Slab-bodied single coil P-bass project

For some time I've been wanting to build my own bass -- and I've also developed an interest lately in vintage-style slab-bodied P-basses. Both of these interests have been stoked by the Fender Discussion Page (FDP) bass forum, which has quite a few regulars who are avid bass builders and/or instrument refinishers. Seeing some of their incredible work inspired me to give it a try myself. The straw that broke the camel's back, as it were, happened a few weeks ago: I was talking to my friend John, who works at Advance Music, my local music store, about wanting to build a slab-style single-coil P-bass, and lo and behold, they just happened to have a Seymour Duncan vintage-series single-coil P-bass pickup that had been there long enough for the price sticker to begin flaking off, so John sold it to me cheap.

Having the pickup in hand, I naturally had to go ahead and spend the money to order a body from Warmoth and a neck from USA Custom Guitars. I went with Warmoth for the body because they offer the slab-style P-bass body in a wide variety of woods, and for some reason I really wanted one in black korina. I chose USA Custom Guitars for the neck because Warmoth does not make bass necks with a fretboard radius of less than 10", and I want a vintage-style 7.25" radius. USA Custom has no problem with this, and I've heard really good things about them to boot. So from them I ordered a maple neck with Tele-style headstock and flame maple fretboard.

I picked up a variety of other parts, such as tuners, string tree, and pots, from Advance Music. I ordered the bridge and the dome-style steel knobs from WD Music Products. I ordered the neck plate, control cavity cover, and pickguard from Warmoth along with the body.

After consulting with Ken Warmoth and Bill Lester, who were both very gracious and helpful, I decided I'll finish the body with Ken's suggestion of Minwax Clear Satin Polyurethane, which I picked up at Home Depot in convenient spray cans. The neck will be finished with a Fender neck amber dye to give it the vintage golden appearance, followed by a spray-on clear gloss nitrocellulose lacquer. Both products came from The Guitar Reranch, Bill Lester's phenomenally helpful website for anyone attempting to finish an instrument.

Now that I have all the expository stuff out of the way, I'll post dated updates on my progress.

April 9, 2002

The body arrived from Warmoth yesterday, packaged very carefully along with the pickguard, control plate, neck plate, and Electrosocket output jack.

It's a really nice piece of wood. Picking it up and rapping on it with my knuckles produces a very nice sound, so I'm excited about how beautiful a bass this could turn into. And it'll look good too.

April 15, 2002

Last night I bolted a handle into the body's neck pocket, hung it outside, and began to shoot the finish. It took quite a while to get a decent first coat built up because so much of the Minwax spray-on polyurethane soaked into the wood (I decided to bypass the wood grain filler because I wanted the finished body to retain a bit of the wood texture). I let it dry for about two hours, then shot a second coat. Between the two coats, I went through an entire can of Minwax. I figure the second can should be good for three coats or so, since subsequent coats won't be able to soak in as much. I plan to wait a couple days, then lightly sand the body to remove slight irregularities, then shoot another few coats of finish.

The two initial coats of finish really brought out a lot of detail in the grain. It's quite beautiful. The Minwax did build up a little more of an amber color than I was hoping for, but nevertheless I'm confident that when the finish is done this is going to be a beautiful bass!

April 19, 2002

Yesterday the neck arrived from USA Custom Guitars, and I also decided that the body has enough coats of polyurethane on it (I added several more the past few days, with occasional light sanding in between). It's not so many coats that the texture of the grain has been completely smoothed over, but enough that the wood is well-protected. I'm very pleased with the depth the finish has brought out in the grain. See pics below -- the top one is the finished body, and the bottom one is the neck after shooting the Fender neck amber from Guitar Reranch. The fretboard is gorgeous flame maple -- you can sort of make out a little of it in the pic, but my digital camera doesn't do it justice.

I should mention that the neck is outstanding. The profile feels great in my hand -- it's a C-shape that's quite thin front-to-back, much like my Fender '62 Reissue P-bass. My only complaint is that I was expecting a C nut width, but this neck's a B nut width -- but that's not a big deal, I can live with the 1/8" difference.

I'll probably start shooting the nitrocellulose lacquer clearcoat on the neck this weekend. I'll also install hardware on the body.

April 23, 2002

This weekend I began shooting coats of nitro lacquer on the neck, with occasional wetsanding after letting the lacquer dry overnight. It's building up nicely; I'll probably be done in another day or so, then can wetsand the lacquer smooth and polish.

Friday night I installed all hardware on the body. The pickup wires were long enough that I was able to clip them short and use the excess to complete all pot wiring and output jack wiring, so the only wire that's not vintage-style cloth-covered wire is the grounding wire from the tone pot to the bridge.

April 24, 2002

Tonight I completed the neck's finish and installed the tuning machines, then bolted the neck onto the body. It fit perfectly -- nice, solid fit in the neck pocket with no gaps. I'm really pleased with the way it turned out. Tomorrow I'm taking it to my local luthier to get the nut slotted and frets levelled and dressed. I hope he doesn't take too long, because I'm really excited to play this bass!

May 2, 2002

Today I picked up the bass from the luthier who was slotting the nut and dressing the frets. And I played it for quite a while tonight through my '67 Bassman. Sounds awesome, plays beautifully. This bass is definitely what I was hoping for! Now I can't wait to try it out at full volume at band practice. It has a great edgy, growly tone; I'll be curious to see if it cuts through the mix as well as a standard P-bass.

Now I'm starting to get the itch to build another bass...