After nearly seven months of work – albeit interrupted by other things like the day job, converting my garage into a workshop and building the padauk strat – I have finally completed Sunrise! It has turned out fairly well – there’s lots to like about it, I think, although there are a fair few imperfections that mean it wouldn’t pass muster as a professional build. However, I’m not a professional, and I learnt plenty of things from all of the mistakes I made!
Nine different woods were used in the construction, plus various materials for the inlays – and a lot of glue!
I had nearly finished it the previous weekend but when I tried to fit the tuners, I realised that the headstock was too thin so I decided to make a small wooden plate to go on the back, which has solved the problem.
Surprisingly, the electronics worked the first time I plugged it in, which was a big relief! As I don’t own a bass amp, I’ve only played it in Rocksmith but it sounded fine in there. The only issue is that one of the strings is too low and buzzes against the fretboard, but I should be able to solve that fairly easily by adjusting the saddle and/or the truss rod.
Here are some photos of the finished bass!
The dog inlay is a Westie, in honour of our two dogs! If you look closely at the fingerboard – which is supposed to represent the night sky – you might be able to see the ring around the planet.
So that’s it for Sunrise! It’s been a very interesting build, as well as a laborious one. I might make a short video for my YouTube channel showing it off, and if so then I’ll add that here.
Now I’m working on the next two guitars, which I’m making for friends of mine – the wenge 339 and the hybrid tele. Expect more build photos of those guitars in the coming month or two!