OK, firstly I select the wood I'll need, in this case the woods required are alder (for the body) and maple (for the neck). Since this is a '50's style instrument, the neck will be one piece, no need for a separate fingerboard.

The wood is cut and planed to the required size/thickness and the alder is glued to achieve the required width of board for the body. Whenever possible I try and join wood from the same plank in order to get the most consistent colouring, figuring and density. Alder, like most wood, can vary considerably in appearance and weight.
 

The above pictures show the alder clamped with sash clamps, and to the right glued and sanded with the outline of the body pencilled on. Once this is done the shape can be cut out on the band saw...

I cut just outside the pencil line in order to leave a little for trimming off later, best to remember the mask for this, it produces a fair amount of dust!

Once the shape is rough sawn, a template is secured to the body and the final shape is cut using a bearing guided router bit. This is much the same way as the bodies were produced back in the day using templates and pin routers.
 
 

Here's what we end up with once the router/template part is done, a square edged blank... The eagle eyed amongst you may notice the body is not perfectly centre joined, I have never seen a vintage body that was, having the join off centre makes the join less obvious to the eye, I'm sure that's why it was done back then. The next stage from here is rounding over the edges, contouring the body and routing the cavities for the neck, pickup and controls.

The edge radius is cut in much the same way as the body is trimmed, using the table router. As I hadn't built a mid '50's P type before I had to make up a new set of jigs, once done I routed the appropriate holes in the body and drilled the neckplate holes and wire channel. Last but not least I planed the contours onto the body, all done by hand as it was in the old days!

Once all the holes are drilled and routed and the contours are done...it's down to the joyous job of sanding the body ready for the finishing stage to begin. This is probably one of the most tedious parts of the whole process, sanding a body to perfection can take several hours of non stop work and is done completely by hand.

With the body sanded it was time to go on to the next stage...bleaching the body. This step is/was done to brighten the sunbursts on alder bodies, swamp ash by its nature is quite a light wood so doesn't require this step, but alder tends to go a brownish orange when a finish is applied, not the greatest base for a sunburst!

Here's a pic of me bleaching the body, quite nasty stuff wood bleach, I did it once without gloves...learned my lesson! This has to left for 24 hours when applied...time to have a look at the neck!

As with the body, first job is to plane the maple to size, below I can be seen shoving a length of maple through the planer/thicknesser...

Once this is done the truss rod channel is routed using a curved jig to obtain the correct curvature for the truss rod...

The next job is to mark out the shape of the neck on the maple and bandsaw it out, as I did with the body...
 

As with the body, a template is attached and the final shape cut using the router table, the result is a perfectly shaped neck ready for the next stage...truss rod insertion...sounds painful!

OK.....back to the body which has been 'bleaching' for 24 hours or so. Time to give it a light sand and spray a sealer coat. The sealer coat is tinted with a yellow dye, this forms the basis of the sunburst.

OK.....whilst that's drying out we'll go back to the neck. The next stage is installing the truss rod, holes are drilled in both the heel and the headstock end for the rod to be inserted and for the truss rod adjuster nut. Once done the truss rod channel and head stock hole are filled with a walnut fillet and dowel respectively.

The next stage is the shaping of the neck, a lot of excess wood can be cut away using the bandsaw, care must be taken though because it's a powerful machine, one slip and the neck can be ruined and you're starting all over again. The final shape is produced by using a series of abrasive drum sanders in an electric drill, ocassionally I'll use a spoke shave, depends what mood I'm in! Again care must be taken, it's all too easy to remove too much wood!!!

Once a satisfactory shape is achieved, the final stage of shaping and smoothing is done by hand, a piece of abrasive paper on a sanding block is used, this is a very time consuming process, this can take several hours.

From here the final shaping is done with the abrasive paper on your finger tips, to get into those tight contours and curves!

Once I'm happy with the shape, I use the most accurate measuring instrument I have to assess the neck...my hands. I run my hand along the length of the neck checking for any humps or dips, any irregularities, to make sure the profile is corect on both sides, etc.

The next stage is to radius the fingerboard, in this case 7.25". The shaped is planed roughly onto the fingerboard and then sanded to perfection using a radiused sanding beam.

A straight edge is used to ensure the neck is straight and true (see above pic, the shiny metal bar) with no dips or humps. From here the headstock face is sanded, the tuner holes are drilled and we're ready to think about some frets!

