While the neck came out to my liking, I wasn’t exactly tickled by the cold, deep pink of the body. I’m a fan of the classic auto-body paint colors that Fender used in the early days, like Sonic Blue and Surf Green, so I was happy to find at a local hobby store an aerosol paint that looked reasonably close to one of the rarest of the retro Fender colors, Shell Pink. This fleshy-pink color is what I had in mind when I thought of a “pink bass.”

One advantage to working with opaque color on a previously finished body is the relative ease of preparation. The wood is already filled, sanded and sealed, and the finish doesn’t need to be stripped if it’s in good condition. The old finish can serve as a base layer for the new paint, but it should be primed to ensure good adherence of the old and new.

With this in mind, I sanded the old finish with a medium grit (#220) dry sandpaper to take off the gloss and give it some “teeth.” I then masked off the cavities with painter’s tape to ensure that the neck and pickups would fit back in their respective spaces during reassembly.

The next step was to hang and spray the body with a white-pigmented shellac primer. Shellac is useful because it will adhere well to both the old finish and the new paint, avoiding any bonding problems that might develop. I used BINS brand, which seems to work well for this type of application and is readily available at my local hardware store at a reasonable price. I also made a backyard spray tent out of a very large cardboard box to help prevent dust from settling into the paint while spraying.

Now’s a good time to add a safety warning: with any product you use, be sure to read and follow the manufacturer’s instructions. When using spray paints and finishes, it’s important to have adequate ventilation (work outside if possible) and to use a respirator rated for spray paint.

The shellac primer may feel rough when dry. I sanded it smooth with 320-grit dry paper, wiped it clean with naptha, then resprayed, resanded, recleaned. At this point I had a smooth, even, opaque white surface. Time to add some color!

Some refinishers will tell you to use very light passes when spraying paint, while others say heavy coats are better. In a previous project, I found through trial-and-error that too light of a coat could lead to overspray (paint drying before it reaches the surface) or “orange peel” (paint drying before it flows completely flat), requiring me to sand the surface smooth and start over. On the flip side, too heavy of a coat could lead to runs in the paint, also requiring time-consuming repairs. The trick is to get the flow just right, so that the paint flows smoothly but doesn’t run. I recommend practicing on a piece of spare wood until you are comfortable and confident with your painting technique.

I also recommend checking out the good information at the Guitar ReRanch site, particularly the ReRanch 101 article which goes through the painting process in great detail: http://home.flash.net/~guitars/ReRanch101.html. I found it very helpful. You can order lacquer-based paints from them as well, though I found the hobby-store spray paint worked just fine for me and cost less.

After each coat dried, I checked for dust and sanded out any rough spots with #600 wet paper. Even with such a fine grade of sandpaper, it’s important to be careful not to sand through the color coats. I applied four coats of paint overall, allowing each to dry for about three hours. Drying times may vary with the amount of paint you use in a coat and with air humidity.

For the clear coats, I decided to use nitrocellulose lacquer. I find “nitro” relatively easy to work with, primarily because of the way it seems to flow smoothly into the underlying layers, and any blemishes can be quickly sanded out. Nitro was reportedly popular with automotive repair shops for these same reasons, back in the days when it was used on auto bodies.

Following the ReRanch “rule of threes,” I sprayed three coats of lacquer per day, letting each dry a minimum of three hours between coats, over a period of three days – nine coats in total. As with the color coats, I checked each clear coat for dust and sanded out any problems with #600 wet. I then let the lacquered body cure for two weeks before getting started on the final polishing. (With nitro, the longer it cures, the better.)

For the polishing, it is common to use progressively finer grades of wet sandpaper. An alternative solution is “micromesh,” a range of very fine abrasive papers and pads. I had read about micromesh on a guitar builder’s website, and was told that it lasted longer and finished better than regular sandpaper; it could also be used wet or dry. I decided to give it a try, and bought a package at a local woodworking shop with sheets ranging from #1,500 to #12,000-grit. I soaked it overnight in water with some Murphy’s oil soap and was ready to finish the job. (Note: When working with wet finishing papers, it is important to keep water out of the screw holes and other cavities – the water can make the wood swell up and possibly damage the finish.)

