Project completed; Iceman style bass build

MadAsAHatter

MadAsAHatter

Well-known member
I decided to start a guitar build project this weekend. This one is going to be a "rebuild" instead of a scratch build. I already have most of what I need in my part boxes. The only thing I had to buy was a MN blend knob.

For this one I'm taking a guitar body and turning it into a bass. The body is made of ash I think and is a copy of a Phiga Iceman-ish style. The neck is coming from an Ibanez bass though I'm not sure exactly which model. I'm undecided on the bridge. I have a generic one off an Ibanez TMB100 or a set of individual saddles I can use, but I'm not sure if I'm really feeling those. I may end up getting something better quality. Tuners are a set of Gotoh GB707's.

The pickups are double J style from a Kramer bass. I believe they are made by Schaller and are rather unique. They're 4 coils each with it's own set of leads. So they can be wired up in a number of configurations. I'm thinking I'll wire the bridge pickup as bridge & neck side single J and full double J. The neck pickup I'll wire as split P, reverse P and full. I'll use some mini toggles for that. The rest of the wiring will be master volume/tone and blend knobs.

The last part of this is adding a top to cover the woodwork from having to plug bridge holes and pickup routes. I have a couple of options here depending on what works best. Top choice is to use some leftover tiger stripe bamboo flooring. I really like the pattern. Other choices is some ash that have a nice grain pattern or douglas fir.

I didn't get too far as I had to take a day to make a thickness planer sled for my router. My regular planer isn't wide enough to fit a whole guitar body through. So far I've filled the pickup routes and plugged bridge mount holes.

I forgot to take a pic before I started working on the body. Here it is a s it stands now and a quick mockup to get the idea of layout..

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This is the flooring I'm thinking of using as a figured top.
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Lastly a pic of the thickness planer sled.
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Got a little more work done today and also wasted a bunch of time and effort. I did plane down the top an back. Also scraped & sanded the paint off the sides. Here is the body as it stands now.

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The part where I wasted a bunch of time & effort was trying to work those left over flooring boards into a top. It's engineered flooring where the top is only about 3 mm thick. The rest is plywood/MDF backing. I fucked it all up trying to get the backing off. Nothing I tried worked out right and I kept going trough the top.
So I scrapped that Idea and started on plan B. I had a couple of 1/4" thick ash board that are just big enough to cover the body. It has a nice looking grain pattern and will look good as a semi-figured top. Right now it's edge glued and clamped up. Hopefully the glue up comes out well and tomorrow I be able to glue it on the body. I will need to plane the body down a little more to accommodate the extra thickness of this top.
I'm optimistic this will work fine, but if not plan C is to use some walnut veneer.

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Now it's starting to look more like something. This past weekend I planed the body down more to compensate for the top's thickness, glued the top on and got it all cut/sanded to shape. I forgot to take a pic of the top being clamped on. Just imagine the 2 pictured from my previous posts and a butt ton of clamps.

I'm on pause for the moment. I forgot I had broken my template bit and never got another one. I also decided to go with a different bridge. I want to use a Gotoh 201B instead of the basic Ibanez bridge I originally planned. So I'll hold off on doing any more work until I have those things in hand.

Here where I'm at now.

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NowYou'rePlayingWithPower said:
Turning out nice! Are you going with a clear natural finish?
Click to expand...

I'm going to do a teal or turquoise stain using India Ink. I've used it before and really like it. They have a few colors in that range, I just have to test on scrap to decide exactly which one I want to use. I'll do the stain black and sand back technique to make the grain pattern pop. I'm also thinking about cutting a 22 degree chamfer (that's the bit I have) on the top for a faux binding. Again, I'll have to test it out on scrap to see if I like it or not.
 
MadAsAHatter said:
I'm going to do a teal or turquoise stain using India Ink. I've used it before and really like it. They have a few colors in that range, I just have to test on scrap to decide exactly which one I want to use. I'll do the stain black and sand back technique to make the grain pattern pop. I'm also thinking about cutting a 22 degree chamfer (that's the bit I have) on the top for a faux binding. Again, I'll have to test it out on scrap to see if I like it or not.
Click to expand...

That would stress me out. I would be too worried about tearing a chunk out of the top, but I'm also not a woodworker.
Godspeed! Looking great so far! Are you doing anything special with the neck or headstock?
 
NowYou'rePlayingWithPower said:
That would stress me out. I would be too worried about tearing a chunk out of the top, but I'm also not a woodworker.
Godspeed! Looking great so far! Are you doing anything special with the neck or headstock?
Click to expand...

A sharp router bit minimizes the risk of tear out. And there's ways of splicing things in if you have to. A good portion of woodworking is fixing unintended mistakes. I've gotten really proficient at that over the years LOL.

I'm not going to do anything too special with the neck. I'm using an 34" scale Ibanez bass neck that already has an Iceman style headstock shape. Unfortunately I didn't have enough ash to make a matching headstock plate. So I'll just refine the shape a little more and match the body color.
Even though it's a bolt on neck, I also want to add a heel contour to blend into the body for a smoother transition. The heel is rather large and there's enough space to glue a block on and carve the contour. I'm optimistic, but not sure if it'll work out the way I'm thinking. My biggest concern is that the heel block won't mate to the body properly.
 
