This is bass is made from a very pretty piece of spalted poplar. The neck is mahogany, maple and purpleheart, with a Jatoba (Brazilian Cherry) fingerboard. Rear controls and a a double EMG Select Jazz with series/parrallel switch and a tone control complete the spec. This is a lightweight bass, just over 6 llbs. The orange color is a stain applied direct to the wood before finishing.
Completed Work:
Strip Bass of hardware
Shape body.
Shape neck
Rout for second p-up
Drill for recessed side jack
Sand Body and Neck to 220 grit
Fill holes/gaps as required.
Stain body TransTint Orange
Sand body 400 grit
Sand neck 400 grit
Seal wood
Apply Tru-Oil
Sand back and polish
Sand/radius fingerboard: 20”
Shield cavities with copper tape
Install string tho’ ferrules
Redo wiring harness with side jack
Fabricate ebony nut and bridge
Fit black tuners
Restring
Final Set-up
Notes:
This is both and easy and hard bass to shape. Easy in that poplar is a fairly soft wood, hard that because of the softness it’s very easy to take off too much!
I’ve decided to fit a second J pick-up into the bass, so having measured everything up to make sure that I have enough room I have routed an additional cavity.
Routing went well and I now have room for two J-pups, which I’ll wire to either a push pull pot or mini-switch (I need to work out exact position in cavity first) to allow for parallel and series operation.
The body has now been reshaped with a ‘belly curve’ on the back and a forearm cutaway on the front. Both of these look good on the Stude and they are also very ergonomic. Now it just a case of more sanding, working up though the grades of paper.
I’ve used black lacquer to fill in some of the natural flaws in the wood. This will fit in with the spalting and contrast with the light color of the poplar.
I’ve decided to stain the bass Orange, which contrast nicely with the spalting. This was done with TransTint Stain mixed with alcohol and was applied by hand on a cloth. I may need to consider some black tuners on this bass!
The dual pick-up arrangement has turned out to be a lot more flexible than I would have thought. Everything from a good bass thump to quite a gnarly mid tone.
