Precision '54 for a working musician

[Hande]

Hello basslovers!

The starting point of this project is described in 'Out-of-the-box'. After all I didn't like the header 'Precision '54 with balls' and therefore named this thread 'Precision '54 for a working musician'. Sounds better?  Sure it does!

In this thread I'll show you the progress of my very first bass building project. I may have some weird thoughts and strange habits but the final instrument and the sound coming from it are the only things that matter. Read at your own risk!

And now, again, let's start with some real-life pictures. The quality of Warmoth is in a higher-than-normal level, as you can clearly see in my pictures. I prefer ash in the body, for the grain and the feeling, and rosewood in the fingerboard. Pearloid blocks are nice, too, as well as pearloid binding.

 

[Hande]

What pickguard colour would you choose on an Alpine White body / chrome hardware / black PU's / rosewood fingerboard / birds-eye maple neck?
I was thinking about red, tortoise, silver pearl, vintage pearl, black pearl... but ordered white pearl.

 

[Hande]

Part 1. Installation of the tuners.

I've done it several times before. A Ric 4001 with Schallers, several Fenders with diverse brand of tuners. But this was a tricky one. The holes were just a little bit too tight for the Gotoh Res-O-Lite's. I had to sand off the lacquer first, and then look at the places where there was too much contact between the wood and the ferrules. You know, hard maple is hard by definition, and it should be that. But no problem, after some careful tuning the tuners sat down nicely.

 

[JaySwear]

can't wait to see this one come together! i'm thinking about building one of warmoth's '72 style p-basses... this might be enough to convince me i should start saving for it. very cool

 

[Hande]

Some more pic's....

 

[Hande]

...and now Sam Moore has some more to show...

 

[SlingBass]

Good pics, and you're moving right along!  Nice  :icon_thumright:

 

[Hande]

When working with this project I have no time to fiddle with a tripod. The pics are taken hand held and therefore show considerable amount of blur. Sorry for that!

 

[Hande]

Part 2. Installing the Audere battery LED.

Where the h€ll should I put this tiny little light emitting diode? I'm not going to make any more extra holes on the surface of the beautiful white body - there are already three mini switches (impedance, coil-tap, active/passive) eagerly waiting for their holes to be drilled...

But hey, wait a moment! There are two unoccupied holes in a Schaller 3D4 bridge. They reside in the central area, where the optional base plate doesn't even touch them. The lower hole is partially obscured by the D-string saddle, which is a good thing when changing strings. This is the solution!

With a little help from my friends (thanks Beatles!) - Makita and Bahco pro tools :icon_biggrin: - I manage to make a small cavity and a route to it and install the LED in perfect upright position just in line with the hole in the bridge. I had to drill the hole from the control cavity to the bridge larger to get the LED-assembly through it, but that was not a biggie.

 

[Hande]

Part 3. Neck plate and control plate.

I've been playing Fender basses for 32 years now. The Fender bass is THE synonym for electric bass sound. To honour that and to show my respect to Leo Fender I wanted to include at least one genuine Fender part in this build. That part is a 70's neck plate with large F on it. At the same time I buried my dream of recessed neck screws with ferrules (maybe the next project...).

No early Precision bass exists or survives without the infamous Tele Bass Control Plate. That two-pot plate is a must on every instrument that'll proudly show its inheritance. I wanted to have a bolder plate than the original Fender one, and fortunately found it. This plate is thicker and a few millimeters longer than the original, just enough to compensate for the massive Schaller bridge and huge Nordstrand Fat Stack bridge PU in an EMG35 housing.

 

[Nando Vallart]

Love the pink dot on it :laughing7:

This is getting really really cool! If Warmoth decides to make one of this with 30" or 32" scale, I'm trouble

 

[Hande]

If Warmoth decides to make one of this with 30" or 32" scale, I'm trouble

Oh no, I had a Gibson EB-3 with 30" scale. That's not a bass!!!!

 

[Nando Vallart]

Gibson usually are 30.5" scale, hope that's the one Warmoth will make the new prototypes (luckily new products soon)

I like a lot the tone of this bass on 1:25 to 3:04 and even more after 4:37
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6WuSxMWaOY

 

[Hande]

I started to play with a Framus Strato 4. It was a 30.x" scale bass with two humbuckers and very solid construction. But after getting the first Fender ('76 Precision) there was no going back. And I have very short fingers...

 

[JaySwear]

definitely one of the coolest looking basses i've seen in a long time... classy, but nothing like you'd find stock! love it.

 

[-CB-]

Thats lookin good

 

[whyachi]

I've been waiting for a new exciting bass to show up on these here forums.

I need to find a calendar to find out where mine is.

 

[Hande]

Part 4. Pickup shielding.

This bass is to have a sound with no compromises. I deliberately chose two pick up's with some different characteristics in sonics and looks. Plus a transparent pre-amp with high quality components.

Both coils connected in series the Nordstrand Fat Stack has a bold sound that is far from a legacy Jazz PU. In neck position you get a macho sound with lots of 'wood and fingers'. It's beefy and very distinguishable in the mix.

But I wanted that jazz-bass bridge-PU sound too, no questions asked. When coil-tapped (lower coil grounded), some magic happens and this marvellous piece of bass art suddenly becomes a very nice sounding single-coil Jazz PU. But, and BUT, with the power-line hum everywhere.

No way, I have to shield that thing.

First I filed the wire contacts off of the outer surface of the middle bobbin (careful with that copper wire!). Then I wrapped the whole PU with copper shielding tape with isolating paper on top of the contacts and soldered the copper tape to the pole piece ground (this is NOT the PU common signal!). I completely skipped the inside shielding of the PU housing.

 

[SlingBass]

One of us is on the wrong side of the pond - I'd love to see and hear the progress of this while it's going on.  Your clarity on this project is outstanding, and while we may see/hear (clips) of the end results......it's always the marvels of the journey *I* find most rewarding.  Keep them posts and pics a coming  :glasses10:

 

[Hande]

Next the P'51.

That PU doesn't have any build-in capability to switch the coils into parallel mode. And I can't even think about how a split-coil P'51 should sound in parallel, with only 2,6 kOhms of resistance per coil. That would be... yes, just too low!

In this project I'll use the Lindy Fralin P'51 split coil PU as is. Open house with no extra switching or shielding.