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32" scale p bass "the picalow"


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On 5/6/2018 at 11:24 PM, mistermikev said:

so in response: I did mock up some colors but have decided to go natural.  colors, once I got the color dark enough, sort of hid the beauty imo.

Questions:

1) why don't folks seal the truss rod rout?  It would seem like it would be a good way to add a little stability, then again I suppose once you toss some silicon on either end that is enough of a seal?

2) neck grain... so the piece I chose was obviously flat sawn and the grain does not run the length of the neck.  I've heard mixed ideas on how this may be better as it allows the truss rod to do it's job easier, but am aware the age old standard is to find grain that runs perpendicular.  Am I getting that right?  so next time I want to look for grain that starts and finishes on the top/bottom?

 

progress updates:

finished thicknessing my neck...

 

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rough cut the profile and routered it. 

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built a jig for the truss channel and routed it.  screws made it a simple job to line up the blade right inside the lines.  loosen one and tighten the other and voilla.

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truss rod fits like a dream.  not tight, but can't move around at all.  not my best work on one end... need to get better with a chisel... did the cut for the "fretboard stress relief thingy" by hand w router and chisel.  (was gonna go out the other side but in the end decided heal adjust so had to fit the additional square bar there).  I guess I've got a little spot for some silicon! it's not too bad, about a 1/16th of space on one side.

cut some slight reliefs for my controls...

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did the control cavity cover and 9v battery compartment

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I know I know... had a piece of mahog and figured I'd use it.  perhaps w a little light tobacco stain it will match better.  very happy with the fit tho.

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That body has come out really well  :)  As @ScottR says, it'll be nice seeing the grain pop out when you get to the finishing.

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Hello and thanks andyjr.  can hardly wait myself!  I am thinking of trying some watco danish oil on this one. 

night before last I glued on the fretboard - shout out to lmii - I asked for 'as consistent as possible, as dark as possible - in that order of importance' and they really cam through.  The fb is as dark brown as it could be without being black!  Zero light streaks on "west-african gabon" ebony.  very pleased. 

last night I routered off the excess fretboard and sanded my little curve in the heel part of it.  looks pretty good but drapes don't match the carpet yet - will be applying a piece of maple burl to the headstock this weekend if all goes well.  pics to follow.

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thank you sir.  That is a real compliment given your body of work, I will try not to let it go to my head.

 

It is all I can do to be patient (not start finishing) waiting for a few things.  Need to get my hardware so I can do final align on the neck/bridge as I think I need to deepen my neck pocket (5/8 -> 3/4), then rout my access to the truss adjust.

Been keeping myself busy with dreams of other projects!  mahog/maple dano u59, blueshawk, sg, lp, walnut strat, mm axis... dreams of sugar plums dancing! 

I glued some ebony to some maple burl and cut out some knobs and a 3 way switch tip.  need to order a 4p6t from stew mac.  need to do an etch of my preamp... been dreading that.

Last night I planed down my neck at an angle on my router sled.  drew some lines based on a 60's neck profile and will likely start shaping the neck profile with files tonight.  Looking forward to what others have said is the most satisfying step. 

thanks again all for support/advice/encouragement!

 

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I feel like I am probably wearing out my welcome by constantly posting minor updates... sorry y'all!

anywho, this week I got my neck shaped:

as many suggested it was a very satisfying experience.  I found a diagram of fender custom shop neck profiles and decided I'd shoot for the "60's P bass oval C" profile.  I used my planing jig to put in a taper a hair north of .79 at 1 and .95 at 12th(more like .85 due to a 3/8 truss rod - I didn't want to end up with much less than a quarter on the bottom).  Then I did two facets as google had taught me.  From there I winged it and at the end did a lot of sanding with the profile of my hand.  Feels great!

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I cleaned up the knobs I made and if you look close you can see the small access for my truss rod that I cut.

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also cut some relief for my tuners... don't know if I need it but thought it might echo the body nicely.DSCF2846.thumb.JPG.d771eba93124df6e49323accdc4fe06b.JPG

then I figured I might as well get started on my active preamp... The other day before work I whipped up a nice compact layout for a "Pre ernie ball sabre2 bass preamp" - based on baja's schematic (the man the legend - thank you baja!).  Below you can see it in the bag as I ironed on my press-n-peal blue and doctored it up with an etch marker.

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about an hour and a half of etching using ferric chloride and voillaDSCF2854.thumb.JPG.3c50d9e91cc4d962c686de583583d994.JPG

wired it up knowing the top side(trimmer) would be exposed via my f hole, so I did all the wires on the back...

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and put it in my test jig and blamo - works right out the gate.DSCF2856.thumb.JPG.6b710a46bc2c8e96edd70b3b7684bc60.JPG

labeled all my wires for convenience later and saturated the top with liquid tape... will hide it a bit, and prevent unintentional shorts.  Note the LM4250 above... I'm told they have a really low current draw and will allow a 9v to last for years under normal usage.  I have used them in other basses and am a believer... still haven't changed a battery in any of them while I've changed them a couple times in my lakeland tetsuya clone, and alembic stratoblaser clone -which were both built well after.

anywho... thanks for listening!

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damn dude- making your own circuit? You are really getting into the weeds of guitar building. great job. 

(who's baja btw?)

fwiw-i love the old music man basses. One of my (many) musical instrument selling regrets was selling my old stingray. But truth be told- I could not refuse the unsolicited offer I was made for it- and- that money (along with most of my stuff I regret selling) went into the down payment for the very house I am sitting in now. I regret it now of course- cause those old stingrays just have "that sound". 

stratoblaster clone huh? now we are talking. that circuit was key to many peoples tone- like Lowell George (waiting for columbus era- the BEST!) and Adrian Belew (late 70s/early 80s). 

