Muzz

I bought the pick up covers today the old fashioned way, I walked into the shop. I went to to a suburb in Sydney called Annandale, there is a stretch of road there that is guitarists' heaven, so many guitar shops within cooee of each other. Even with all those guitar shops I couldn't find any genuine Hondo parts, I had to go for an aftermarket product.

With a project like this the screw holes are never going to line up exactly,

I lined up the fingerboard

and I have to bring those pups forward a bit, thank goodness for hardwood toothpicks.

See you round like a rissole

G'day g1, your bass looks cool, I like the innovative bridge, look forward to seeing more of ths one.

It was a real win some/lose some day today. I clamped my bass body to the stand and grabbed what looked to be the can of clear automotive enamel, I put my mask on and I was just about to spray when something did not look right with the can. It was the wrong can, just normal paint and it said the colour was "Fuschia" and I nearly sprayed it on my bass . After swapping to the right can, it was smooth sailing it all flowed on easy, no runs, in a few days it will be ready to sand with 800, 1200, 2000 grit then buff up with cut and polish.

Then I tried the decal, it went on OK

but after I sprayed clear on it you could see the difference between the plastic covered wood and the rest of the headstock. I am not an nth degree perfectionist but I did not want to keep it, I took it off, sprayed clear into the wound and I will sand it back after it dries.

I am also going to have to get new covers for the pickups, my original plan was to use the

old pick ups

but they don't go with the new tortoiseshell pickguard. I have taken off Gibbo style pickup covers by melting the solder that keeps them on, but how are P Bass pup covers held on? and how do you take them off? run a Stanley knife around the edge?

Yep it's a victory dance and in my case amazed celebration that something worked

Some of my fave accompanying tracks for guitars with air strings and paint stick necks are Enter Sandman, Shotdown; Riot on Sunset, Fat Bottomed Girls, Thanks for the Memories and Choir Boy by an band, Grinspoon.

I got a bit heavy handed with the clear enamel and got a few runs, I pressed greaseproof paper against them to flatten them out and hung up the body in the cupboard overnight. By this morning they had formed 'warts'. I sanded them off with 400 grit over a paddle pop stick.

I kept the lumps wet with water during sanding down as they didn't seem quite hard but the water seems to set them as you file, is this a chemical reaction or is it just my imagination?

It all smoothed out OK, it's like sanding a surfboard at this stage with

lots of white residue.

That's right Greg, but I think this guitar is close to being outstanding, if it was mine I'd be fixing up the few little details that have been discussed, do any other prep and then I'd drop it off with someone who had a lot of binding experience and then put the finish on. That's just my daydream, TTFN

yeah, I wanted to bind it,

Cool, its always a job you can do at a later stage, I snapped a shot to illustrate the kind of binding I mean.

It's not going to get any blacker than this so I will start spraying the clear coat on.

Am I the only one who admits to playing air guitar with projects in progress or do others call it "checking the balance"?

So easy does it, I don't want my project going up in flames!

The only other parts I needed to replace were the machine heads.

I'll screw these new ones in as soon.

Next snag, my new pickguard arrived today and the neck cutout is a few mm too small, you can see it overhanging the neck pocket in the photo. What is the best way to route out the the pickguard?

Yep, I think this guitar is shaping up beautifully, my suggestions would be, move the rear strap lock from the edge of the guitar to the back, and consider cream binding, it would really bring out the top. Kudos to you, that is fantastic work .

Spot on, it did actually take 5 to rig the jig, I agree it's good to avoid having to design cover ups for stuff ups .

I mocked up a decal, I'll ponder on it for a while before starting to print it up.

I went with the non-wobble bar for the route

the wood is sitting on pieces of MDF to bring it level with the template. I got the right thickness by splicing small triangles of MDF with a Stanley knife and placing them in between the big pieces of MDF and the wood.

I buzzed the beak until I just heard the whine of the router change pitch and got closer each pass untill I felt the roller follow the template,

it did the job

and changed the profile of the headstock

Now I just need to find an image of the Hondo logo to make a decal, I Googled and this was the closest I got

'Hondo' logo

I need to keep looking. I saw this website where they put a Fender decal on a Saga tele, why would someone do this?

Hi jmrentis, Yep I think you are right, it's going to be too wobbly without a level guide on the other side of that router bit , I am going with your advice, I do not want to be posting a pic of the chunk that got chewed out when my router slipped off 90. I managed to shape up a template, it's just the region marked with crosses that is coming off for this project.

I will give the tiny routing project a shot in the next couple of days, I'll keep you posted.

I like your channeled router template/table for full heastock shaping. You could even put bolts through the edges that could be turned to level and stabilize the table.

I would say if you are feeling like doing a renno go for it, it is lots of fun, I like the Mr. Potato Head approach to guitars, you can change the stick on bits when ever you like.