I didn't realize it's been 4 months since I put this project aside.
Side note, I had to put my Matamp build aside as well. I decided to use Mercury transformers instead of the Heybowers I bought. But now I need to save for a new roof and can't spare the money for the transforms right now.

Anyway... I re-inventoried my parts and have everything and I have all that I need to complete this bass. I've taken this week off work so I'll actually have some time to do more on it. I'm hoping by the end of the week I'll be at the point of doing the clear coats.

From where I left off I mainly have pilot and mounting holes left for woodworking. That won't take too long. Then I'll be able to dry fit the neck and work out the final location of the bridge. And I still need to stain it and do the faux binding.

The way the pickups I'm using are made there's a multitude of ways to wire it all up. I didn't want to go too complicated so I decided on Rear-All-Front coils for the bridge pickup and P-All-Reverse P for the neck. Controls will be minimal; 2 mini toggles for switching each pickup, volume & blend pot.

I also bout a better bridge before I had put the project aside. I went with a Gotoh 201. It's much better quality than the generic Ibanez bridge I initially thought about using.

I made my final decision on the color as well. I'll be using some of my fountain pen inks. I like the colors, but they're dryer inks and I don't care for the way they write. So I might as well use them to stain this bass They're archival inks also so they won't fade.

This is my test piece for an idea of the color.
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This doesn't look like much progress since my last update, but it is.

The original plan was to do a satin finish where you could still feel the woodgrain. I've done this several times before. Spray gloss to build up protective layers. Hit it with 0000 steel wool to knock down overspray bumps. Then a couple of mist coats of satin and done.

That worked perfectly for the sides and back, but something went sideways on front. It looked like complete crap. I decided to leave the sides and back as is since they looked good and changed to a high gloss finish one the front. That took a lot of time because I didn't originally prep for a gloss finish. For a high gloss finish normally I'd do grain filler, a light coat of sanding sealer, then start working on the clearcoats. That would start me off with a fairly flat surface to begin with. With this I had to use the clearcoat to fill in the grain. So, I had to sand off the couple layers of satin first. Then it was spray clear gloss, level sand, rinse & repeat until all the woodgrain was filled and the finish was thick enough. In the process I sanded through the top a couple of times and kept having to touch it up.

After all that I finally got everything good to let it sit and cure for a few months. Probably didn't need to let it go that long, but I was busy with other things that kept me from going back to it sooner. I finished up buffing it earlier today. Next will be getting all the hardware & electronics done and I have a little work to do on the neck.

So Shiny!
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Assuming I didn't mess up the wiring (I haven't tested it yet) the body is done.
Now onto the neck. Not a whole lot to do there. I need to take the paint off the headstock then stain it and the top of the heel to match the body. After that a couple of coats of finish, add the tuners and bolt it on.

Since I typically play with a pick I may add a maple pickguard as well. I haven't decided on that yet.

While I had the neck test fitted I snapped a quick pic.

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It's finally completed; well 99.5% completed anyway. I still need to do a full setup and a truss rod cover. I'm still toying with the idea of a pickguard as well. I have enough cutoff from the ash to make one.

I did half-ass a quick setup; just to give it test playthrough. I like to wait a week or so to let the neck adjust to having tension on it again before I do a full setup. Even with the quick one it plays really well. Unlike most Iman style guitars/basses that have some neck dive, this one is well balanced. Whatever playing position I hang it in I can let go and it stays put. No neck dive or sliding around at all. I didn't put it on a scale, but it feels like average weight for a bass.

What I find interesting is even though I used the same ink to dye the body and neck, it came out slightly different colors. The body is more aqua color and the neck leans more towards blue. I guess the natural color of the wood is to "blame" for that. The ash has more of a natural yellow color where maple is naturally whiteish.

One last small touch I added was an homage to the original top I wanted to do. I had to cover some screw holes in the heel of the neck. So I took a piece of the flooring and made a heel plate. When shaping it I sanded through the finish on the neck around the heel. I tried to blend that area into the tint ont the rest of the neck but wasn't able to get it. It's not quite as blond.

Even with the minor imperfections I'm pleased with the way it came out. Like I mentioned, it already plays pretty good with a half-assed set up. It should be a really nice playing bass once I do the full setup.

These are the final specs:
Northern ash body (I think) with Southern ash top
Maple neck w/ rosewood fretboard
Gotoh Bridge & Tuners
Dunlop dual design locking strap buttons
Schaller "Double J" pickups that came from a Kramer Duke bass
Chrome knobs with MOP top.

As mentioned in a previous post, the top is polished to a high gloss, but I left the back and sides a satin finish. I also hit the back of the neck with 3000 grit sandpaper to take the shine out and give it a slicker feel.

I also painted the electronics cavity with nickel shielding paint. Even with some heavy overdrive it's dead quiet; no hum whatsoever.

The pickups are 4 coils each so wiring options were near infinite. I ended up settling on a Volume and Blend knob and a mini toggle for each pickup
The neck pickup toggle selects between P / Full / Reverse P
The bridge pickup toggle selects between Front / Full / Rear
Just that basic wiring gives me a plethora of tones. Every switch position has it's own distinct sound. I wasn't expecting to hear so much of a difference between P and Reverse P on the neck or Front and Rear on the bridge pickup. And of course with the blend knob I can combine as much of any of those tones together as I want.
And now for the money shot. For some reason the lighting seems a little dark in the pics. The color is a little brighter in person.
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