Building your own bass? Bass kits?

[STRZ]

Anyone goes as far as to build their own bass? I am thinking of buliding my own bass, but I am not sure if I want to try one of the kits that are available or just buy a neck. I am a mechanical engineer and fabricator, so the idea of making the body from scratch does not seem to be too big of a deal, the neck on the other hand seems easy to screw up and not worth the effort versus just buying one.

There are a lot choices from Ebay, and even direct from china. I have looked a Pitbull as well.

[TDR1138]

There are a lot of reports on other sites about the quality of the kits and people’s experiences building them, if you dig around enough. But a lot of it boils down to the old “you get what you pay for” concept… i.e. the $89 J bass kits are not going to have the best quality of components… Not to say that they can’t be a fun way to blow $89, but it just depends what you want to get out of it.

Personally, I have done the following:
• Built a guitar using a kit neck (Saga brand) and homemade body
• Built a bass using various parts sourced from eBay, web, etc. I used a Mighty Mite neck and a Fender body that I refinished, various other parts
• Swapped necks and parts around on countless Squier and SX instruments
• Hacked up, modified and butchered some other Squiers and Ibanezes

Things I have learned:
• Finishing a guitar is frustrating. To be done well, it takes a while, and is too easy to rush. Rushing is bad.
• Stripping a guitar for refinishing is a pain in the rear and a lot of manual labor.
• You will notice the little issues – warbles in the finish, misaligned screws, whatever – that no one else would…
• If you want to build your own body, make sure you get a good piece of properly dried wood. These can get pricy.
• New necks (whether you’re looking at Mighty Mite or kit necks) will inevitably need some fretwork done to get it playing better than “decent.” It’s not hard, but invest in some fret files and watch a few tutorials. Or budget to take it in to a tech for a setup when all’s said and done.

I keep eyeballing some of the kits, as they do look fun… The Pitbull site has some cool hollowbody bass kits and Gibson variants. I doubt I’d do a J or a P, because it would be easier to mod a Squier or SX or just cobble one together from parts. Regardless of what I was doing, I’d budget in some extra money for upgrading the pots, jack, switches, possibly the bridge or tuners, etc.

Good luck!

[STRZ]

I would ask Pitbull if I could get a discount for ordering a kit without hardware, and get some decent stuff. I am thinking more of an explorer or rickenbacker shape, but pitbull's Ibanez SR clone is looking sexy. Can you still get neckthru body neck blanks from Carvin? I am even tempted to buy a Rickenbacker clone direct from China for $125 and rework it as necessary [ putting on my flame retardent clothing now!]

[TDR1138]

I would think that anything under a few hundred bucks for a kit would come prepackaged with all the hardware, and that they're all manufactured at the same big plant in China. Even the Pitbull stuff. They might get options for styles and woods based on some ordering agreements, but I would be pretty sure that Pitbull isn't making them themselves. (I could be wrong, though.) Also, not sure where you are, but Pitbull is in Australia, so their shipping can get pricey. I just tried a random kit and the shipping was almost $70 to California, so something to keep in mind. You may be able to find a domestic (to wherever you are) retailer that has the same kits and cheaper (or free) shipping.

Carvin - or rather, no Kiesel - does have necks for sale. https://www.kieselguitars.com/necks/ They also make full kits. https://www.kieselguitars.com/kits/ They're a good option for quality-to-value out of the box. Plus, even the kits are customizable to an extent, but then you start driving the price up...

[MHoepfl]

I recently found myself in this kind of situation, and I settled on a used neck.

A new neck - as has been mentioned in this thread - invariably requires a good amount of fretwork. I was lucky enough to find a crazy deal on a used USA Fender neck - the frets are super playable for me, right out of the package.

There are companies that take apart new instruments and sell the parts on Reverb/eBay/wherever. That might be a great solution - a neck pulled off of a new MIM instrument is going to have at least MIM-grade fretwork (versus the no fretwork at all on a new Warmoth/Allparts/etc neck). It may require some fine tuning vs. the full complete fretwork of a brand new neck. Right? Correct me, please, if I'm wrong.

[STRZ]

I contacted Pitbull guitars. Their kits are made in china. To get a kit without hardware (just neck and body) is a $35 discount. You can get the bodies as a "Blank" which means they only have a neck pocket, no routing for pickups or electronics cavity.

Their Rickenbacker style kit has a 34" scale, not the true Ric' scale of 33.25" and the neck is 43 mm at the nut. You can also get the body without binding, or choose black or white instead of cream.

A Rickenbacker style bass body blank (neck pocket only) in basswood WITHOUT binding and a neck to match with maple figerboard and triangle (sharktooth?) inlays like the stock RC-4 kit, No hardware, they quoted me AU$260.00 ($208 USD) and that includes shipping. It would take 2 to 3 MONTHS for delivery though....

[TDR1138]

That's good info to know that they're somewhat flexible and customizable. The idea of a "blank" body is cool, you know, for that Ric clone with an MFD in it...

Keep us posted if you go forward with it.

[Ken Baker]

There's also Warmoth, though they certainly are not kits. You've got all kinds of choices - even get to choose the exact body cap you like. Not cheap, but the results can be pretty good.

Ken...

[Kevin Baker]

I built my bass using a body and neck from Warmoth (you can see the process here), and I found the neck to be quite good out of the box. I get the feeling that it's going to be a, "You get what you pay for," kinda thing, especially if you're buying stuff made in China.

[STRZ]

I am hoping to be able to correct most problems by spending the time to properly level the frets and since I will be doing all the body hardware and pickup mounting I should be able to control my own destiny. I was think how comfortable the body contouring is on my L-5000 and could I do that to a Ric shape body if I eliminate the binding? What if I could find a loose G&L neck and put it on a Ric style body?