Fenderbird Bass

[NonsenseTele]

Looking nice!
And the body? news?

 

[mayfly]

Thanks man!

Nope - no news on the body yet.

 

[-FenderMan-]

The decal looks good i'd never guess it as a non factory neck till i realized, factories don't use necks with that nice of a grain. :rock-on:

 

[mayfly]

Hokay!

I just got a package at work - a warmoth package.

It was way too small for the tBird body, but I opened it up and found it had all of the pickups, electronics, and hardware that I had ordered.  Even has the pickguards! (I hadn't decided on what color - if at all).

No Body though.  AAaaggaaggggggeee......... :sad:

However, I imagine that it's in transit...

Those Warmoth guys!  Complete guitar tease!

 

[NonsenseTele]

Those Warmoth guys!  Complete guitar tease!

:evil4:

 

[mayfly]

With nothing to do but look at the parts, here's some shots of the goodies.

We've got a set of SD Basslines pickups, with an active preamp with two band eq. I've got a couple of pickguards
since I was not sure what colour I wanted on there, if any at all.

We also have those fancy ass Hipshot Bass bridge thingys.  The're looking pretty, well, fancy ass:

 

[TheBeed]

nice , looking good so far, good choice of pick ups too, its a good thing you havent got a thunderbird bass headstock, because belive me are they neck heavy, the epiphone certainly are, and under a guitar playing friends knowledge all gibsons seem neck heavy, so using a fender has saved you a massivly neck heavy bass,  :kewlpics: ccasion14:

 

[mayfly]

Allright guys,

Make sure that you're sitting down and prepared before you scroll down otherwise you'll wet yourself....

:headbang:

 

[willyk]

Nice  :headbang:

 

[NonsenseTele]

I'm jealous!!! Congrats! :icon_biggrin:

 

[Mor Paul]

Looks both Fenderish and Gibsony! Actually, it looks better.

 

[mayfly]

Thanks guys!

For my next trick, I'll install the neck.  Remember, this is an old warmoth neck made well before they did such nice things as pre-drill neck screw holes. 
The old body had holes that were in completely different places, so it's time to drill new ones.

So, the first step is to line it up in the neck pocket, which I did with the help of some string instead of the strings:

Then I carefully clamped the neck in place, flipped it over, and marked the holes with a drill bit - sized to exactly fit in the body holes:

A little quality time with a drill press, and the neck is mounted!

 

[mayfly]

all right, survey time.

Do you like it with the black pickguard:

With the white pickguard,

Or with no pickguard:

 

[RLW]

1st - no pickguard
2nd - white
3rd - black

 

[NonsenseTele]

1st: No guard

2nd: NO GUARD, got it?

3rd: Do I need to kick your ass to you pay attention???

:laughing7:

 

[OzziePete]

Prefer black pickguard. Matches the black bridge pieces, and will also match the black covered pickups you have ready to go into the body.

But if you are going to do that, I'd get black hardware for the rest of the bass, including the tuners.

Otherwise, no pickguard.

Don't think that white pickguard would match with the black bridge pieces and pickups.

YMMV, of course.

 

[ByteFrenzy]

1 - white
2 - none
3 - black

 

[willyk]

Get it all up and running before you commit to the pickguard. :headbang:

 

[mayfly]

Progress so far.  I've got the pickups and strings in, and gave it a quick setup.  It has great acoustic tone and sustain.  Looking good!

My issue now is with the electronics.  I got the SD Basslines passive soapbars, but with the matching active preamp.  The issue is that because the "wings" of the bass are thinner than the body, warmoth could not cut the hole for the battery box.  When I ordered, I figured "no problem - I'll just shoehorn everything in the control cavity".

Well folks, there ain't no shoehorning here - the battery just does not fit with everything else in there.  Also, I was not terribly impressed with the quality of the SD preamp itself; the pots are cheap, the solder jobs not so great (several cold joints and one joint was missing solder completely), and the wires are thin and brittle (I had a couple break off).  Just for kicks, I wired it up and tried it with the battery hanging out the back.  Everything worked as advertised, but to be honest I was not astounded by the tone.  It was fine - but it was not "oh my god I need to figure out how to make this active preamp work" kind of tone.

In the end I decided to chuck the preamp and go passive.  To this end I've got some pots on order.  The final job will be more reliable and will actually fit in the control cavity.  I'll report back on the tone.

So far so good...

 

[mayfly]

oh yea, Jury is still out on the pickguard.