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Bajaman is a known name in homebrew and pedal backwards engineering circles. In this instance it's the Sabre preamp whereas I've made some of his repros based on the Stingray circuit which is very similar:

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That particular circuit is the one that I still haven't permanently fitted into my Carl Thompson style 5-string!

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making my own circuit - well, not really.  making my own layout based on baja's schematic and erni ball's circuit... wish I 'made the circuit' - haha.

bajaman is a member over at freestompboxes.  you can find all sorts of his stuff online.  someday I'm going to build his tubedriver clone... -inspiring.  Like building a model pirate ship! 

thanks for the responses.

 

 

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I'm not sure if it applies to the Saber circuit, however the inputs of the Stingray circuit are a surprisingly-low impedance. Given the layout, I concocted a "piggy back" PCB which plugs into the single op-amp socket and uses a dual op-amp chip to provide a unity buffer to the input. I doubt that it's an issue for you and it certainly hasn't been for me, however I've worked with these for a while now so any issues with them....I might be able to help out.

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True. The preamps I am more familiar with working on are low current draw rather than ultra-low. I don't know the exact specs of the LM4250, however I recall something about them having a mild treble rolloff when used in ultra-low current configurations which is part of the "sound" of the original Stingray and Saber circuits. I have to agree that using a modern op-amp like a TL071 or OPA627, etc. makes them a bit brittle with ceramic magged pickups.

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I've built the stingray for both bass and guitar before and experimented with different op amps.  You def can get more boost if that's what you want.  I prefer this op amp over all others for one reason: I have a lot of basses and guitars with 9v batteries... the less I have to worry about changing them the better.  if battery wasn't an issue I'd be putting strings of cool led lights in my guitars just to remind me to unplug the cable after use!

Also, between the stingray and the sabre2... sabre2 is really just some minor improvements over the stingray.  it adds a hi rolloff option to the feedback loop, a 1u input cap to prevent unnec lows getting into the feedback loop, and 20 picofarad increase to the the cap that bleeds off some more highs in the feedback loop - generally making it a bit less harsh should you crank it up.  Other than that they are identical.

In my build I actually increased that to 140p, changed the bright cap, and added pulldown resistors based on my prior experiences with the circuit.  So I could technically say I built either one!

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Sweet! This will be invaluable information should I re-visit that circuit family. As it stands my circuit is a little toppy, which on a very thin responsive bass easily overwhelms the lower end causing "damage control" to become first priority in shaping a nice tone....

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in that vein I had considered replacing the 4.7k bright switch resistor with a 10k trim... but forgot to do so before I made my layout/etch on this one.  As I recall the orig had a fairly subtle effect.  Also considered adding YET ANOTHER control to this bass with a few different options for caps but it is already overloaded so... perhaps I can try that vicariously through you?  Or perhaps next time I'll try it.

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Very impressive stuff.

Producing an etched circuit board of any circuit puts you both in the category of wizardry in my book, but for you and @Prostheta to also be able to talk about the make up of the circuit and understand what each other is talking about takes it to a whole new mystical plane. 

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@curtisa is two magnitudes better than I. I use Seeedstudio when I make boards. Even if I have to get ten and only use one, it's worth it for the quality and spares.

These were something like $30 a few years back (original, lower left) for ten. Any circuit CAD software - like EAGLE - that can produce Gerber output is as much as you need. There's a lot of freeware and trial stuff out there.

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It's been a looooong time since I did any self-etching of PCBs. The Chinese PCB fab houses just made it far too easy and cheap to have professional boards made up - multi-layer boards, silkscreened component layouts, solder masks, odd shapes - there just wasn't any reason to continue with the hassle of etching PCBs at home.

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4 hours ago, Prostheta said:

At the rate I have time - or can afford - to get around to things, I wouldn't hold your breath! 😶

Try it, because what works for me might not necessarily be so for yourself.

I hear ya brother... never enough time to do the things...

 

3 hours ago, Andyjr1515 said:

Very impressive stuff.

Producing an etched circuit board of any circuit puts you both in the category of wizardry in my book, but for you and @Prostheta to also be able to talk about the make up of the circuit and understand what each other is talking about takes it to a whole new mystical plane. 

I'm just picking up what the internet put down...

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and back to the 'never enough time theme'.  this is a box of tested circuits ranging from guv'nor clones to jcm800 fet emulators to anderton projects.  I call it the box of shame cause I'll probably never get to 90% of it.

 

1 hour ago, curtisa said:

It's been a looooong time since I did any self-etching of PCBs. The Chinese PCB fab houses just made it far too easy and cheap to have professional boards made up - multi-layer boards, silkscreened component layouts, solder masks, odd shapes - there just wasn't any reason to continue with the hassle of etching PCBs at home.

but then you can't change your design literally every time you build something, hehe!  Almost everything I build is a one off.  Makes for some interesting troubleshooting some times.  as mentioned... it's the drilling that is a little ruff especially when you are staring at a 220 hole chorus!  I use a dremel with a foot switch and a gooseneck... keep a knife sharpener handy.  I've found that if you switch bits every 30 holes and keep them sharp it goes pretty fast. 

I've been asked to troubleshoot a phaser circuit once that was built on cardboard.  Basically point to point.  I suppose that is one way to get around drilling! 

When I get fed up with it I start doing all my layouts in strip/vero board.  As long as you don't need to make something smaller and don't mind cutting the traces - well it makes me feel like I'm not doing as much work anyway!

59 minutes ago, Prostheta said:

It's a good idea to do it for prototyping, definitely. I just hate drilling the boards....

I hear ya on the drilling.  I recently bought a mfg board for a dimension c chorus clone... some things just aren't worth it!

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