Mosrite Bass (9/10) ~ Luthiery Laboratories

Mosrite Bass (9/10)

Well, it's that time of year again, time to renew the web hosting. And for those of you that don't know, that has become a lot more expensive than it used to be. Fifty dollars a year is now several hundred. Not to mention the price of domain names has gone up ten-fold.

And I just found out that the nice folks at PayPal disabled all my Support buttons, and I never got a notice (although that may be my fault.) In any case, it is all working again now, so if you would like to make a small donation to help defray these costs, it would be greatly appreciated.

Apr 14, 2019

I did a pretty good job of not wrecking the binding on this body when I stripped off the water-based crap. But it still looked rather messed-around, so I routed it off and replaced it with new. At least I did get it tighter this time - those pointy horns are tough.

The old binding would have been ok, but I want better than ok. And I want 100% recovery from the water-based fiasco; I don't want regrets every time I look at this piece. Never use water-based polyurethane for anything, it is just EPA-mandated garbage.

Apr 20, 2019

Got the binding all scraped clean.

Apr 21, 2019

Final cleanup of the binding, then I jumped the gun and brushed-on a coat of oil-based polyurethane on the front to seal the grain and the binding. When this dries, I will install a handle and do the same on the back and sides. The wood looks great, I think. When this is all polished-out, with pickguard and silver hardware installed, it is going to look really sharp.

I'd be finished by now if I had not embarked on the water-based disaster first. Even brushing it on, I can feel the quality of the oil-based finish compared to the water-based garbage. Use water-based paint on your garage, not your guitar.

Now fully encased in soon-to-be plastic.

Apr 23, 2019

Dec 1, 2019

It's been a long time, but I finally got back around to this. The body is all polished up. There was one small divot in the poly on the front. I filled it with nail polish, which worked pretty well. I'd probably have to point it out for anyone to notice. Compare this with the water-based garbage previously.

This is the stain - Varathane "Barn Red" from Home Depot. It came out nicer than the name would suggest.

Here is the body ready for final assembly.

March 1, 2020

I started assembling the Mosrite, finally. The routs are all so precise that I had to spend quite a while filing polyurethane out of them to make the neck and pickups fit again. Then I had to chisel out the pit for the output jack. You can see my solution for grounding the four individual bridges - a strip of aluminum tape, the same stuff as on the back of the dry-erase pickguard.

And it all fit together, and I'm going to bed. I'll assemble the neck tomorrow.

June 3, 2020

Today I put a final polish on the Mosrite body, hand-rubbed with Meguiar's. The initial polish was with my cloth wheel setup. Very shiny now, and ready for final assembly.

June 5, 2020