RestorationAD Posted December 29, 2013 Author Report Share Posted December 29, 2013 Excellent work man... I love to watch your creations, they are just amazing guitars. When i grow I want to be a jedi like you... I whish you the best for the next year, please keep us informed! Thanks! You are just being nice because I voted for your guitar in GOTY! Cheers! Sentinel, the ebony beast, never left the house. It turned into my guitar and found a place in the pack. I would like to know your opinion if any about the ebony and its affect on tone of that guitar. Alembic makes some big statements about how ebony neck lams increases the fundamental /sustain/mojo blah blah- I have always taken that sort of talk with a grain of salt as I can "barely hear the difference on the basses I have heard with/without ebony neck laminates- and perhaps your neck lams are not "wide" enough to make much difference, and maybe there is less pronounced effect on guitars than basses- but all the same would appreciate your comments if you have any. thanks. Stiff laminates should always help tuning stability and resonance. That helps tone. In my experience laminate necks are more stable and almost always tend to be stiffer than a one piece neck of the same woods. Tone, sustain, and clarity come from every piece of a guitar. The more solid everything is the better IMHO. It doesn't have to be heavy. But it should be resonant and stiff.IMHO I believe wood density and grain structure to be very important in tone. Long stiff dense grain produces brighter tones than Short soft grain (warmer). So adding something like ebony to a laminate neck should increase the brightness while improving stability and resonance. It doesn't have to be ebony. I use bloodwood and get very similar tones. I have heard that pistachio is very close to ebony.Now for the voodoo. You can use too much long stiff dense wood in a neck and kill the resonance. If you watch my builds you will see I rarely ever use any laminates over 3/16" thick. Personally I think mixing voodoos in the right doses always produces the best tones however unpredictable the results are. So using Sapele with bloodwood always makes me happy with the finished product.All this is to be taken with a grain of salt because you could build 100 necks from the same woods and while they would all fit in a very large tonal bucket of "bright" or "warm" they would still be enough slight differences for them to not be the same. Pine tends to become harder with age as the pitch crystallises and diffuses through the wood. Much harder. Thing is, isn't Adirondack a "white" Pine as opposed to the harder "yellow" Pines? The whole "no truss rod" thing is just idiocy from a practical viewpoint on the basis that the neck has no control method whether it is "stiff enough" or not. Straightness under tension is not the point.I believe Adirondack is a white pine and yes it should get harder over time. Never build a guitar without a truss rod unless it is going to be a lamp. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted January 1, 2014 Report Share Posted January 1, 2014 Sentinel, the ebony beast, never left the house. It turned into my guitar and found a place in the pack. I have always considered this one of the sexiest guitars you have ever built. Not to mention the "attitude" it took that needed to be mastered and bent to your will...... I think taking a rebellious spirit like this one and the Hand of Doom had and channeling it into your creation bonds it to the builder and adds a healthy splash of mojo. I am not at all surprised you kept this one. On a different note (I had a few pages to catch up with), is Dirt still your favorite pick up you are currently building, or has the new worn off and the top spot gone back to Diablos......or to something newer still? SR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RestorationAD Posted January 1, 2014 Author Report Share Posted January 1, 2014 Sentinel, the ebony beast, never left the house. It turned into my guitar and found a place in the pack. I have always considered this one of the sexiest guitars you have ever built. Not to mention the "attitude" it took that needed to be mastered and bent to your will...... I think taking a rebellious spirit like this one and the Hand of Doom had and channeling it into your creation bonds it to the builder and adds a healthy splash of mojo. I am not at all surprised you kept this one. Thanks and yes after the war it was impossible to sell it. On a different note (I had a few pages to catch up with), is Dirt still your favorite pick up you are currently building, or has the new worn off and the top spot gone back to Diablos......or to something newer still? SR The dirts are still wining for me but the diablos are what sell. Every time i pick up a guitar with diablos i am always amazed at how alive they are. I mostly play with high gain mesa boogie sounds and blackface cleans. Not much in between so for me the better a pickup sounds clean the better it plays for me. I am still working on perfecting my Jazz humbuckers. I have a duncan jazz neck pickup i bought in 1987 that is my favorite pickup in the world i use it in my zebrawood strat i built in '91. I have been trying to reproduce its sound forever... I get close but haven't hit it yet. It is clear and dark. I have a set that might be close but no guitar to put them in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted January 1, 2014 Report Share Posted January 1, 2014 I have a set that might be close but no guitar to put them in. Hmmmm....... SR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RestorationAD Posted January 1, 2014 Author Report Share Posted January 1, 2014 I have a set that might be close but no guitar to put them in. Hmmmm....... SR I have a guitar (el mariachi) to put them in but the earlier versions of the jazz seem to work well enough i hate to swap them out... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted January 2, 2014 Report Share Posted January 2, 2014 I gave my son my first build and told him that if he decided he wanted to learn and keep up with it I'd build him a new and improved model. After a year now he's decided that he cannot imagine life without a guitar in it. That guitar happens to have a SD JB and Jazz set in it and he pretty much stays on the Jazz. So my build for 2014 will be for him. He needs to play my set of guitars and do some research to get an idea of what tone he likes best........but I expect we'll be discussing pups again this spring. SR 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RestorationAD Posted January 2, 2014 Author Report Share Posted January 2, 2014 I gave my son my first build and told him that if he decided he wanted to learn and keep up with it I'd build him a new and improved model. After a year now he's decided that he cannot imagine life without a guitar in it. That guitar happens to have a SD JB and Jazz set in it and he pretty much stays on the Jazz. So my build for 2014 will be for him. He needs to play my set of guitars and do some research to get an idea of what tone he likes best........but I expect we'll be discussing pups again this spring. SR Feels good when they stick with something. I will be glad when mine gets serious about something. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RestorationAD Posted March 9, 2015 Author Report Share Posted March 9, 2015 I am not sure I ever posted finished pics of Colossus so here are some recent pictures my customer took for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RestorationAD Posted March 9, 2015 Author Report Share Posted March 9, 2015 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RestorationAD Posted March 9, 2015 Author Report Share Posted March 9, 2015 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted March 9, 2015 Report Share Posted March 9, 2015 Colossus is a proper name for that beast. Beautiful work. There must have been a mile or more of wire in that bridge pickup, that thing is huge. SR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted March 9, 2015 Report Share Posted March 9, 2015 Is that plate(?) between the neck pups and fretboard a cover for the neck pocket or is there a bass player specific reason for it? That little edge of sapwood on your pick guard fooled me for a while. It blends so well with the zebrano that it looks like that plate was not the same width as the fretboard. I presume this is a happy customer? SR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdshirtman Posted March 9, 2015 Report Share Posted March 9, 2015 Wow that things a beautiful beast. Sooooo much fret wire. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted March 9, 2015 Report Share Posted March 9, 2015 I approve of this message. One string too many perhaps, but that would be a bass I'd home in on in any collection. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RestorationAD Posted March 9, 2015 Author Report Share Posted March 9, 2015 Colossus is a proper name for that beast. Beautiful work. There must have been a mile or more of wire in that bridge pickup, that thing is huge.SRYes. It was a lot of wire considering each bobbin is basically a single J-Bass pickup. Together it makes a beastly humbucker.Is that plate(?) between the neck pups and fretboard a cover for the neck pocket or is there a bass player specific reason for it? That little edge of sapwood on your pick guard fooled me for a while. It blends so well with the zebrano that it looks like that plate was not the same width as the fretboard. I presume this is a happy customer?SR The Wenge plate serves 2 purposes. One to cover the neck joint. And two to act as a ramp (its a bass player thing). Yes Joel is very happy with the bass. He has been playing it as his only bass live and in studio for over a year now Wow that things a beautiful beast. Sooooo much fret wire.It was a ton of fret wire. I had to make a special cual to press it them in. I approve of this message. One string too many perhaps, but that would be a bass I'd home in on in any collection. It has a really wide spacing as well 19mm. That makes it a real beast. But the customer is a tall guy and he likes it. I am not a fan of 17 mm spacing that is the norm on a 6 string. If I have it to do again I am moving to 18mm though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted March 9, 2015 Report Share Posted March 9, 2015 18mm is golden. I re-space the strings for equal gaps though. Funny what us bassists notice. Never tried a ramp myself, however I'd have thought it would be more useful at the tense end, between the pickups. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted March 9, 2015 Report Share Posted March 9, 2015 I was just looking at the nut. I guess I haven't looked at the nut on a 6 string bass before. The nut file you used to cut the lowest string groove must have been a real weapon. SR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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