Final stages

Final stages of finish.

I just realized I rarely ever take pictures in the final stages. I don't show electronics getting put together a lot so lets remedy that.

Electronics for the S6 Bass are really simple. We have a 3-way, push/pull volume for tapping the humbucker, and a tone knob. One more pot than one of my electrics. Bass players actually need a lot of versatility in their electronics so they can find one setting they like and leave it. ;)

Strung up and sitting. I still have to dress the frets and do a final setup. It is huge.

Talking about electronics.

Always trim the excess off. Leaving stray pieces sticking out is not only sloppy but can also contribute to random crazy things that are hard to diagnose.

Don't forget to put your heatshrink tubing on before soldering the connections. Heatshrink is your friend in tight cavities. It can be a pain if you mess up and have to move a wire but in the long run it has saved me more than once.

Order of operation is important as you don't want to accidentally burn wires while soldering the new ones in. Also using small lead wires to connect later makes troubleshooting easier.

Here is a push/pull wired for a tap. The common is grounded and the switched sides are jumpered so we can easily attach the coil starts to them. I put each tap on a separate lug for isolation.

Grounded everything to the chassis with a jumper to make it easy to tie together when it is ready to go in the guitar.

Heating up the heat shrink.

Starting to look like electric spaghetti.

This one and I are at war. After deciding the finish was not good enough I scuffed the whole body back with 600 and shot new clear on it. Luckily my customer is a very patient man.

Back to assembly. Trusty clamps help hold things while I solder up the prebuilt harness.

This setup is my favorite. Push/pull for pickup selecting with a small tap switch. Crazy for some but for me it makes sense as I never use both pickups together when playing metal live. For the studio maybe more options make sense but live it has to be simple and work overtime.

Only waiting to settle in to the big strings and get a final setup. I am relieved to be at this stage with this guitar. Control cover will go on when it is done done.