Hacking, drilling, routing, filing, sawing, etc.

So I spent the rest of the afternoon today prepping my SX in my usual Frankenbass manner. I now have the hole routed for the J pickup to go between the neck pocket and the P pickup, and I have also cut the space in the pickguard to cover my...um...routing inconsistencies.

Now I am going to pull up some photos of Eddie Van Halen's first guitar pictured on the Van Halen I album cover, so I can tape off my bass for the painting. I'll replicate his pattern as closely as I can, and over the weekend I'll use my trusty enamel gloss white appliance paint to go over the whole thing. Once the paint dries, I'll pull off the tape, and voila! My second VH-striped bass!

In addition to the pickup routing and paint job, I have also decided to reinforce the Kahler mounting and the neck joint. For the Kahler, I think I am going to use bolts instead of wood screws, and I will countersink lock nuts into the back of the body. For the neck, I am going to drill either four or six additional screw holes underneath where the neck plate goes, and I will use the appropriate number of black anodized wood screws to go in to the neck on either side of where the truss rod runs. The heads of the screws will be countersunk so as to not interfere with the neck plate, and once the plate goes back on, those screws aren't going anywhere.

And of course, I'll post pictures once it's finished.

Rots of ruck!

I can't wait to see how your bolt/nut Kahler mounting mechanism works!

What inspired the extra neck screws? Just for the connection to be that much tighter? At this rate, would you like a little wood with those screws?

Eric's gone all boutique, Ritter style is all dude!

Aah yeah true dat.

LOL!

Nah. I've just always tried to reinforce my necks as much as possible, and I had thought of adding extra screws a while ago. Since I normally abuse my basses, and the necks seem to suffer a lot, I just want to be sure that everything stays together.

OK, nevermind. I've decided not to paint the thing. I like the black too much to mess with it.

Hahaha I must say, plain black is pretty kickass. Either way, it'd be great looking.