So yesterday I took the body off the stand and took a couple of pictures. On the first one, you can see that there is a fair deal of orange peel on the body. That's because it needs to be level sanded, and then polished. Not sure when I'll get started on that, maybe sometime during the evenings in the coming week. On a body that big, that's going to be a long job.
The back of the necks are completely finished. Because they're a satin finish (as I've mentioned before I hate gloss on necks, it makes your thumb and hand stick, they don't slide as well). I also need to level all of the frets. The guitar frets have issues as you move up the neck (away from the pegs) the bass a little as well. Now that I have a leveling bar, the leveling goes a lot faster and is easier. Recrowning and polishing though still take some time.
I also posted a picture down below with the necks set in place, just to give a few ideas of what the finished product will look like. The bass pickups on this one are 'Soapbar' pickups and I was looking to get higher quality ones, but Soapbar pickups are over a hundred dollars a piece! I don't know if I want to go that route on this one. I may see if someone makes any kind of 'adapter' so I can put a different style pickup in there, but I'll probably just go with the cheap ones that came with the kit and upgrade later if I don't like the sound.
The guitar pickups are regular humbuckers and I think I'll probably go with the kit ones for now and change them later if I don't like them. I'm still thinking of changing the wiring and I've figured out two options, both of which involve replacing the pots that came with the kit with dual pots, so regardless of selector position, the pots will always be directly wired to the pickups. Basically each pot would control two pickups. The choice right now is one knob or two concentric knobs. With one, the pots are physically slaved together. With two, you can adjust them independently. I'm leaning towards the second option.
Right now I suspect I won't have this one finished until the end of October, soonest. Then I'm going to see about getting a planer / joiner and a bandsaw and see about making the bodies at least, from scratch.
Looks great! If/when you get a jointer/planer regardless of the model, make sure you get a Helical head. NOT a 3 blade head. It kind of looks like the inside of a rifle barrel in a way. Its a bunch of carbide blades that are about 1/2 inch across. They do an amazing job. And a lot of pro's use theirs for up to 2 years (EVERY DAY) without changing the blades 90 degrees. Check out Matt Cremona or Stumpy Nubs or Wood Whisperer on Youtube, they have a TON of great stuff on that and recommendations for what/where/who to look at for the equipment.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I've been looking at those. A lot of folks get that yellow branded one (Their name escapes me at the moment) and then upgrade to that head. It's not just the wear, but if you 'nick' a blade, you can just rotate the small head cause they have 4 cutting surfaces. Plus they're cheaper to replace.
DeleteThere's a bunch of tools I really want to get, but what I can afford definitely will put a limit on it.