A select few of you will know that I had a fairly serious health incident quite recently, and over the past month or so I've been spending a lot more time at home recuperating. I'm building work back up now, but one of the things advised was to spend plenty of down time relaxing but being active.
I thought another bass build would be a good idea, and so I contacted the man himself (
@GSPBASSES) to see if he had any projects kicking around whilst he was winding down ready for retirement.
One suggestion was a Medium Scale Jazz neck and body. Interesting I thought - I've never had a medium scale bass of any description. I've had 30" short scale, but never 32" medium scale. Also, this was a maple board and rear control route so would make for a rather different looking and feeling bass generally.
Well, needless to say it'll shortly be on it's way to me, and the process of gathering parts and planning has started.
Here's a sneak preview of the neck and body - photo from Graham on the bench
Comments
I'm going to go for a multi-coloured stain with wipe on finish - probably Crimson Guitars, and I thought cream knobs and cream pickup covers would be a good contrast, with black bridge/tuners.
Anyway, they turned up yesterday.. they are quite a bit more cream than they look in this photo tho..
More to follow!
I could have stuck to what I know and gone Danish Oil and black all over:
..but I really want to try something a bit different.
It's definitely a bit shorter (!) than usual, but looks great though
It's definitely got a really nice edge contour to it - more than the usual Jazz bass. Definitely a bit modern.
In the meantime I've also tried a few mock-ups just to get a feel for it..
I've used the green crimson stain on this and it looks ace:
I finished over the top with Tru Oil and its really held up well (was used on heavy rotation around work for a while - and was gigged by a mate).
BTW - I hadn't heard you'd been ill, mate - I hope you're on the mend.
Feeling better now but probably 6 months before I'm back to normal.
A box of Ash offcuts from eBay for £8.
I've ordered the 12 Crimson Stain Shots and I'm going to experiment with different colours and combos on these offcuts to see how they look.
Should produce some interesting results!
Started by getting the dilution rate right. Here's 3, 6 and 9 drops in 100ml of water:
10 drops in 100ml should be about right, so here's the first colour Phthalo Blue firstly wet, then dry:
And the colours do contrast nicely when put side to side: