My 6 string bass adventure!

[TimSE]

Greetings

You can either be a total douche and just check out the pics or you can read on, and join me on a journey that will almost certainly lead directly into... The danger zone!

So the other week I got a 6 string bass from our good friends at Rondo Music.
This was the (at the time) discontinued Defiant 6 string model that the Intrepid 8 strings were designed from and on this very forum (A bit o' SS.org history for you right there). After being so popular, the bass returned.
I even had one of the standard models and I think was the first to put a neck pickup in it, along with other unnecessary electronics that I honestly dont remember what did what:

Ever since, I have wanted one as a bass. So I got one a couple weeks ago.

This beast is actually rather good, even as stock! And from Rondo Music too. I know there are not Rondo haters here but I have had a few of them and I've actually always been impressed and really liked them. Anyways...

Mods will be posted up in here as they come and to start us off, Lets unfinish that neck!

1 hour in and this finish is rock solid!

After another hour most of it has been scraped away.

After 4 hours or so:

It's not 100% finished yet as my Tung Oil has yet to arrive and I will be going over the whole body (not the neck obviously) with fresh gloss lacquer after the body staining to seal up these ends.

Electronics!

EMG BQC HZ system! Active EMG preamp which works with my stock passive pickups. They sound over 9000 times better.

So after a little drilling, bit of soldering, then a lot of soldering while troubleshooting a dodgy blend pot, getting a replacement blend pot, I now have this.

Top left = Master volume
Bottom left = Blend
Top right = stacked mid controls: bottom half is freq selector and top is cut/boost.
Bottom right = stacked bass/treble

I also had a few extras arrive:

Buffing compound for when glossing up the body after restaining and tung oil for the back of the neck



After snapping a very dead D string I decided now was a good a time as any to crack on with the Sexification!

This section is brought to you by Nitromors paint stripper, a basic scrapper and 7 long hours of scrapping at lacquer so strong it could probably stop a bullet...

 

[TimSE]

3hours in. 3rd coat of Nitromors and scrapping scrapping scrapping!

About 7 hours later:

I ended up having to get the drill sander out as the old lacquer had left a layer I just could not get through so I wont have a super smooth face now. But hay ho.

It rubs the lotion...

So I messed around with a few diff shades of green and the lighter ones didnt really do it for me. So I went darker so it will match the back a bit better plus I love deep dark green finishes.

Few coats of green to get it nice and deep like so...

The lighter edges are were the lacquer was left because I didn't want to go into the veneer too much and it'l be cover by the black burst. So I got lazy basically.

Now that it is looking sweet I went ahead with the black burst. Again, sorry for the shitty phone pics but it is all I have at the mo.

For the beck, I simply sprayed the black over the existing lacquer and will lacquer over it to seal it all in.

The finish was left on the headstock and looked really out of place against the new dark green body so I decided I would rather have a black headstock than mismatch colours.
I will, however be veneering it with the same green finish on a future mod I have planned. So this headstock is only temporary

I didnt like the brice logo so perfect chance to do something of my own. After watch Batman Forever with Jim Carrey as The Riddler I decided I like that name so had a YOLO moment and did this:

The stencil was a bit unreliable and I dont want the paint to run so I sprayed the cutout "?" and painted it with some paints I had around.
I sprayed silver first as it has metallic shards in it and will make the green layer on top exactly the colour it should be. RC Car body painting tip right there

So I 'll be taking my Riddler logo and sealing spray sealing it and glueing it onto the headstock and lacquering over it. Again this is a temporary thing so it will be changed/improved on later. But it will do nicely for now. Plus I like the idea of people looking to see what it is and not getting an answer

I'll post a pic of this on my next update.

Now this bass is 35" scale and is a full arm reach to tune so I took the Warwick angled tuning head idea so make it a bit easier/sexier
(Sorry its a bit out of focus)
Measured 4mm inwards from the current screw holes and redrilled. I also like the idea of having the option to put it back so I didnt fill the old holes. Options ftw

This is how I have sealed the paint as it meets the natural neck. A few mm's of gloss then the neck will be tung oiled.

Now onto a few more days of lacquer spraying to get it as thick as possible then buffing to a shinny finish.
Then tung oil the neck
Then rebuild
Then slap the shit out of it

This is pretty accurate to the color irl

Also My logo came out pretty awesome. Again this is only a temporary headstock finish thing. Few months or something until the next set o' mods. But anyway, notice the "blushing" around the tuning pegs. I think some weather got in it. Oh well.

Oh well. Nothing to do about it now. We will see how it looks all finished up.

I also have another YOLO moment happening inspired by a daemoness guitar I saw. More on that to come as this stage is where you join me.

That last picture was taken just now so do return to see the exciting conclusion NEXT TIME ON DRAGONBALL Z!

 

[crg123]

Nice. I've never seen paint stripped off of a neck like that before. Seemed to work really well.

