mistermikev Posted June 21, 2022 Author Report Share Posted June 21, 2022 well I thought of doing this but A ) the ferrules have black paint... which would have to scratch off where they make electrical conn and it might be problematic to actually solder to it, B ) it would seem a bit cumbersome as if it gets disconnected after the ferrules are in... would be a pain to take out. Also... running wire from each ferrule to the other... would be hard to hide this and not have issues with the ferrules sitting flat. I had thought of running a ground wire to just one ferrule... then using a steel or brass nut to transfer ground to strings E-G... but again then with the nylon tape between the actual string and the nut I don't think there'd be a great electrical connection there and also would not be black. another idea I had was to just get some 1/16" flat brass and drill holes for the ferrules to mount in it, this would ground them together, then put a finish plate over the top of it. with the radius there... would just create a route for the new ferrule block and given the string slots are pretty long on top... should be able to make it work. again, would make a wood cover to top it and use magnets to secure. would hide the whole thing. option z is I machine my own brass block and put make the holes follow the arc. I guess it's really only drilling 6 holes... in theory my cnc can do brass... but then have to buy some bits for metal, have to get a coolant pump... not sure I want to go through all that. I guess I'll just keep thinking it over in my head until it comes time where it's the last thing I have to do and maybe then I'll know which way to go! appreciate the input biz - thanks, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curtisa Posted June 22, 2022 Report Share Posted June 22, 2022 Might be a silly question, but do you know for sure if you need to ground the strings? Depending on your preamp/pickup choice you might find that adding a string ground for noise suppression makes no difference to hum levels (think EMGs for example). 5 hours ago, mistermikev said: option z is I machine my own brass block and put make the holes follow the arc. I guess it's really only drilling 6 holes... in theory my cnc can do brass... but then have to buy some bits for metal, have to get a coolant pump... not sure I want to go through all that. Dry milling aluminium (or aluminum if you prefer) is achievable on CNC, just need to take things slowly and in small bites. The harder grades of aluminium can polish up quite nicely too for an almost chrome look. Brass might be doable in the same way 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted June 22, 2022 Author Report Share Posted June 22, 2022 14 minutes ago, curtisa said: Might be a silly question, but do you know for sure if you need to ground the strings? Depending on your preamp/pickup choice you might find that adding a string ground for noise suppression makes no difference to hum levels (think EMGs for example). Dry milling aluminium (or aluminum if you prefer) is achievable on CNC, just need to take things slowly and in small bites. The harder grades of aluminium can polish up quite nicely too for an almost chrome look. Brass might be doable in the same way Hello curtisa, always good to have your input. yes, I am aware of the fact that emg uses a difference amp to subtract the noise from the signal... and as such doesn't require a ground. In fact most actives use some variation of this idea. in this case I was planning on using a cool pickup that was made for me by my friend over at oat soda pickups. it's two p bass passives - one based on p bass and one based on a split jazz. so in short they are passive, and could be quite bright (have not heard them yet). the orig carl t used an emg guitar pickup... and my early drafts of this bass were using that. the downside there is that there would be no splitting/combining of differing pickups ie less variety. another downside is I'd have to re-think the preamp I was going to use... i do have a haz lab pre pcb cut... and it does have an option to optimize for actives vs passives... but has more controls than I intended(bass/mid/treb + mid freq). the upsides being that the piezo doesn't require grounded strings, so using them would indeed mean no string ground required... and it would simplify the controls a lot... hmm... I'm gonna think on that, good call on your part. I have a p/j set and a 707... would have to see how I would integrate them into my existing route/cover-design. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted July 5, 2022 Author Report Share Posted July 5, 2022 "Perfect is the enemy of the great" is the theme for the weekend. So given that this bass has a very long fretboard/neck... and I will be cutting both in two stages... important to get my materials planed as flat as possible. 110 degrees this weekend so 20 mins in the garage and I'm drained and drenched. adjusted/leveled my planed rigorously, and built a new feed sled. so i took some 3/4 purpleheart, sapele, and oak and some 3" mahog... resawed and planed them down as stock for 1) a fretboard for my prototype in oak, 2) multilam of sapele/oak/qtr-sawn mahog for my prototype, and a fretboard blank in purpleheart for my final build. havent decided yet... but thinking just a couple of strips of oak lam on the outside of the sapele and between the mahog here: my oak has a little tension in it... could change my mind and add another oak strip in and put some lam between it... thoughts? the sapele... just lovely stuff imo. note to self use more of this as it smells just wonderful! left oak fretboard, right on bottom is the purple heart fretboard. and the evidence: man glitter everywhere... 