u/NotoriousREV

I’ve finally got my Gulf-themed partscaster playing. It needs a setup, and the electrics aren’t quite working right so I need to figure that out but it sounds great. I can heartily recommend Bootstrap Pickups, these are their Extra Crispy set.

It’s the first guitar I’ve ever built. It looks pretty shit up close, but it already plays pretty nicely before I’ve tweaked it and I’m very pleased with it. I’ve learned loads and really enjoyed it.

I’m already collecting the parts for my next build, a Strat (you can see that in my other posts).

The parts start arriving, you start to offer them up and test fit and you catch that first glimpse of what the finished thing will look like.

Hopefully it won’t be long before I’m playing it.

I managed to snag this Encore P-bass copy off my local Facebook group for £20. I’ve given it a wipe over and thrown a spare set of strings on it and it plays (although the pots are scratchy).

Does anyone know how to ID which model it is or when it was made? I’m assuming it’s an E4, but it’s very, very light for a bass (7 pounds) and I’m not sure if they all were?

My plan is to see how the neck responds to the truss rod (the current neck relief is comical and the action is about 10,000 ft) and then check the frets and then play the shit out of it (my daily bass is a Squier Jag CV).

I did the pinstripes and am largely happy with how it turned out, but there’s a couple of spots around the horns and on the back where the paint bled through the masking tape (almost certainly user error) that I’ll need to fix somehow, but I’m sure I can get it looking great before the clearcoat goes down.

Original thread here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Luthier/s/bUX09oIGVV

I’ve never built a guitar before, and I’ve never painted anything except the walls in my house with a paintbrush, but I wanted a guitar in the classic Gulf Racing colours. I’m yet to do the dark blue pinstripes either side of the orange stripe, and then the clearcoats, but I’m really happy with it so far.

It’s definitely not perfect but it’s all mine and my next one will be better. I definitely have the bug for this. I eventually want to get to the point where I’m making my own bodies, and maybe even necks but that’s for future me.