 

[Fretless]

I pretty much held my breath the while time I read this. Woke up four hours later after passing out(not really), and I have to say nice work so far! Stripping paint always makes me super nervous. I've only done it once before, and it barely turned out right. HNBD though!

 

[TolerancEJ]

Great job. Modding and learning/adapting to 6+ strings aside, I always felt the biggest issue with ERBs are the verbal/written baggage associated with it (i.e. putting up with the "why didn't you get a guitar instead" and/or "Jaco only needed 4" people.)

 

[Chokey Chicken]

I came really close to buying one of the tribal blue Brice's on Saturday. I ended up passing on it and getting an AEL207. This isn't helping with the gas at all. I really like the new darker green compared to the stock finish. The riddler "?" is actually a pretty nice touch and goes along with the color scheme quite nicely. I'm curious to see what else you have in mind for it.

 

[TimSE]

Great job. Modding and learning/adapting to 6+ strings aside, I always felt the biggest issue with ERBs are the verbal/written baggage associated with it (i.e. putting up with the "why didn't you get a guitar instead" and/or "Jaco only needed 4" people.)

Oh man I completely agree I actually tell people now that I play more strings because the more you play, the better you are. That and "Speed = Emotion!" to troll them

I came really close to buying one of the tribal blue Brice's on Saturday. I ended up passing on it and getting an AEL207. This isn't helping with the gas at all. I really like the new darker green compared to the stock finish. The riddler "?" is actually a pretty nice touch and goes along with the color scheme quite nicely. I'm curious to see what else you have in mind for it.

Thanks man. Yeah i had another idea last night so even im interested to see how it will turn out. Its very fun just going with ideas as they come (assuming they dont suck)

 

[TimSE]

Oh shiiiiiiiiiiit

And a little sprinkle of fabulous! Green, blue and purple

 

[Konfyouzd]

Yes...

 

[cjms1997]

This is beautiful. I cringed seeing the lacquer come off though. Looked like jelly.

HNBD

 

[Chokey Chicken]

I approve of everything that is happening to this bass.

 

[TimSE]

This is beautiful. I cringed seeing the lacquer come off though. Looked like jelly.

HNBD

Ahh yeah thats the nitromors. It basically is jelly. Slop it on and scrap it off with a layer of lacquer. A lot of layers in this basses case

Great stuff though if you dont want to spend a lifetime sanding or are working with a veneer like I am

 

[Konfyouzd]

I've used a few gel type strippers. I freakin' love them. A lof of ppl say that it could damage the wood, but I'm not seeing how. I've even stopped paying attention maybe a little longer than I should have and saw no damage to any of the bodies I've ever stripped.

Hell... Usually there's a layer of sealer that even after scraping everything off, I still end up having to sand through so any notions that it might seap into the wood and ruin it probably aren't as urgent as one might lead you to think.

You're supposed to rinse it off with water afterwards anyway I thought...

 

[TimSE]

I've used a few gel type strippers. I freakin' love them. A lof of ppl say that it could damage the wood, but I'm not seeing how. I've even stopped paying attention maybe a little longer than I should have and saw no damage to any of the bodies I've ever stripped.

Hell... Usually there's a layer of sealer that even after scraping everything off, I still end up having to sand through so any notions that it might seap into the wood and ruin it probably aren't as urgent as one might lead you to think.

You're supposed to rinse it off with water afterwards anyway I thought...

Yeah thats pretty much exactly how iv done it with this. sanding the sealer sucked but its the only way to get the stain into the wood. I'v done 3 guitars/basses with stripper and its not done anything bad to any of them.

 

[TimSE]

The blushing on the headstock annoyed me so I stripped it all off and redid it.

Also a bird or something flew into my window...

Also its impossible to get a good picture of the glittery goodness, so this pic will have to do.

More coming soon

 

[Primitive Guitarist]

More, please more

 

[Nmaster]

Dude! This is coming along nicely. And it looks sick. Nicely done, stoked for more updates!

 

[Konfyouzd]

Yeah thats pretty much exactly how iv done it with this. sanding the sealer sucked but its the only way to get the stain into the wood. I'v done 3 guitars/basses with stripper and its not done anything bad to any of them.

NOT sanding the sealer has royally screwed me in the past and I ended up having to improvise...

(I'm sure someone remembers my burnt 7321 which taught me what I ACTUALLY had to do for my burnt 7620 )

That question mark is dope too. I think f-holes that shape would look sick...

 

[TimSE]

That question mark is dope too. I think f-holes that shape would look sick...

I did think about doing the Logo as an F hole but then I remembered I hate F holes so binned that idea

Still, could be awesome... Maybe by the next set of mods, il have come around to the idea

 

[TimSE]

Experiment time!

This is hard to get a picture of until its glossed up but I have wet sanded and sprayed the burst again over the first layer of glitter. I don't know if it will but i'm hoping it will give it a more deep, universey kinda look. So we will see how that goes
I'm itching to get this thing finished so much! Must not rush.

We will see! Got something nice lined up for the back of the headstock