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted July 11, 2022 Author Report Share Posted July 11, 2022 Fully intended to be cutting a fretboard today... set up my software to auto tile the fretboard... and it would not do what I want. My plan is to try to cut as many frets on the first pass as possible to keep the majority of fretboard accurate as possibe... so I would cut 23" before moving. unfortunately the software then expects a 23" move. so... what do we do then? well we do it the hard way (yay)! Setup all that tiling via splitting operations manually and making individual cam procedures for each "partial cut". Took me quite a while but ready to go on that now and I realize... I need to cut my inlay stock and have it ready to inlay b4 I cut frets... so need to work on that next. In the meantime... I got my neck stock milled down pretty good, so thought I'd share that. io9jjk 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted July 17, 2022 Author Report Share Posted July 17, 2022 so... working on an inlay... what a pita, I'll spare you the details. Anywho... having second thoughts about using it. My concern is that on a fretless... that it is at least possible there would be some change in the sound as one frets a note over the inlay - due to the change in wood. The only fretless I've owned had fret markers... but no inlays. never noticed anything there. I've heard other bass players complain, mostly about inlay material other than wood, so I have to admit I have some trepidation. I believe there must be SOME truth to anything and everything. Is it going to be truth enough to bother me? I dunno. Is it worth risking given the neck will be glued in? I dunno. this, btw, is a sturgeon. in the song "fish on": "Dad caught a hundred pound sturgeon On twenty-pound test" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bizman62 Posted July 17, 2022 Report Share Posted July 17, 2022 12 minutes ago, mistermikev said: I believe there must be SOME truth to anything and everything. Some truth indeed. You may have noticed how I can come up with the wildest ideas about minuscule effects, my imagination just works that way. In this case I highly suppose that the inlays have absolutely no audible effect to the sound per se. BUT a large inlay may feel different under the finger which may cause the player press the string in a slightly different way and the tactile feedback may make them "hear" a difference. Thus a wooden inlay might not make as much of a difference as something like abalone. On a fingerboard you can't use soft woods anyway so an inlay like the sturgeon should not be feelable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted July 17, 2022 Author Report Share Posted July 17, 2022 5 minutes ago, Bizman62 said: Some truth indeed. You may have noticed how I can come up with the wildest ideas about minuscule effects, my imagination just works that way. In this case I highly suppose that the inlays have absolutely no audible effect to the sound per se. BUT a large inlay may feel different under the finger which may cause the player press the string in a slightly different way and the tactile feedback may make them "hear" a difference. Thus a wooden inlay might not make as much of a difference as something like abalone. On a fingerboard you can't use soft woods anyway so an inlay like the sturgeon should not be feelable. that is certainly a possibility. further on a fretless I 'spose I run the risk of potential movement of the inlay vs the wood... esp given the wood is going to be flexing. that said... my plan was to have fret slots filled with veneer. and in theory one could have the sm issue there. my original fretless had some sort of plastic fret marker. never did have any issue with that so perhaps I'll be ok. always a gamble. I like the inlay enough that I really want to use it. going to do my prototype with frets so at the least I will use it there... and perhaps somewhere along the way I'll gain the clarity of whether or not to use it on the final-fretless version. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bizman62 Posted July 17, 2022 Report Share Posted July 17, 2022 Close your eyes and try to feel the inlay. If you can't feel it it shouldn't affect your playing style. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted July 17, 2022 Author Report Share Posted July 17, 2022 2 minutes ago, Bizman62 said: Close your eyes and try to feel the inlay. If you can't feel it it shouldn't affect your playing style. well unfortunately... i won't be able to do that till it's too late to back out! I can't imagine I'd feel anything at first... as it will have been freshly sanded down... and I will have fret lines running through the inlay where in theory I'd fret... but that slide up to that note... i can't help but feel there might be some effect there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bizman62 Posted July 17, 2022 Report Share Posted July 17, 2022 5 minutes ago, mistermikev said: well unfortunately... i won't be able to do that till it's too late to back out! Did I misunderstand something? Aren't you going to use that sturgeon motif? And isn't that a ready made one? I'm not saying you should actually play over such an inlay, a scrap piece with the same woods combination should already give you an idea. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JGTay Posted July 17, 2022 Report Share Posted July 17, 2022 I can't see it being a problem, unless you are using a less dense wood than the fretboard. Also depends on whether you are putting a finish over the top. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted July 17, 2022 Author Report Share Posted July 17, 2022 2 hours ago, Bizman62 said: Did I misunderstand something? Aren't you going to use that sturgeon motif? And isn't that a ready made one? I'm not saying you should actually play over such an inlay, a scrap piece with the same woods combination should already give you an idea. no, perhaps I did. thought you were saying to try it on the neck I'm building, got it... try it on a scrap piece. perhaps I'll do an experiment when I get my first fretboard done but... it's hard to say if you'd really hear anything since I imagine the effect would be really subtle. thanks for the suggestion. