I just finished this bass today, or well almost finished it. Still waiting on shipment of a deep panel stereo jack for it. Anyway, this is my first custom instrument, built for the bass player in my brothers band.
Specs are:
- Curly Walnut top, Mahogany back
- Laminate curly maple/purpleheart/walnut/purpleheart/curly maple bolt-on neck
- Ebony fingerboard, faceplate, and knobs
- 35" scale, 24 frets
- dual homemade truss rods
- Bartolini pickups and Bartolini 5.2 Active 3 band EQ
- Kahler bridge, Gotoh tuners, Schaller straplocks
There is a block of MOP inlayed at the 12th fret, with the owner's name engraved in it. Having some problems getting any colorant to stick in the rather wide lines.
The neck is finished in rubbed Tru-Oil. The body finish is brushed KTM-9 over System-3 epoxy. Thanks to all at this site for the info on epoxy pore filling, it worked great for me. I read everyone's methods, and wound up applying slightly thinned epoxy by wiping it on with a paper towel. Seemed to work good, and only took a couple of rounds to fill all of that porous mahogany and walnut.
I also hand sanded, and hand buffed the thing with Meguiar's products. My arms hurt
![[xx(]](./images/smilies/smiley11.gif "Dead")
Pics show the instrument without it's control cavity cover, which is just black plastic.
![[clap]](./images/smilies/smiley32.gif "adulations")
![[headinwall]](./images/smilies/headbangwalluf8.gif "Mad")
but I had fun doing it. I just found a font I liked and printed out the letters. I then stuck it to the fretboard, and transfered the outlines with a razor knife. I finished up with an actual graver. I don't know why, but every possible blackening I try epoxy, ink, laskin's blend) doesn't stick in there perfiectly, even though the lines are deeply etched. Maybe they're too wide? 