Assembled A Bass Guitar
“He’s bringing the bass, huh?”
--Eddie Murphy, Nutty Professor II: The Klumps
I’ve always wanted to put together a musical instrument from pieces, and I’ve never owned a bass. I saw this kit online and thought it would make a pretty cool project. I ordered it earlier in the week.
The bass comes in a lot of pieces, but in general, the main things I had to do were to assemble the body of it first, put together the neck, and attach the two together.
Some of the loose parts included were the tuning pegs, the bridge, the pick guard, and lots of screws.
The first step was to thread this ground cable into a small hole in the body of the guitar.
The bridge actually goes on top of this cable.
After I attached this cable to the corresponding cable in the pick guard, I had to attach the pickups to their cables as well. Then, the pick guard goes down onto the base.
The instructions included with this kit were a little less descriptive than I would have liked, especially at this part. There were no pilot holes for the pickups, and drilling the pickups into the base directly would have them seated way too low. I figured out on my own that these springs that come with the kit go on the screws that I used to put the pickups in.
The body is pretty much done at this point, so I moved on to the neck. I screwed the tuning pegs into place.
I also attached the little nut that stabilizes and holds the bottom two strings down.
Time to attach the body to the neck. A rectangular flat piece is used where they attach, and I simply screwed that into place.
Once that was done, I strung it up.
After I put all the strings on, I had to adjust the action a little bit because the strings were way too close to the frets. I fixed that, tuned it, and finally, was able to play it. Pretty awesome!
This was a fun project. I wish the instructions for the kit were a little more detailed, but I was able to figure it out. I thought it was cool to see the inner workings of an electric instrument. It definitely gave me a deeper appreciation of the craftsmanship involved with making them. If you enjoy playing music at all, I totally recommend doing something like this.
Well, I better go practice that bass line for “Hey Joe” now. It’s not going to play itself.
Related Item:
Saga Bass Kit
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