Did you miss me? I did.
It's been 10 days since I posted anything, but I've been otherwise distracted. Damn the need for money in this society.
With the remaining time, I've cleared my schedule and I'm gonna make this bass happen. Here's what I've gotten done in the past 2 days...
Needed to make the bottle opener happen.
That's the cutoff from the back of the headstock, aka the bottle opener template. You know, it's pretty crazy that a router bit, sanding wheel and small band saw can machine metal, but it can!
The next big step was radius on the fingerboard, but I needed to solidify the strings-thru-headstock area first, as well as the nut retainer and spot for the A/B string nut.
Yeah, I did dots. I figured since it was good enough for Chris Squire, it would be nice here, too. And
@rogerbmiller clued me into a video showing his rig rundown and with the headstock wings being darker, he said it kinda looked like my weirdo headstock in certain shots.
"BOLLOCKS! Why does that mic smell so dreadful?!?"
And I'll admit, I didn't think I could injure myself SANDING, but lo and behold, while radius sanding the board, my pinky drifted into the "hook" of the headstock area, the sanding bar went into it, and I almost sliced the tip off. Some pressure, swearing, a bandage and some tape and it was back to work. Didn't even bleed on the bass!
When I fretted this, I took a page from
@Bruce Johnson and used a dark tinted epoxy in the fret slots, to avoid needing to do filler at the end.
I hope it works!
Once all the frets were in, I clamped it all down:
And now I wait for that to dry.
In the mean time, there's the matter of filling the logo. So with black wood filler, I made a slurry and continuously filled it in and let it dry
Once that is nice and dry, I'll hit it up with a flat sanding, then add some poly to keep it sealed.
Despite this new Varathane being easier to use, I will still say I'm struggling with the finish. More so, keeping stuff out of it. Dog hair, dust, etc, seems to find its way in there no matter what. I'll sand it out, then have to spray the bare areas again, which is getting kinda tedious. So while I may eventually refinish this after the build off, for the moment, this paint job is good enough for functionality. Like I said, it's pretty much the same level as a US made EBMM SUB Stingray in texture and durability. So that's nice.
I'm typing this while I let things dry and my finger clot. If all goes well, tomorrow may be me doing the string clamping mechanism, string holder nut things, and hopefully the drop A mech.
The electronics are pretty much all set. Nothing to do there but install and that is EASY.
