Guitar Of The Month – October, 2023

Written by: Kevin Strom On: Nov 3rd, 2023

Congratulations goes out to Tony Calaiezzi for his guitar build, to earn him Guitar of the Month for October 2023.

Tony used our VBK-1 kit as the basis to create his guitar.

“This is my second Solo guitar kit build.  My first build was a JEM kit, which turned out amazing.  Since I’m a bass player, I decided to kill two birds with one stone, I needed a fretted short scale neck, and the VBK-1 had one that almost fit my requirements. So I decided to do something different.  I decided to build a VBK-1, but make a fretless version. 

The contents of the Solo VB kit looked incredible.  The body had an interesting grain pattern that I wanted to highlight in the finish.  The maple neck is flawless, fret edges were perfectly finished, and the frets are level.

Kit part used:
Solo kit body
Parts of the kit bridge
Most of the screws
Strap buttons

1964 Hofner Parts:
Neck
Tail piece
Parts from a Bridge

Machine heads from an old 1964 vintage bass.

(My plan for the kit neck and machine heads is to install them on a short scale solid Walnut bass body that I had the fretless neck on.  This was the first bass that I build in 2004)

I removed the frets from this neck and converted it to a fretless neck back in 2004.  Last year I sanded out all of the string wear marks on the fretboard, and I coated the rosewood fretboard with crazy glue to give it a tough glazed finish.  (Crazy gluing a fretboard is not an easy process.  7 coats of crazy glue with sanding between each coat took over 4 hours to get the result that I wanted.  It is not an easy process like they show on YouTube.)

I used Saman water based stain and Polyurethane clear gloss to finish the project.

I new that I had my work cut out for me when I opened the kit.  The Kit body neck pocket did not match the set neck design of the old Hofner neck.

A new pocket had to be created and glued into the kit body to match the Hofner neck.  I had an old 2” thick plank laying around in my garage so I used it.  (I do not use templets, or jigs for all of my routing, I free hand it.)

Kit body Neck pocket modification:

• Draw a centre line on my plank
• Mark a centre line on the kit neck
• Line up the kit neck and plank centre lines, clamp the neck to the plank
• Trace the kit neck heel outline onto the plank
• Measure the Hofner neck heel dimensions
• Draw the Hofner neck heel pattern, centred on the image drawn above
• Route out the new neck pocket
• Cut the block from the plank
• Test fit the new Hofner neck pocket
  

(After routing, the neck fit snugly into the new pocket.  The new pocket needed a little sanding because the neck fit too tight.)  The new neck block needed a considerable amount of sanding to fit the VB body pocket as I cut the block outside of the lines because I wanted it to fit tight into the body.  After test fitting the new block, neck, and stock bridge, I realized that I had to modify the new neck block.  I thought that the neck angle would be correct using the ramp that was built into the kit VB body, but it was too steep.  I had to modify the back side of my new block to almost eliminate the factory built neck angle which was built in to the body (Reverse slope the neck block). 6 Hrs. later I was happy with the new pocket and it was glued into the VB body.

I did a number of parts test fits before drilling my pickup ring holes and centring the tail piece.  The kit body builders installed 2 wooden blocks inside the body.  One under the bridge which was the correct size and position, and one where your strap buttons and tail piece are screwed on.  The tail piece block was not centred and was too small, so I had to glue a larger piece of wood in its place.

My staining procedure:

• Sand the body to 320 grit.
  
• Stain the whole body with Purple stain.  (I mixed 3.5 parts Cherry and 1 part Navy Blue to make my Purple stain)
  
• After the stain dries, sand it down with 320 grit, leaving the grain and edges Purple.
  
• Apply multiple coats of Cherry stain with more Purple stain about 3/4” from the edges.
  
• Let it dry, and lightly sand any raised grain, touch up the odd area with Cherry stain
  
• Scrape the bindings

I applied 5 clear coats to the body with light 400 grit sanding between coats.  Upon assembling the bass, I modified the stock bridge with parts from an old Hofner bridge.  I spent about 4 hours working on the bridge (sanding and filing) to achieve the lowest action that I could get and still get a clean note from the neck.  

(String height Measurements at the 22nd fret:  

E 4/64”, A 3.5/64”, D 3/64”, G 2.5/64”)

The stock pickups sound fine, and have a DC Resistance of (Neck 8.0K and Bridge 8.0k).  These pickups are potted with bees wax.  I used CTS 500K pots. and wired it (Fender Jazz Bass Style) with 2 Volume controls, and a master tone.  It produces a great fretless sound.  The neck pickup sounds like an upright bass, it actually fits in the pocket and mixes well with just about every rock or Blues style that I could throw at it, and the bridge pickup has that Joco sound.  The fretless Mwah sound is impressive.  This kit can replicate the McCartney Hofner sound without any effort!  From “Come Together,” to “The Octopus’s Garden”, and this is with all of my Amp. controls set fat, at 12 o’clock.  If I hit my brightness switch, the slap tones are impressive, considering the fact it’s a fretless bass.  I had to take one of the pickups apart, because the pickups were out of phase.  I just rotated the magnet in the neck pickup 180 Degrees to fix that problem.  I have to say the quality of this Solo kit is excellent.   I haven’t tried a fresh set of string on this bass yet, I think I will be impressed with the improvement.

Every bass player should own a VBK-1 kit.”

-Tony Calaiezzi