FINISHED!!!

This thing went together pretty easy, even for me. All the screws went in nice and easy, stuff lined up the way it's supposed to...for the most part, and I did a great job on the finish. Aside from a wiring misfire (wrong grounding setup) the bass is rocking, and sounds beautiful! I wired the pickups exactly like a 60's Jazz bass - Volume/Volume/Tone - I just find the conventional Ric setup overkill, and personally have a thing against toggle switches. I could have done a slightly cleaner job on the pickguard's neck pickup cut out, but you really don't notice it. I really didn't dig the 24 fret board going that far into the pickgaurd at first, but I'm used to it now, and I can't argue with the sound, the neck pickup sounds amazing where it is.
I created the "Sethenbacker" nameplate/truss rod cover by handcutting a piece of plexi, then sanding and buffing the edges. Then, using a hi-rez photo of a real Ric truss rod cover - TRC - I created my own Sethenbacker logo in Adobe Illustrator, basically tracing over the actual size Ric TRC photo. once that was done, the Sethenbacker logo was printed on super high quality semi gloss photo paper using my inkjet printer. I also added "MADE IN COSTA MESA" in the early 60's TRC "made in the USA" position. After some truss rod tweaking (the single rod Carvin neck adjusts beautifully, by the way), a little filing/fret dressing, and a few different sets of strings, I finally got the bass set up to my liking. Ended up using some Labella flats I've had for a few years, the action is nice and low, and the 60's jazz like neck feels great.

Right now, I don't know what to say, I'm spent, I'm stoked, I acheived my goal of totally ruling, I did the namesake justice, and I have a bass that I love to play and sounds amazing. Enjoy the pictures.

Time to rub one out

...a bass that is.
being a fairly impatient person when it comes to fun stuff like this, waiting the required one week to do the final wet sanding was BRUTAL. I made it though, busy work and drinking wine helped to get in my way and keep my mind from obsessing too hard. One week rolled around and I promptly busted out the 1000 grit.

you can see my progress, from shiny to matte

early stages of buffing - meguiar's polishing compound, followed by meguiar's cleaner/wax.

all hand done.

Clear coats and good advice

Color is set, runs addressed, got this thing right where I want it. Time to get my clear on.
There is an "internet" forum I check out called "beat gear cavern", it's full of people like me dorking out on building stuff like this, it's great, and full extremely talented and knowledgeable folks. The Master of this type of thing is a gentlemen named Dale Fortune, he used to work at Rickenbacker, among other SoCal guitar manufacturers, and is the Master of Ric restoration and building. Fortunately he gave me some great advice on spraying and sanding the clear coats, other wise I would have surely burned through my supply quicker than was required. Dale suggested 6 or 7 coats of clear, let dry, wet sand up to 800. Then spray a few more coats, let dry a week, wet sand with 1000 and 1500, and then buff out. I ended up doing a couple coats less than Dale reccommended, as I prefer the feel of a thinner finish. Pictures below are of the post 800 wetsand/final clearcoats.

Shiny