Jump to content

skibum5545

Veteran Member
  • Posts

    1,895
  • Joined

  • Last visited

About skibum5545

  • Birthday 10/05/1988

Retained

  • Member Title
    Plays Well With Madness

Profile Information

  • Location
    Michigan, USA

skibum5545's Achievements

Veteran

Veteran (13/14)

  • First Post
  • Collaborator
  • Posting Machine Rare
  • Conversation Starter
  • Week One Done

Recent Badges

0

Reputation

  1. Here are some sound clips: one is only the bridge pickup, which has a cool, modern, hi-fi, sound, and the other is a metal riff using both pickups (get it? Metal? hurr hurr). http://soundcloud.com/dmd53/bothpups http://soundcloud.com/dmd53/brpup Finally, a live track from last night, with the bass boosted so you can hear it better: http://soundcloud.com/dmd53/yessica
  2. All told, the aluminum cost 50 or 60 bucks. I didn't have to pay for my own filler rod (the fab shop supplied it) but that would have been another 10 or so. I knew it would be heavy, though I didn't know exactly how heavy. I could have made the whole body thinner, and in retrospect, I should have used 1/8" material for the top and back rather than 3/16". I took some steps to reduce weight (note the odd shape of the central frame, instead of just a big rectangular block of aluminum) but reducing the 3/4" thick block to 1/2" and the top/back to 1/8" would've shaved off a few pounds. Of course, it is a 6-string, so a big body was sort of part of the game, and the lack of a top horn meant the body needed to be heavy to avoid neck-heavy balance issues. As it stands, it balances very well, and I bought a giant padded strap to help with the weight.
  3. Hey all! It's been a very long time since I posted-- mostly because I went off to college and had no woodshop-- but I've been taking time off from school to learn to weld, and built this thing as a sort of final project for the year. I figured y'alls would appreciate it, so here it is! I bought an Ibanez BTB 6-string, and replaced the body with a semi-hollow aluminum one. It's all welded by hand, and yes, it is extremely heavy (16 pounds!!) I sketched up the body shape a couple years ago when I thought I would be using it for a guitar: The body has a central framework with two parts: an upper part made of 1/4" struts and 5/8" deep, which defines the neck and pickup pockets, and has supports for the bridge to bolt into (which were not yet attached at the time of this photo): This framework was welded to a 3/4" thick spine, which made up the rest of the body thickness, and provided a nice, solid base for tonal transfer between the neck and bridge: The top and back were plasma cut from 3/16" aluminum sheet: After attaching the back, the sides were attached by repeatedly tacking and bending an 1/8" thick strip of aluminum around the sides, and the top was welded to the sides and central framework after that. Alas, I don't have photos of this progress, but here's the body immediately after the top was attached: The gap at the bridge section is there because the individual string bridges do not sit flush on the surface, but instead protrude by about 3/8" below the surface. The Ibanez body had individual routs for the bridges, but I decided that, since my body was hollow anyway, I'd simply not put any material in the way in the first place. After this point, all that was left to do was grind off the welds, drill and tap bolt holes for all the hardware and electronics, and do a little carving. I created the arm bevel by grinding through the top and side with an angle grinder, then welding the gap closed with a bunch of filler rod and grinding it flat again. I got the finish on top by sanding out as much of the scratches and weld impurities as I could (there are still a number of small voids along the welds that are visible under close inspection) and swirling the top with an air grinder and Scotchbrite pad: I decided to leave the back fairly unfinished, because I rather like the industrial look and wanted to leave some welds showing. I simply sandblasted the back and then brushed it out with steel wool: I decided to put my school's logo on the backplate, by polishing the plate, masking out the logo with a vinyl decal, and sandblasting it: I'd also like to take this opportunity to give major props to the welding program at Washtenaw Community College in Ann Arbor, MI-- it's respected as one of the best programs in the nation, and having had a chance to participate in it and be a part of that whole enterprise was a truly great life experience. Here's one more picture of me holding the bass: Some specs: Maple/walnut 5-piece laminate neck with rosewood fretboard, 35" scale Semi-hollow aluminum body (6061 alloy for optimal stiffness to weight ratio, with 5052 sides for bendability) Bartolini mk-1 pickups with preamp and 3-band semi-parametric EQ Brushed nickel hardware with black straplocks Regarding how it sounds: first, it sustains forever. Seriously, I tried to time it at band practice a few days ago, and we all got bored and moved on to the next song before it stopped ringing. The body attenuates almost no frequencies, so the tone is clear, bright, and punchy, if not as warm as a wooden body bass. I'll try to post sound clips soon. I put a whole lot of work into this project, and I hope you guys like it as much as I do.
  4. What do you want the other two positions of the switch to do? Both pickups on for both positions (you can just use the volumes for pickup selection), or are you looking to do something fancier? What I just described is pretty simple, but it seems like a waste when you have the other position to work with. Check out this website: http://guitarelectronics.com/c=gWP7z1RSxfv...iringresources/ It's got everything you need to cobble together some anything but the most absurd wiring configurations.
  5. Damn you, toddler, if you had just left the laminates on top.... It had to be the cocobolo one-piece for me. I have a soft spot for natural woods, and when I saw that one, that was all she wrote. This was likely the hardest month I've ever witnessed; everyone did a fantastic job, and truly wish I could've voted for all of ya.
  6. Actually, that might well be an insult in Germany... My favorite insult, though, is "Du bist ein bleistift!"-- short, and to the point, and just sounds dirty, y'know? It means "you are a pencil" Also, "ICH WERDE DIR EIN PAAR KEKSE MACHEN!!!" -- "I WILL MAKE YOU SOME COOKIES!!!"
