#1230 is a Stude model made from a couple of nice pieces of spalted Maple. It has a mahogany, maple and purpleheart neck, with a purpleheart fingerboard.
I decided to retro fit a Soapbar to give the bass a little more ‘grunt’ and I added a tone control and side jack. While I have fitted Rotosound 77 flatwound strings, I have epoxied the fingerboard for that extra bit of ‘mwah’. This is a really nice bass. Plays well, sounds great and it has a really nice natural organic feel, even with the epoxy on the ‘board!
Completed Work:
Strip Bass of hardware
Shape/sand body to 400 grit
Shape/sand neck to 400 grit
Initial sand of fretboard to 400 grit
Sand/radius fingerboard: 20”
Epoxy board
Rout for soapbar pick-up
Re-radius board post epoxy
Drill for side jack
Filled holes/gaps as required.
Seal wood
Apply Tru-Oil
Sand-back and polish
Shield cavities with copper tape
Redo wiring harness: vol/tone parallel/split/series
Fabricate ebony nut and bridge
Refit hardware and final set-up
Notes:
I’ve shaped a small belly curve and reduced the thickness of the lower bout to make it a wee bit more ergonomic.
Again for this one I decided to epoxy the fingerboard. The purpleheart should make that look real nice.
With not a lot of room for the addition of an additional p-up, I decided to replace the single J with a soap-bar, which will allow coil switching.
It’s a lot of sweat but the re-radiussing of the fingerboard is finished and the result is very pretty indeed.