From Junky to Funky – Part 1 – My DIY Low-Budget Bass Makeover

If you’re like me, you’ve had a “Do It Yourself” mindset for as long as you can remember. You like to build and tweak things – sometimes to make them better, sometimes to make them different, sometimes just for the sake of learning. Whether it’s repairing the kitchen faucet or swapping pickups on a guitar, what better way to figure out the inner workings of something than by taking it apart and putting it back together?

We guitarists are fortunate when it comes to DIY projects, as it’s fairly easy to find the basic building blocks – guitar bodies and necks – in usable condition and at reasonable prices. Yard sales, classified ads, online auction sites, and sometimes a neighbor’s trash bin are good places to look for project parts, and other essentials can be easily ordered from online vendors like StewMac or Guitar Parts Resource.

Example 1I had been looking for a short-scale fretless bass, but those can be difficult to find away from boutique builders like Rob Allen or Birdsong. My desired price point was around $200, far less than what a bass would cost at one of those fine custom shops. Also, I had a preference for a fleshy pink color like classic Fender “Shell Pink.” I happened to come across a Johnson-brand 30″-scale bass on eBay, a discontinued model being cleared out by the vendor. It wasn’t fretless, but the scale was right and it was pink. The fretless part would come later. So, for less than $80 shipped to my door, my project was underway.

Upon receipt of the bass, I had to ask whether it was worth even the low price I had paid. The pink color was darker and colder than I had expected (the online ad had a stock photo, not a picture of the actual bass, and the color was different.) The faux-ebony dye on the fretboard was unevenly applied, and the nut looked like it had been slotted with a chain saw. The plugged-in sound from the stock pickups was anemic, and it buzzed like crazy (split P-style pickups are supposed to be hum-reducing.) However, the body was solid alder, and the maple neck was reasonably comfortable. The project would take a little more effort than I had intended, but the body and neck would serve as a good platform upon which to build.

After unbolting the neck from the body, I started the fretted-to-fretless neck conversion by gently removing the frets with a fret puller that I found on eBay for a few dollars. This tool looks like ordinary wire cutters, but it has a slightly convex face that allows you to grip under the fret’s crown without marring the fingerboard. The frets came out easily as no glue had been used to hold them in place. Some DIYers recommend lubricating the fret slots with lemon oil to help ease the frets out, but I didn’t bother. If the frets had been glued, I would have carefully heated them with a soldering iron to soften the glue.

Example 2

With the frets removed, the slots in the fingerboard were not smooth or clean – the frets have little “teeth” that hold them in place, and these teeth left the slots jagged. So, before filling the slots, I widened them with a standard fine-toothed hacksaw blade. (First I loosened the truss rod and used a straight-edge to make sure the neck was flat. Doing this will ensure the slots fill evenly, and will help in the sanding process later on. I also removed the nut to get it out of the way during sanding.) Widening the fret slots with the hacksaw blade eliminated the teeth marks, though there were still a few small rough spots where the rosewood had chipped while pulling the frets out.

Example 3

For the fingerboard lines, I filled the widened slots with wood putty. I chose a medium brown color to contrast slightly with the darker fingerboard. An alternative method espoused by repair guru Dan Erlewine is to use plastic binding strips to fill the slots. The strips would give the cleanest lines, but would require a precise slot width. As I wasn’t sure if the binding strips would fit in my hack-sawed slots, I decided to use the putty instead. While I’m not disappointed with the putty results, if I did another project like this I would probably put in the extra effort and use the strips.

To sand off the excess putty and to smooth out the fingerboard, I used sandpaper and a 12″-radius wooden sanding block (another eBay find.) I started with 100-grit paper, and followed with 220, 320 and 400. During the sanding process I worked through the wood that had been dyed at the factory, and was happy to discover that the rosewood fingerboard had a pleasant graining pattern. I used a dark stain pen to touch up any excess putty, such as where it filled in those chips I mentioned above.

Example 4

Next I had to decide on a finish for the fingerboard. An ebony fingerboard is usually left natural, but a clearcoat is sometimes used on rosewood fingerboards. I had considered a natural-looking finish using a hard-drying gunstock oil such as the Tru Oil brand, but decided on a glossy finish for aesthetic reasons.

Polyurethane is commonly used for the gloss finish on a fingerboard, but after reading a number of articles on the subject I chose to use cyanoacrylate, more commonly known as “super glue.” Super glue is easy to apply, self-leveling, hard-drying, sands easily and polishes up nicely when done. Still, a few safety warnings are needed: Work in a well-ventilated area, outdoors if possible, and wear eye protection – the fumes from cyanoacrylate will sting your eyes. Wear gloves when working with superglue, or you might get stuck to your project or your fingers stuck together, and change gloves often as they get covered with glue and will stick to the sandpaper.

The tricky part to using super glue is to get the right viscosity, which involves blending medium and thin glues together until you get the right mix. For a detailed discussion of using super glue to finish a fingerboard, I’ll refer you to Dan Erlewine’s June 2006 article in Bass Player magazine, “Superglue Savior.” The article can be found online at: http://www.bassplayer.com/article/superglue-savior/jun-06/20674

After the initial top coats, the superglue finish was looking good but wasn’t entirely smooth in places, and obviously needed sanding and polishing.

Example 5

For the final sanding process, I didn’t follow Erlewine’s directions precisely. I used dry sandpaper at 320, 400, 600 and 800 grits, then switched to wet sanding at 800, 1000, 1200, 1500 and 2000. That seems like a lot of sanding, but the process went very quickly. The finish was now smooth and glossy enough that I didn’t see much need for additional sanding with micro-mesh. Instead, I buffed the fingerboard with a fine automotive swirl-remover, and topped it off with a liquid auto wax for additional shine.

Example 6

To complete the neck, I sanded off the factory logo and applied my own, which I designed myself in Photoshop and printed on inkjet decal paper.

Example 7

In the second part of this article, I’ll detail the body makeover, which involved the following steps:

  1. Sanding the factory clearcoat to give it some “teeth,” then priming with a white shellac primer/sealer.
  2. Painting
  3. Sanding, priming, and painting again as I ended up not liking the color I used in step two. (Lesson learned: metallic paints are not the best for beginners!)
  4. Lacquering, sanding and polishing.
  5. Shielding the pickup and control cavities.
  6. “Aging” the pickguard.
  7. Putting it all back together, with new pickups, black nylon tapewound strings, upgraded pots and output jack, and a couple other odds and ends.

For those of you who might be wondering, excluding the cost of the new strings, the overall project came pretty close to my $200 limit. It looks like what I had envisioned, and with the new pickups sounds very good to my ears. I’m pleased with the results!

Example 8

Example 9

Also check out… From Junky to Funky – Part 2