davegardner0
Senior Member
- Messages
- 240
I built a Warmoth bass recently, so I thought I'd share my build process with you all. The request for this bass came from a female bass player friend of mine, so the goal was something short-scale and as lightweight as possible. The G4 SSB seemed to fit the bill.
The start of something fun!!
Here's the starting point, right out of the box. The body is alder (chosen for weight), and I paid the extra surcharge to get Warmoth to hand-select the lightest piece of wood they had. The neck is from the showcase, pretty standard maple but picked because it has the prettiest fretboard grain pattern of the necks available.
I really like the headstock shape!
The neck arrived with pretty squared-off edges, so I got out my triangular file (with the edges ground off) and rolled the fretboard edges slightly.
Looking good now!
I'm using a 5-knob Bartolini NTMB+ preamp, so the next task was to locate the knobs and drill the holes for the pot shafts. I chose to arrange the knobs in two straight lines, a line of 3 knobs and a line of 2. The master volume will be closest to the neck, with blend just behind it. The lower line of 2 knobs are the treble and mid controls, with the bass control at the back.
A forstner bit made nice holes, although I measured the pot shaft diameter wrong and did end up enlarging the holes with my Dremel after finishing the body.
After fine-sanding the body I wiped it down with some Naphtha to check for any scratches/sanding errors. It also is a good chance to see what the grain will look like after the body is finished. I usually don't think of alder for a transparent finish, but this body has pretty nice grain!
The start of something fun!!
Here's the starting point, right out of the box. The body is alder (chosen for weight), and I paid the extra surcharge to get Warmoth to hand-select the lightest piece of wood they had. The neck is from the showcase, pretty standard maple but picked because it has the prettiest fretboard grain pattern of the necks available.
I really like the headstock shape!
The neck arrived with pretty squared-off edges, so I got out my triangular file (with the edges ground off) and rolled the fretboard edges slightly.
Looking good now!
I'm using a 5-knob Bartolini NTMB+ preamp, so the next task was to locate the knobs and drill the holes for the pot shafts. I chose to arrange the knobs in two straight lines, a line of 3 knobs and a line of 2. The master volume will be closest to the neck, with blend just behind it. The lower line of 2 knobs are the treble and mid controls, with the bass control at the back.
A forstner bit made nice holes, although I measured the pot shaft diameter wrong and did end up enlarging the holes with my Dremel after finishing the body.
After fine-sanding the body I wiped it down with some Naphtha to check for any scratches/sanding errors. It also is a good chance to see what the grain will look like after the body is finished. I usually don't think of alder for a transparent finish, but this body has pretty nice grain!
). The decals were printed drawn in vector art software and printed onto waterslide decal paper. I french polished the front of the headstock to a nice shine, then applied the decals, then sprayed shellac over the top, then repeated the french polishing process to bury the decals under the finish.
