Category: Guitars

Jazz Bass All Done*

The bass is all back together and works great! There were some hurdles along the way but it came out great.

The pickups sound awesome and the P Bass pick is super powerful and just what I wanted.

Still to do… My knobs didn’t fit so more are on the way. I did not counter sink the screws in the pick guard yet. One of the wires that came with the pickups is real short and I want to replace it. Kill switch pops pretty bad so I want to add resistors to hopefully quiet it down.

I’ll upload a sound demo later.

Jazz Bass

Jazz Bass Pickguard

A Jazz bass has a few features that define it. One of them is two single coil pickups; one mounted in the body near the bridge, one mounted in the pickguard closer to the neck. I’m changing the one pickup to a Precision Bass humbucking pickup.

I need a new pickguard and I’m gonna make it myself. This turned out to be one of the most labor intensive jobs in the whole project. Read on

Jazz Bass

Polishing The Jazz Bass

After painting and putting the clear on, it’s time to wet sand the clear coat flat and polish!

Read if you wanna see more

Jazz Bass

Jazz Bass – Clear Coat

Today is a nice day… A nice day to make the bass look cooler! I sprayed the clear coat on the bass.

Read on for pics and more info.

Vangaurd

Headstock Logo For Kramer

Post author By Mark
Post date 2025-03-23

Since I have a Cricut machine now and I’m painting my bass, I figure it’s a good time to finish the headstock on the Kramer Vanguard. Astute readers will remember that I named the guitar Julius Prime which is an amalgamation of two names I considered; Orange Julius, and Optimus Prime.

I wanted to incorporate an orange with a mean face, that is part cyborg with an eye similar to the Terminator or Cyborg on Teen Titans. Problem was I didn’t feel like spending time designing this. Fast forward to 2025 and AI comes to the rescue.

Read on to see more…

Guitars Jazz Bass stuff

Cherry Papa 🍒

Post author By Mark
Post date 2025-03-19

I want to put a name on the face of the headstock. I decided to name the bass CherryPapa. It’s kind of a play on “cherry popper” and being old “papa”. I think a red sparkly thing looks kind of 70’s like my old motorcycle helmet when I was a kid, so I want some kind of 70’s style writing like you would see on the side of a van.

Read on if you want to see more…

Guitars Jazz Bass

Jazz Bass Glitter Coats

Post author By Mark
Post date 2025-03-19

Now that the base coats are on and have a bit of time to dry, time for the glitter coats. This is clear paint with red glitter suspended in it. It really makes the finish sparkle! The glitter is not very noticeable until the clear top coat is applied and polished flat. But it sure does look cool!

It’s another nice day, so time to get started. Read on for more…

Guitars Jazz Bass

Painting The Bass

Post author By Mark
Post date 2025-03-18

As a wise man in the 1980s once said, time to paint the bass. I think he was talking about doughnuts not a bass, and he was making them, not painting them, but close enough.

I’m using rattle cans from Roth Metal Flake specifically… Cherry Pie base coat which is a metallic red. Over that, I’ll put some Cherry Pie glitter paint. This is clear paint with red glitter in it to give it some sparkle.

Anywho, tis a nice day outside so let’s get started. Read on to see what’s up.

Guitars Jazz Bass

Jazz Bass Upgrade

Post author By Mark
Post date 2025-03-15

My bass player friend in my band has a cool Spector Bass with EMG pickups. I think I wanna play some bass in the band so he can play harmonica. I want my bass to sound cool like his, so time for some upgrades.

My bass started out life as a Squire Classic Vibe ’70s Jazz Bass. This is a wicked bass for the money and has very few things that need upgrading.

Back in 2021-ish I did some work on it. Ilin addition to TLC, I swapped the bridge out for a high mass Hipshot Kickass bridge. I also replaced the shitty Squire tuning machines for some Chinesium Guyker ones from Amazon that are actually really nice.

Fast forward to 2025 and I decided to do some more work to it. Follow along with me as I…

Swap the pickups for a set of EMG PJ pickups.
Add a battery box for the pickups.
Make a new pick guard that works with the Precision Bass pickup.
Relocate the output jack to the side of the bass.
Add a kill switch
Change the tuning machines for ones that fit better.
Paint the body and headstock a cool color

That’s a big list!

Funkenstein

New Guitar Project

Post author By Mark
Post date 2023-07-16

So, when I last talked I was planning to make a new neck for my pink telecaster. Now I have a better idea. Make a new body to go with the neck.

I think this will be a Tele style body as well. I want to hollow some of the body out like a thinline Tele. I’ll prolly make the body from ash.

I want to go straight up the middle with 2 single coil pickups like a traditional Tele. This is something I kinda need since all my guitars have high output humbuckers. Having a guitar that’s super good at clean stuff will be great.

Sounds kinda boring, right? Here is where it gets fun lol

I really liked the way my friend’s Purple guitar turned out (metallic purple with purple glitter on top) so I wanna do that, except green.

The neck will be like I described before. A strat style inverted headstock with an ebony fingerboard. I got some locking staggered Hipshot tuners for it. Prolly paint the headstock to match the body.

I want to put some sort of LED inside the body that lights it up from the inside.

Toggle switch in the top like a Les Paul or Tele deluxe.

Kill switch cause why not.