At first I was worried, because the 1,500-grit micromesh seemed more abrasive than 400-grit wet paper, leaving fine but noticeable scratches in the finish. But as I progressed through the finer grades, the scratches became smaller and soon disappeared. By the time I hit the 12,000-grit micromesh, the finish had a nice warm glow to it. Overall this product seemed to take much less effort than regular sandpaper, and the sheets definitely last longer – they can actually be cleaned and reused. The end result was factory smooth.

As a last step, I buffed out the finish with a fine automotive polishing compound and then some liquid car wax. This brought out a mirror-like shine.

Then I put it all back together, with some additional features like a vintage finger rest and a homemade headstock decal. As I mentioned in the first article, excluding the cost of new tapewound strings, the overall project came very close to my $200 limit, and I’m really pleased with the results.

Also check out… From Junky to Funky – Part 1

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.

I 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

Also check out… From Junky to Funky – Part 2

David Hodge states in the introduction to The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Playing Bass Guitar that he wants to help his readers think like bassists. That seems like a rather lofty goal, but it’s one that I think he achieves.

Having recently joined my church band as the bass player despite having no prior experience with the instrument (but I do have a couple of years of steady progress on electric and acoustic guitar,) I was glad to see that this book has a different presentation style than the typical bass method book. It is much more discussion oriented, which gives it a unique teaching value that I found very helpful for self-study. I was fortunate enough to receive an advanced copy of the book many weeks ago, which is why I can write this review now as the book first begins to officially ship.

The first thing I noticed when I received my copy is how much text there is. Other bass books I purchased dive quickly into reading notation and playing one note, one string at a time, graduating up to scales and basic melody lines with very little explanatory text. Hodge takes a different route, that of mentor, guiding you through the how and why of every topic he presents, from finger placement during a riff to creating your own bass lines. Hodge writes in an easy-to-understand, down-to-earth manner, and it’s almost like having an experienced teacher there with you.

There is enough music theory to help you understand the basics of scales, chords and arpeggios, but not so much that you feel bogged down. Importantly, all of Hodge’s discussion on theory leads to practical application in the subsequent chapters. I was pleased to note that he explains but does not over-emphasize scale playing, but instead seems to focus on riffs and bass lines built using the chord tones that derive from scales. This is a more musical and interesting approach than you tend to find in other books (though a good foundation in the major scale won’t hurt, in my opinion).

Then there are the “jam along” songs. These are the meat and potatoes of Hodge’s presentation, and the reason I think this book exceeds where others may fall a bit short. At the most basic level, you can use these songs (really they are a framework for building a song) and the provided example riffs to practice your techniques and timing. From there, you can use the same songs as a springboard for improvisation, by coming up with your own riffs using the earlier lessons. When I was taking guitar lessons my teacher used a similar technique – he called it “structured improvisation” – and I found it to be an excellent way to learn to think about what I was playing.

Hodge also provides insight into real-world issues bass players may face, such as the scarcity of tablature or even sheet music for bass, and the many types of written music that a bass player might have to deal with – from the bass clef in piano sheet music to crude lyric sheets with guitar chords hopefully scrawled above the verses.

There are a handful of typos or misplaced examples in the book, but Hodge intends to post a web page with corrections (how’s that for service?!) Furthermore, he is regularly available at the GuitarNoise web forum for anyone with questions.

I do have a couple of complaints, both concerning the accompanying CD. First, I would have preferred that each example in the book have its own track on the CD, though I’m told it’s not technically possible to put that many tracks on a single disc (there are well over 150 examples!) As it is, there are instances where several examples are necessarily lumped into the same CD track, making it difficult to quickly jump to a particular example. One has to queue up the example using the CD player’s fast-forward or rewind button. Related to this, the track numbers containing the examples are referenced only in an appendix, not in the main body of the book. In my opinion they should have been noted next to the example in the text.

Second, at least on my copy of the CD, the recorded volume of the bass seems somewhat low relative to Hodge’s voice. I have to turn up my stereo’s volume to hear the bass clearly, but then the spoken introduction to each example gets a tad loud. Again, these are very minor issues, neither of which detracts from the excellent material in the book.

I am really pleased with what I’ve learned from this book in a fairly short time period, and intend to keep working with it even as I incorporate other books into my studies. I would definitely recommend it to anyone thinking about getting into bass. And don’t forget to order it through the Guitar Noise site (you can find links to Amazon on our home page) – this adds no cost to you, and it may help keep the site functioning smoothly so David can answer your questions online.