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Good to hear from you DE. I sent you a few texts and didn't hear back. Then I sent an email and it came back as undeliverable. Was getting worried about you.

As for me, I was supposed to go to Florida, but that was cancelled. Then my kid's school was cancelled, but some of her teachers are still giving assignments and study guides. Then my wife's business has been floundering with a battle of just who's in charge, so she's been alternately been getting told to work from home and go to the office. Then my eldest daughter's campus closed with students told to vacate dorms. They will have on-line courses for three weeks. That inserted an unexpected trip to get campus to pick her up.

So I've been working to make sure we have enough work zones, monitors, bandwidth, paper, ink, etc for us to operate four people as school/office. During this I picked up a 1/4" lag screw in my truck tire. I got to the mechanics' and had the opportunity for an unexpected but nevertheless welcome walk home.  We have food, tp, and meds enough for now. No way it'll all last because every time we thought we had a plan the plans changed. But only my wife is at-risk, so we can manage that if I need to run out. I'll shower and change when I return and keep her safe.

The church band is going to prerecord our songs and stream that next Sunday. They did it today, but I wasn't on schedule because I was supposed to be in Florida.

On an unrelated issue, a friend's mother passed on. She was a dear Godly woman who will be well missed by her family, but it was nice to see them again. It turned out she was living less than two miles from my house, but I didn't know it. Her husband likes to fish, so I'll try to take him out to our Izaak Walton chapter grounds to have a spot where he can sit on a bench in the shade and have a solid chance at a 10# bass when his grief allows him.

Also I've been in an insomnia cycle and am operating for the fourth day on less sleep than most get for one day.

So, in preparation I've been running errands, cleaning, driving, organizing, planning, failing to sleep and generally not having a restful vacation. I made plans for a bike ride today, but it's wet and cold and I'm in no mood to persevere through adversity in my entertainment pursuits today. I'm supposed to be off on Monday and Tuesday, but to heck with this. I'm going back to work.

On the plus side, I did buy a lawn tool I've been wanting, which is a leaf vacuum. It's everything I dreamed it would be.

So. Finished. More or less.

Replaced the pickups with Seymour Duncan 1/4 pounders. They're a high output passive pickup.

I shielded all the compartments with copper foil.

I ran a new ground to bridge with a slightly larger shielded line.

I put in a pre-fab dohicky that has the volume, tone, and jack rigged through a little block that lets me wire in the pickups without soldering.

The neck had a back bow that I got rid of once, but came back within two weeks. So I put on a new neck. It's a lot thicker than the original, but I kind of like it.

I replaced the tuning machines both for color (the new ones are black) but also because the original ones had some quirks I didn't like.

I replaced the bridge with a HIpshot Kickass 4, also black.

I replaced the pick cover because the original was ugly and thin.

And I put on black knobs.

I restrung it with some Dean Markley Cryogenic strings. I don't like them much, but they were $25, so I'll let them wear out a bit before I put on replacements. I have some GHS Boomers waiting. I do think this bass might sound better with half-rounds. But I have half-rounds on my Ovation, and I have flat-wounds on my Yamaha. So Frankenstein will have round wounds for the brighter tone when needed.

I've got the set up to the specs I could find. The nut is right. Using a test with a capo on the first fret and fretting where the body meets the neck, the 7th fret has .015" relief. Then with the capo off, the action at that fret is .125". That seems high to me, but it's the spec. So I'll play it like that for a while. With the nut, the bridge, and the relief all set where they're supposed to be, I then used a curve gauge thingy to set the bottoms of the A and D strings on the same curve as the fretboard. Then I did intonation using harmonics at the twelfth fret and that was a piece of cake with this bridge.

So all of it is set up where it belongs, but the action FEELS a little high. I'll play it a while with this action and the big baseball bat neck and I expect I'll get to like it. Though I may set the action a little lower so long as it doesn't mess up anything else.

I did have to put a very thin shim in the neck to make it all work. It came that way. I took it out when I cleaned up the finish on the body and had to clean out the neck pocket. I ordered some bell brass shims, but they didn't come in. So I used stainless steel washers. I forgot to use the micrometer to measure their thickness, but they're just perfect. When the right shims come in, I'll measure the washers when I take them out and replace with the same thickness proper shim.

I had to buy some new tools. I learned a GREAT DEAL.

Some things I learned:
Not soldering is MUCH nicer than soldering.
Shielding is important.
High output pickups are nice and cut way down on buzz because less "juice" has to be pushed in at the sound board.
Pick guards are a pain in the neck.
Don't drink whiskey when using an X-acto knife to cut copper foil.
Don't drink whiskey when soldering.
Buy extra little tiny screws.
For the most part, the less expensive gauges and tools on Amazon are the same as you can get from a high end outlet like StewMac.  But StewMac cannot be beat for files.
Use correctly measured files from StewMac if you decide to replace a nut.
Back bow is a death knell.
High mass bridges do not add sustain. They all claim to.
A high quality bridge is a delight for adjusting action and intonation and stringing. 
Wear reading glasses when trying to read a 1/64" scale.
The tool with a bunch of very finely measured and labeled thicknesses (gap tool?) eliminates a LOT of guesswork.
The little metal booger with a slot in it to slide around a fret and protect the fret board while you sand the fret is a gift from God.
While it's possible to find the occasional good quality off brand part, time is better spent trying to find good deals on parts from well known manufacturers.
Don't use a high torque power drill to install neck screws. The screw heads will strip long before they are tight.     

That's the only pedal I have, and oddly enough it was to play Santa Monica on acoustic for the song of the month. Lol!     

Nice!

Your songs are covered at campfires throughout the mid-Atlantic. Nice that they're getting stage time.     

Bluestone and If I Were The Wind are better than almost everything that's been on the radio in the past fifteen years, and for novelty songs your Rich Kid Doctor is on par with Willie and The Hag's "It's All Going To Pot" or Willie's "I Woke Up Not Dead Again Today."

After spending two weeks getting the back bow out of the neck and getting it ready to play on stage, a week and a half later the back bow is back. That's not a sustainable ratio of repair to usefulness.  I've ordered a replacement neck. It's a cheap Chinese neck that will hopefully be straight. It has a double action truss rod that is activated at the headstock, is made of maple, and has a rosewood fretboard. It comes pre-fretted, which will save me a HUGE amount of work but I'll probably have to do some fret leveling before it goes on the bass.

I still want to replace the tuning machines and the bridge, but that will have to wait more...     

I still might use it on stage tomorrow. The action is half as high as it was. I just can't use the first frets on E or A, which only matters in Bb. One song is in Bb, but I'll slide up to grab the Bb and Eb as the sixth fret rather than the first. Intonation at the 12th feet is ok even with the slightly high action.

I've have to know what I'm doing enough to realize it first. Lol!     

That does sound busy. You're quite the individual volunteering for whatever was needed. I'm surprised they didn't ask whether you could build a few set pieces.     

Needs a new nut. I just learned the test where you press the string down half way between the second and third frets then check whether there's a sliver of space between the string and the first fret. There isn't. And I've already raised the string at the bridge. So...new nut. Wish me luck. It looks simple enough on YouTube.

All the parts but the pick guard have come in.

I'm going to try to assemble it on Sunday or Monday with the old, ugly pick guard, as changing that out will be quick when the new one comes in.     

Yeah! Bill dropped by!

Boo! Bill isn't well.

You'll be in my prayers.