Well my car conked out on the way to the movies, I'll have to get the tow truck on Tuesday, so I had some extra time to have a go on the neck. The dowel trick worked great, the flanges were recessed in with very little protruding edge in the hole, so I had to wrap some aluminium tape around the end of the dowel to get some grip. Then gently tapped them out, no wood accompanied them .

I left paint stripper on the headstock for two hours, there was no visable effect on the paint at all, but it had softened up. I shaved it off with a sharp chisel.

Shaving the headstock

and then sanded it smooth.

Next job is a little bit of reshaping on the headstock with a router, I am just wondering how wobbly the router is going to be on that little bit of wood as a base.

Thanks Jon, that sounds good, I'll go with the dowel technique and let you know how it works out.

I started spraying black on the body this morning and mid shoot my paint stick snapped in half I managed to catch it before it hit the grass and bolted on a support and kept spraying. Got a bit of a sag on the back, so I will leave it hanging up in the cupboard, go to the Ritz Cinema and watch a movie about surfing penguins and sand the sag and knock out the flanges when I get back.

First snag, those machine head flanges are in real tight and I do not want to lift divots off the front of the headstock when I take them out. I am going to try tapping them out gently from behind with a screwdriver and hammer. The orangey red finish has to come off. I will see how paint stripper goes on it, it looks like two pack and so it is likely to be stubborn. The hawk's beak is going to be shaped off with a bastard file and then smoothed with a router. I used to wonder why bastard files were given that name until I took some bark off my knuckles with one.

I am going to do a bit of renovation on my old Hondo bass, it only gets used for home recordings and sounds good, but there are a couple of things I want to change. It has this hawks beak point on the headstock that puts dings in the wall when it's left leaning in the corner and its orange/red colour is not very rock. I have pulled it to bits so far and sanded it down.

Vinny the stain came out looking fantastic. Jon is absolutely right about the respirator face mask, you do not want to clear coat your alveoli and bronchi! . Anyway, I will look forward to seeing this very original and cool project progress.

Yep, you should be inspired to make more guitars, I agree with zyonsdream, that looks a better SG than Gibson makes. The nickel hardware looks great against the deep glossy finish. What modifications did you have planned for the hardware?

I agree with the advice on the tight fitting neck, I like to be able to place the neck in the body with no fixative and be able to stand the guitar on a chair without the neck falling out. In a long deep pocket you could glue or screw or both! I like both fixed necks and screwed in necks (often incorrectly called bolt ons) but screw ins do have an advantage of being replacable if they become badly damaged. A friend of mine threw his Les Paul standard to another friend a while back, he said as he threw it he realized that you should not treat an instrument like this, you can guess the rest, the guitar was dropped and the neck snapped at the headstock join.

I think your design looks great, the f-hole tele is always going to be a classic and you're right, nothing is set in stone you can tinker with the design. A non angled neck pocket will be easier to route and tele bridges are a sinch to put on, but if you love tunematic bridges go for the angled pocket. Make an MDF template with the neck pocket design cut out of it and connect to another piece of MDF, hinge the two on either side of the neck hole, you can recess in thin hinges but pieces of gaffa tape will also do the trick. Raise up the top template by gluing in paddle pop sticks to the desired angle and then use it to finish off your neck pocket. If all that is too much you can also keep the pocket straight recess the tuneo and use ferrules instead of a stop bar.

You might want to practice on scrap wood before you risk mutilating your guitar.

I'll look forward to seeing how you go.

It's true

The new finish appeals to me, I think these guys would approve,

Hey Xanthus, I feel all queasy when people cut frets off fingerboards. I saw one post a while back that hacked down the fretboard, I had to have a few tequila shots to feel better. So my advice would be not to amputate.

Could you post a pic of the semicircle gouge? Have you considered flattening the bottom of the gouge then cutting a piece of wood slightly thicker to glue in, then sanding down flush? It should be easy to follow what's left of the fret cut into your repair. Then stain to match the original wood. Good luck with it.

"fairly happy"???? Man you should be very happy, that is a cool bass, I like the shape and the colour goes great with your gold bridge. Great job, especially for first go. I think you are going to feel a lot better about it once you get the wiring sorted out. Have you lined the contol cavity with copper or aluminium tape? I like copper better, try not using any ground bridges between the pots, solder all the ground wires to the copper shield. Make sure there is a solid connection of the ground to the bridge. Use good quality pots, DiMarzio are super quiet. If you do all this you should hear hardly any noise at all when not playing. Do a google search for pick up wiring diagrams and do some experimenting yourself. Hope it all goes well, let us know.

Yeah with that beaut grain a clear finish is the way to go, are you going with thick and glossy?

Man, that looks fantastic, the combination of the blue with the white guard and pick ups and aged-look amber neck makes it a beaut guitar. How about the bridge, is it a stoptail? If so, any plans to whack a whammy on?