And we all like guitar pron.
Some of you have seen and heard this bass already in my cover of "Money" by Pink Floyd (viewtopic.php?f=34&t=1491), but I thought maybe some of you might be interested in reading about how it came to be... and I could use a little distraction right now.
Unfortunately, I didn't take any progress pics because I wasn't even thinking about posting a build thread about it, and it was a pretty simple build... It wasn't nearly as involved as my later projects, so there wasn't a whole lot of "process" to illustrate.
It started with an MIJ (pre-CIJ) Fender '57 RI P-bass body in Candy Apple Red that I bought from the TalkBass classifieds. This was my best forum score yet. The body came loaded with Fender "Original" P-Bass pickups. It also came with bridge and pickup covers, and my choice of either white plastic, or anodized gold pickguard (I took the gold one, of course), all for the modest sum of $200 shipped (this was back when shipping rates were still pretty reasonable).
I had some pretty strong GAS for a P-Bass at the time. I'd been a confirmed Jazz Bass man for most of my adult life, but I had begun to appreciate the power of the Precision, and was strongly considering buying a Squier CV '70s P-bass when this showed up (those basses are pretty frickin' awesome, BTW, so if you're thinking of picking one up, I highly recommend it). The only thing I wasn't thrilled about the CV was that it only came in black, and since CAR is my favorite solid guitar finish, I was all over this body like Mooooorgan Faaaaairchild (my wife... yeah, that's the ticket!
).Chip repair and OCD
This might be helpful to anyone who might need to repair a CAR finish... It's not as easy as it sounds.
The body had suffered some damage in transit. A pretty big finish chip had been whacked off the edge at the forearm contour, exposing the stark white wood underneath. I know it happened in shipping, because it looked like fresh damage, and I found the pieces among the packing materials inside the box. I was hoping the whole chip would be intact so I could just glue it back on, but it had broken up into several small pieces along its travels, so that was out of the question. I couldn't overlook this gaping scar in an otherwise nearly pristine finish. I had done some chip repair in the past with varying degrees of success, so I set out to find something that would match the CAR.
This is where I learned that Candy Apple Red is not a paint color, it's a process. You can't just go out and buy Candy Apple Red paint. It's achieved by first spraying metallic gold, then spraying a trans red "candy coat" on top of that. Metallic red is just not the same thing, and I couldn't find any paint that matched the CAR closely enough. The chip repair jobs I had done in the past all involved nail polish, so I shifted my focus on that. There are so many different brands and colors of nail polish, you stand a pretty good chance of finding something that pretty closely matches most guitar colors, and I was convinced that there must be a metallic nail polish color that comes close to CAR. This is where the OCD kicks in... I spent several weeks perusing the makeup departments of various pharmacies and department stores (and even dedicated makeup retailers in malls), armed with a picture of the body on my phone for some kind of a reference, until I found what I was looking for... And it was a nearly perfect match!
Unfortunately, I didn't think to take any "before and after" shots... After spending so much time searching for the perfect nail polish, I just wanted to get it done so I could finally progress with the build. I kinda wish I had taken some pics of it after it was finished, though, as it's my most successful chip repair to date. It was almost totally seamless. You'd be hard-pressed to find it if you didn't know where to look. Even I have a hard time finding it sometimes.
Here's a pic of what it looks like now. The edges of the repair have cracked over time (repair is stable), but at least you can see how well the color matches:
One of the things that always put me off of P-Basses were the neck dimensions. They tend to have wide nuts and a neck profile like a baseball bat, which causes discomfort to my wrists (I have repetitive stress injury), so I bought an unfinished Allparts Jazz Bass neck with vintage '60s specs for the project. It's got a chunkier profile than a modern 'C' Jazz Bass neck, but it's not a tree trunk, and the nut width is 1.5".
I finished the whole neck in Tru-Oil - including the front of the headstock - because I wanted to prove to the naysayers that you can indeed get a glassy, high-gloss finish with TO. It comes at the cost of your time and sanity, and I'll never want to do it again, but it CAN be done. You have to spray it on, though. I don't think I would have gotten these results by wiping on a million coats of it. The pain comes when you try to sand and buff it to a flawless finish. You can't work it like polyurethane, and it develops "witness lines" quicker than poly, so there's a lot of sanding, and cursing, and respraying...
BTW, those are reflections of clouds through the window at the top of the headstock, not finish irregularities.
Normally, I like to put my own brand on my builds, but since this bass is 50% "Genuine Fender", and I was going for a reproduction of a '57 Precision, I put a era-correct Fender logo on the headstock. Tru-Oil shrinks a little as it cures, which left the headstock looking a little lighter around the edges, and it crinkled the decal a little (you can see it mostly in the 'd' of 'Fender' when you enlarge the image), but I liked the mildly "weathered" look that it imparted, so I left it alone.
After putting it all together, I realized that I did not like the "Original" Fender P-Bass pickup at all, and swapped it out for an EMG GZR pickup that I also scored from the TalkBass classifieds. I know, it's not exactly following the '57 blueprint to the letter (this pickup was modeled after a '68 Precision that Geezer owned), but gawd, this is the best sounding P-bass pickup I've ever heard!
I typically don't like any printing on pickups covers, and almost always remove it with Meguiar's Scratch-X (buffing compound), but I figured if I wanted to sell this pickup later on down the road (for some unimaginable reason), it might be better if I left the branding intact (I also kept the original box).
"Ok, enough with jibber-jabber! Let's see the bass!"
I'm not sure what the current per-post picture limit is right now, so I'll insert the pics in the following post...
) I was digging on that bass pretty hard, back about the same time I was shopping for a Rickenbacker 4003 (I