No Pedantic Antics Here!

 

So there are distractions, then there are things of another order, problems you drop everything to take care of no questions asked. It turned out I had to spend an extra week taking care of my mom, which butted right up to my scheduled Portland getaway with my two lifelong BMX buds. 

One great thing about going home to Ohio is getting to hang with some of my old friends and bandmates, including one of my favorite humans in the world, Josh, who happens to be a kick-ass musician and owner of...

What!?! The bass version of the Harmony guitar I tinkered with in posts past!?!

I somehow restrained myself from begging him to sell it to me, then spending twice as much on shipping than it could possibly be worth.

With the momma all straightened out and me all stressed out, I flew from Detroit to Portland remarking to the woman beside me during landing, “Wow, it’s not burning at the hands of Marxists like Fox news told me.”

And it’s not. There are tent cities in all the large municipalities. It’s just in some places folks spend their energy searching for solutions, and in others they spend their energy pointing fingers of blame. Only one of those gets things done. In other words, as I've said for many years, there are two types of people:

People who do shit, and people who sit around and criticize the people doing shit. 

Speaking of getting things done, I can’t wait to get back to the tinkering!

Long ago I left a couple of half-finished basses sitting around Colorado. It's probably better that I gave things some space, because I was becoming a bit too detail-focused. Pedantic even. It helps to see the big picture if you give yourself some near-death experiences. In my case it was surfing for the first time, and managing to stand up and ride a few waves before doing a header and tombstoning. I had to look up that surfer slang too. Don't worry. Then a little over-vert carving on the BMX, which was just as scary.

In the realm of fret-leveling, there seemed to be a common order of operations. Put new frets in. Make sure neck is dead-flat. Mark frets with black Sharpie. Sand frets level with long straight-edge. Bring in radius block to sand frets back to original radius after leveling. File now flattened frets back into original domed shape. 

Wait.

That's a lot of sanding and filing! Suddenly I am worried my new frets are as filed down as my old! Time will tell. Anyway, here's some little nuggets of effort:

The marking of the frets.

After sanding, the final-ish polishing.

The reveal:

The touchups:

It will all come together as something...a bunch of dead notes, a ringing and singing bass, who knows?

All I know is that there is more work to do, like making the nut, mounting the neck, fixing a problem with the pots, and of course the other fretless thing. Oh, and if you are in Portland Oregon, DO NOT hint in any way that a white girl with dreadlocks is cultural appreciation, not cultural appropriation. Lord Almighty you would think this far along the liberal types would be happy that an old white guy like myself is on their side, not give him shit for thinking people should be free to adopt other cultures' hairstyles. Bigger hills to die on, my friends. Like McCartney vs. Jaco vs. Flea vs. Matt Freeman vs...

Next Up: Please Finish the Shit, Already!