In order to insert some frets, we need some fret slots. The neck is secured into a fret slot jig and each slot is sawn.
 

Cutting the slots

Ready for the dots

The next job is to install the fingerboard dots, in this case quarter inch black dots are used, the side dots are done at the same time. Once installed they are sanded flush with the fingerboard surface.

The above picture shows me installing the frets with an arbour press with a 7.25" radiused caul. You may also notice the 'vintage amber' hue of the fingerboard, I prefer to stain the fingerboard on maple necks prior to fretting, makes finishing a bit easier later on. Once done, the fret ends are dressed and the neck is ready for the finish to be sprayed.

Back to the body, with the sealer coats sprayed the sunburst is applied and then several top coats are sprayed. Likewise the neck is also sprayed and hung up to dry.

Between each coat of nitro it is necessary to wet sand the finish, this has two advantages, firstly it smoothes the finish so that the next coat 'lays down' better, and secondly it helps to keep the lacquer film as thin as possible. The same thing is done with the neck. Only one or two more coats to go, then that stage will be over with!

As well as the body and neck, I decided to make the pickguard for this bass too. I did buy a repro guard in but found it to be too inaccurate for my needs...I therefore made up a jig and cut the guard in much the same way as the body and neck.

The little block of maple on the left was fashioned into a wooden finger rest (on the right), another example of an item that has to be made as it's not available 'off the shelf'. Early basses featured unpainted maple finger rests but by the mid '50's they were painted black...this one will soon be painted!

OK.....with the finishing out of the way, time to age a few parts, I do this with variety of methods, a few parts are pictured below...

Whenever possible I make my own metal parts on a lathe (see below), although most parts can be easily bought over the counter, making a few extra bits and pieces up on the lathe adds to the sense of satisfaction. The lathe is an early '50's Logan from the US, I might not be able to afford a vintage guitar from the early '50's but did get a tool from that period that helps me replicate those guitars!!!

I don't usually assemble guitars before the distressing stage but since I hadn't built a 50's style P type before I couldn't resist the temptation.....I was keen to see how it sounded and looked when assembled.

The above pictures shows me installing the pickup, the neck and bridge had already been attached, I wanted to ensure the pole pieces of the pickups lined up with the strings correctly...they did!!!, note the open book on the bench, it's on the 50's P bass page, making sure everything was in the right place!

Getting there now, the holes for the pickguard are being drilled in the above pic, just got the pots and pickup to solder in and then a quick set up...

The pickup used is a Seymour Duncan antiquity, you can see the box amongst the crap on the bench. So, with the electrics done I gave the bass a quick set up. The frets are not levelled and polished yet, I tend to leave that until after the distressing stage. Below are the pictures of the bass, you'll notice the finger rest is still plain maple, I haven't got around to painting that yet.

Well, all I can say is 'WOW, what a bass...', it is beyond my expectations......it's absolutely gorgeous, looks cool, sounds great, rings like a piano, even though the frets are not levelled and it only had a quick set up, it plays amazingly, low action, no buzzes or rattles, I will be taking this along to the next band rehearsal for sure!!!

The next stage is waiting for the lacquer to harden off properly before distressing, I like to leave it as long as possible, the harder the lacquer, the more convincing the distressing will be, I guess I'll just have to play it for the time being...oh! the hardship.....

The lacquer on the bass was left to dry out for several months, then it was ready for the final stage of the process. I haven't gone into details about how I achieve the vintage look I get, I'm sure you'll appreciate I'd like to keep some of my processes secret!

The bass was taken apart, the body and neck distressed and then re-assembled. The result looks fantastic, as usual the jpeg images on the site cannot do justice to the instrument, it looks and feels like a vintage bass should. The bass is strung with La Bella flat wounds which really add to the vintage vibe. The distressing was largely based on Bob Daisley's 1955 P, with some additional chipping around the edges!

I love it.....and I wish I could keep it but I think Kevin (who ordered it) might have something to say about that.......!!!

Well, there we are, that's basically the process involved in turning a couple of planks of wood and some parts into a 'vintage' instrument!

I hope you've enjoyed the feature as much as I have putting it together, and I hope it shows the care and attention to detail that I put into every guitar I build.