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted July 17, 2022 Author Report Share Posted July 17, 2022 39 minutes ago, JGTay said: I can't see it being a problem, unless you are using a less dense wood than the fretboard. Also depends on whether you are putting a finish over the top. well... no two pieces of even the sm variety are the sm density but... this is in one case: oak, ebony and maple and in the other purpleheart, ebony and maple. there will no doubt be some dif in the density between the three... enough to make a big dif - prob not... but enough to make some dif: probably. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted July 17, 2022 Author Report Share Posted July 17, 2022 btw... sometimes I wonder if my responses sound like I'm poo pooing ideas w/o giving fair thought to them... i tend to get lost in my own thinking when I respond and perhaps forget to be polite and thankful for all the input I get. here is me correcting for that: I do appreciate it!! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JGTay Posted July 17, 2022 Report Share Posted July 17, 2022 36 minutes ago, mistermikev said: btw... sometimes I wonder if my responses sound like I'm poo pooing ideas w/o giving fair thought to them... Not at all. I think it is the nature of the beast with all written responses, be it text, email, forums, etc. You have no idea how/what people will read into it. I feel the same way after most things I post, especially if there are no responses within a day or so. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted July 17, 2022 Author Report Share Posted July 17, 2022 27 minutes ago, JGTay said: Not at all. I think it is the nature of the beast with all written responses, be it text, email, forums, etc. You have no idea how/what people will read into it. I feel the same way after most things I post, especially if there are no responses within a day or so. a boss once said to me: "email is like throwing a turd over the fence... it's one way to send a message" hehe. Part of my trying to improve myself... remember to be thankful for other's taking the time... and sometimes it probably just seems like I'm throwing a turd... but I'm really doing it with the best of intentions! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted July 24, 2022 Author Report Share Posted July 24, 2022 well... with @curtisa and @MiKro on my shoulders... I completed my prototype fretboard over the weekend... learned a few things too. as it were... I found the built in logic to tile my fretboard was not going to work for me. the logic is expecting one to move the length of the tile... and if you set a really large overlay area it would cut that area 2x... ie would waste a lot of time. What I wanted to do was to get as many frets out of the first operation as possible... then do a small move to finish off the last 7 or so frets (27 frets on this one). So how did I do it? well the hard way of course. went through all my cam and split it into sections manually. not fun, but everything came out great... so will be moving on to the "presentation" grade fretboard. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MiKro Posted July 25, 2022 Report Share Posted July 25, 2022 So Mike, if this is a fretless Bass why the fret slots? I did not read the previous if it was stated there for whatever reason? MK 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted July 25, 2022 Author Report Share Posted July 25, 2022 12 minutes ago, MiKro said: So Mike, if this is a fretless Bass why the fret slots? I did not read the previous if it was stated there for whatever reason? MK well, I never mentioned either. good observation. the slots on this one - my prototype, are actually going to get frets... but on the other one I'm going to do the sm slots in a purpleheart board and then put maple veneer in them. also the "profile" there will get veneer on both. I can't play fretless without training wheels! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted August 14, 2022 Author Report Share Posted August 14, 2022 stretching my patience muscles this morn... kept the suausage fingers in the picture for reference lol. takes about 2hrs to cut all the pieces for this... then took about 2 hrs to get this far (still have to finish the eye and several little dots along the spine). NOTE TO SELF: in future, vacuum room right before you mess with anything this small or you'll end up looking like a crack head sifting through the random bits of leftover popcorn and other crumbs wondering... is this the piece that just went flying? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bizman62 Posted August 14, 2022 Report Share Posted August 14, 2022 A piece of popcorn would fit into almost every tiny hole, wouldn't it? Just squeeze it and it will squash into a notch of any shape! That's some nice puzzle you've got there. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted August 14, 2022 Author Report Share Posted August 14, 2022 6 minutes ago, Bizman62 said: A piece of popcorn would fit into almost every tiny hole, wouldn't it? Just squeeze it and it will squash into a notch of any shape! That's some nice puzzle you've got there. yes good point... however it sidesteps the idea that one can simply eat the popcorn and continue looking for the maple lol. nom nom nom. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted August 15, 2022 Report Share Posted August 15, 2022 I just love those inlays @mistermikev Unbelievably classy 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted August 15, 2022 Author Report Share Posted August 15, 2022 1 hour ago, Andyjr1515 said: I just love those inlays @mistermikev Unbelievably classy thank you sir, very much means the world to me coming from you. giant pita but this is territory I really want to expand into so... grab the scuba gear and dive! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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