  7. Congrats on the new house, and good luck with your build! One thing I have found about luthiery that makes it nervewracking-- but at the same time, gives it its inimitable joy-- is that there is always some improvisation involved. Reading books helps, true, but sometimes you just have to take a step back and ask yourself, "What's the best way for -me- to solve this problem?", and then go for it. As for tools, a router is a total necessity, and not a place to skimp on the price-- IIRC Metal Matt has a story about the collet of a $20 router blowing to bits while he was working on a guitar. Ouch. A Drill press is really handy, but I suppose that on a tight budget an electric drill, a good eye, and a steady hand will suffice. I've never found myself using chisels; generally, a rasp will do for most things. However, if you're building a tool collection, it's never bad to have some chisels around. A good spokeshave is not only handy for doing contours, it's a helluvalotta fun to use! I've heard Veritas is -the- brand right now, but it never hurts to ask around. Finally, get yourself lots of clamps. Big ones, small ones, long ones, short ones, tall ones, wide ones; C-clamps, bar clamps, tube clamps, spring clamps... you get it. It can never hurt to have too many clamps. As a corollary, just make sure you have enough clamping pads to accompany them; stacks of old business cards work wonderfully, and are refreshingly disposable. Again, don't be afraid to improvise where necessary. You may find that you need or want a tool not listed here (i.e. spindle sander), and so you can just buy it then. Conversely, you may stock up on every tool a book lists and only use half of them. Enjoy!
  8. Any sharp point is liable to chip. However, in this situation, you've got the grain running down to the tip of the spike (not across it) so that adds a lot of strength. Just be careful when handling the thing, and use a nice, strong wood.
  9. 1. Anywhere between 11 and 15 degrees for the headstock is fine; this doesn't differ from a guitar much. 2. With such hard woods being used, you won't need graphite. Obviously, it can't hurt anything, but it's by no means a necessity. Heck, some people even put two truss rods in 5 and 6 string basses, but that's probably overkill on a 5 string, anyway. As for headstocks, Fender spec is 5/8", and I know for sure that Gotoh GB-7 tuners (the smaller of the two common kinds of bass tuners) are made to go through 5/8" headstocks. Do you know what you're doing for electronics, etc. yet?
  10. I think you all know where my vote went.... Best of luck to whomever takes this thing; I'd love to own any guitar here.
  11. Basically, you just need to make sure the truss rod channel is the right length and width, and dead straight down the center of the neck. You can do the centering and aligning based off the edges of your maple laminate, as they're the only remaining straight part on the neck. www.Stewmac.com will have suitable instructions for installing the truss rod. As for Getting the fingerboard perfectly straight, the brass tacks only work if you have excess neck width that you can hammer them into. Since your neck is already tapered, what I'd do is align the fretboard on the neck and double-stick-tape it down. Then, trace the edges of the neck onto the back of the fretboard, remove the fretboard, and cut the taper. Now all you have to do is glue down the fretboard, being very careful not to use too much glue (so it won't slide around so much), and that the edges are straight and aligned. I like how this is going so far; good luck!
  12. Ditto on the PJ set. I've got the EMG P-J set in my bass--it's the same pickups Victor Wooten uses; also in a mahogany and maple bass IIRC-- and I get a great sound from it. Some people think EMGs are brittle and sterile, but I've never really gotten that impression. The only other issue, then, is the cost, and EMGs aren't the cheapest option. The only Seymour Duncans I've heard struck me as completely uninteresting, but they did at least sound solid. Something I've always wanted to try was Bill Lawrence's bass pickups. I love the sound of his guitar humbuckers, and he makes both a P and a J pickup that could sound just spectacular. The last pipe dream of mine is to use the 7-string versions of EMG's 81 and 85, which are just the same pickups rebuilt in a 35 size box. It'd be expensive, but the world would finally have an answer to what the 81-85 combo sounded like in a bass.
  13. Northern ash is a very strong and hard wood. While I've never seen it used for a neck before, I have no reason to believe it wouldn't work so long as you choose a nice straight-grained-- preferably quartersawn-- piece. Ash can tend to have a pretty wild grain, and while that kind of grain makes for stunning bodies, it also makes for stunningly unstable necks. Choose your wood wisely, though, and you can avoid most problems down the line. The only concern I would have is that ash has an extremely open grain, and may not be the most comfortable wood to play on when compared with a tight grained, closed-pore wood like maple. You will need to use grain filler if you want a hard finish to go on smooth, and I'd recommend a hard finish to enhance the stability and cleanliness of your wood, as ash is light enough that it'll show dirt and grime like nobody's business with only oil finish. I'd love to see this bass come to fruition; it's creative builds like this that make PG.com what it is. Best luck, and post pics!
  14. I was thinking about the title for this thread, too... I really should get it changed, but I'm not sure what channels to go through to do so. I think I'll just PM a mod, and see what they can do. But you're right, it can't stay the same.
  15. Oztradie-- The weight balance turned out fine. It would be a little neck heavy, but the long top horn evens things out a bit, and it ends up sitting just about perfect. Funny you should mention building a neck... I've got a joint project brewing with fellow PG member Mushytheshroom that's pushing my limits quite a bit past where I have before, but I'm trying to keep the project on the DL-- you never know who's watching-- but expect some more info in the next couple months. Keep those comments comin'!
×
×
  • Create New...