The new bass is to have a traditional neck bolted on to a spangly body. The neck was found on ebay and I was chuffed to find it had a head that didn't look too fendery. It had a rosewood fboard, and the frets were quite worn, so it needed remedial work.
The first step was to whip the old frets out. They were a sort of goldy colour and didn't look very hard as the string winding marks could be clearly seen on many of them. In my usual delicate "skilled craftsman" kind of way I totally mullered the brittle rosewood and it had to be planed off. I consoled myself with the fact that rosewood and metallic orange paint would not look that groovy together so I got pondering on the easiest way out of the situation whilst saving face if possible.
The easy way out had already left so I was stuck with a more uphill struggle. The moonbass had an ebony fboard and it looks very nice to my biassed eyes. With the (essential) orange body in mind, I realised that a maple fboard would look a bit nothingy, so there was only one colour left that would work.
White.
Well, it looks great on a washing machine ;-)
I looked around for any exotic woods that happen to be brilliant white and did not find any. The option of bleaching only seemed a short term solution before the wood returned to its natural colour (or needed its roots doing). I picked up the moonbass to ensure the neighbours were as annoyed as I was, and then noticed that the 3rd fret marker (the pacman) was still in good shape. OK, a little on the plump side, but he's always had a 22mm waistband...
This 22mm perspex disc had not showed any signs of wear. It's on the 3rd fret, and strings are more likely to rub against the fboard when the gaps between them are at their largest, ie the head end. So as the lightbulb above my head went 'ding' the way forward was set in, er, plastic. The rosewood will be replaced with white perspex.
To add a little strength to the neck I wanted to first bond some carbon fibre sheet to the freshly planed neck wood (probably maple).
This is to keep the neck height around the same as it was before once it has a 5mm layer of perspex on it, as the rosewood was about 1/4" in the centre. I used two layers of 1.2mm carbon fibre sheet, a couple of tubes of araldite and some lengths of wood to clamp it together.
Trimming carbon fibre is not a pleasant task and it was another round of teeny weeny splinters embedded in my fingers. The end result seems nice and rigid, so it matters little that perspex is not strong, as long as the surface is tough.
Shame this surface won't be seen on the finished neck!
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