Basses for Newbies - plugging a neck

An SX  P/J neck arrived in the mail the other day and after inspection, I thought it would be good to pair it with #4. 3 of the 4 screw holes did not line up, so I started plugging the holes with some 1/4" maple plugs I cut on a borrowed drill press. First, I had to drill out the existing holes.





Then, I sanded the plugs since they were a bit larger in diameter than the holes. I also cut a few channels on the edges of the plugs to let glue pass by as I drive it in.



After the plugs were glued in with some Titebond, I dremeled them level.



Neck is prepped and ready for fitting



I used some shim material to rig something to clamp to without damaging the frets and still allow 2 strings to be installed for neck alignment.





I then marked my drill bit to the length of my machine screws



With the neck aligned and clamped in place, I drilled the new neck holes.





And then, enlarged those and installed threaded inserts



#4 with it's new blonde, fretted neck installed. . . next stop fret leveling and dressing.



I'm really excited about #4. It only weighed 8.19 lbs. (when it still had its original rosewood fretless neck). . .the neck pocket is one of the best I've seen on an SX. The fit is snug, and it did not need to be shimmed which I find is very rare on these. This is the neck that blowabs was kind enough to sell to me after reading my talkbass.com thread. Thanks! It's a beautiful, straight neck and it's now been paired with one of the best SX bodies I've seen.

I also won 1 rosewood SX P-bass neck on Ebay yesterday and lost 1 jazz neck and 1 p-neck. These seem to to be fetching quite the premium right now.