piece that came with this bridge, how it matches the shape of the end of the neck and has the little hole for the truss rod. It makes for a really clean look. I wish they made a left handed version of this head piece, I would use it in an instant on a bass for myself. The bridge itself has some quirks but I do like it and it gets the job done.

The pickups sound great. They're really clean and open, and with the tone rolled off and mid cranked up on the amp, they get a great vintage-y thump. I would definitely use these pickups again any time I wanted a true single coil.

I weighted it and was surprised at how light it was, 6 lbs 14 oz. I was surprised, it feels more substantial than that. The bridge is suuuper heavy. I weighted my 6 string for comparison, it's 9 lbs 7 oz. Goes to show you what a big solid neck can do to an instrument's weight.

Considering this thing was born from hacking up a half finished 20 year old semi-abandoned project, I am very satisfied. I can't wait to get it in my son's hands once he's home.
 
#34
I have a vague plan to do a headless 5 string for myself at some point in the distant future. I may use the 5 string version of this bridge just because it's so cheap and it works well. What I want to do is make a sort of wood version of a jazz bass bridge cover, matching the body wood, so it looks like the strings just disappear into the body versus having the big bridge on display. Hold it on with hidden magnets or something so you can pop it off to change strings.
 

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