Chuck_Chill-Out Posted June 7, 2020 Report Share Posted June 7, 2020 Okay, last December, I was showing a family member my fisrt build, a fretless bass when disaster struck. Okay, that is a little dramatic, but the headstock bumped against our couch and snapped. Now, I was the one who bumped it, so I could blame no one but myself. I went through the 12 stages of grief in 2 minutes, lingering on Anger for a time, mainly at myself. After calming down (and all family left), my wife said she wanted me to rebuild the headstock and hang it on the wall, since I took so much time building it. Investigating the break, I realized that I had a design flaw with too little wood at the neck-headstock transition. It was going to beak at some point, I also started to research headless conversion kits, because I really wanted to make this thing playable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck_Chill-Out Posted June 7, 2020 Author Report Share Posted June 7, 2020 I found that the only headless bridge I could afford from FleaBay was the wonderful and ever so popular OVERLORD OF MUSIC bridge and nut. Luckily, a former coworker has a machine shop in his garage and offered to measure and machine the parts out of brass and steel at cost. Until I get them, I decided to go ahead with the build. First thing was to fix the neck. I had to slice off this spur and re-glue it to the neck. Obligatory clamp shot. This was the chip taken out. Apologies for the out of order picture. I had to trim this down. Part of me was more nervous converting this than when I was building. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck_Chill-Out Posted June 7, 2020 Author Report Share Posted June 7, 2020 The next item on the list was to rout a pocket for the bridge and a secondary pocket for access to the tuners.Not a bad fit. I had to move the straplock pin. Also, I realized that I needed to deepen the area to adjust the tuners. No pic, but it was done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck_Chill-Out Posted June 7, 2020 Author Report Share Posted June 7, 2020 I was stringing this up, when I snapped the E string. From talking to someone who used one of these before, they said to look for sharp edges on the nut. Sure enough, the edge where the strings go through the nut had sharp edges.Break out the small files and smooth out the edges and restring. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck_Chill-Out Posted June 7, 2020 Author Report Share Posted June 7, 2020 Done! ProjectGuitar, allow me to introduce Ichabod. A friend suggested the name since it is headless and it stuck. This was definitely a learning experience. The action is lower than before, so playing is much easier. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norris Posted June 7, 2020 Report Share Posted June 7, 2020 Nice save Is there anything else supporting the headless "head"? Through dowels, screws? I hope the end grain join doesn't come apart Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck_Chill-Out Posted June 9, 2020 Author Report Share Posted June 9, 2020 On 6/7/2020 at 7:49 AM, Norris said: Nice save Is there anything else supporting the headless "head"? Through dowels, screws? I hope the end grain join doesn't come apart Two screws. It appears to be secure. Trust me, if it comes apart, I will post it on here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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