Phil Mailloux

I wind all my pups with a handdrill and I can easily do 10-12 turns by second. No more than 10-15 minutes for one coil.

You don't need a radius block large enough. You just make multiple passes. The radius it self will keep the whole thing in check. I made my 6-string bass fretboard just with the stewmac one.

http://www.stewmac.com/freeinfo/A-NUTS.html

Here's my opinion. 1.If your body is made of plywood or other crap laminate, build a new body with any of the tonewoods and you'll get a much better sound. 2. If you still don't like the sound after that then the electronics is what needs changing. I'm sure there's nothing wrong with your bridge.

Love the bass, love the woods, love the choice of laminates, gorgeous finish, amazing headstock design, love the black/gold hardware thing (I never would've thought of that) It's just great! If only I could now move to Maryland to test this baby out Your second GOTM is in the sack buddy, probably won't have to share this time

Superb bass Erik, you got my vote ...but I think you already knew that

Thanks Phil. I love your fretless 6! ← Well! thanks very much for the compliment I got a bunch of questions for you now My next bass will be a 7 string. I want those ETS singles for them. Did you get the 50mm or 60mm ones? Do you like them? How was the shipping/handling fees? Expensive? I'm not sure I got what the problem was with your wiring problems but I've got sort of the same problem with my fretless 6. The two pickups are connected are connected on a blend pot. When connected passively they both work fine but when I added the OBP-1 to this, all of a sudden the bridge pup went silent. No matter what I do and how long I play around with the connections it still stays silent. When I take out the preamp and connect passive again then they both work I got my blend pot through stewmac. Is that a bit what your problem is too?

Very nice bass Geoff, i like it!

If you don't mind ordering from Germany. www.ets-hardware.com

Mailloux 5 string bass

It definitely looks very good but I think you'll end up with wall decoration with this. I've got a feeling you won't think it's very comfortable to play with for a long time.

That's pretty funny 'cuz I bought my piece of purpleheart at the same place (A'dam Fijnhouthandel) and they got it in a big stash outside, it was totally brown ad nasty looking in its raw form but looked great once planed

I like that trusty truss rod cutterrer jiggy thing. What kind/size of bit do you use with it?

You lucky basthud! I'd love to have that much room! or tools for that matter. Howbout some more details about that big-ass edge sander thing?

I've only used nitro on the two basses I built that have purpleaheart laminates but to me it looks like the color didn't change at all since I finished them. One was finished in December 2003 and the other 6 months ago. They still look pretty deep an' purple. however, make sure to let the purpleheart "rest" after you've finished sanding your guitar so you can get that deep purple color to come out. When that color is to your liking then spray it. I made the mistake of spraying my body a couple of days after sanding and the laminates in it have a much lighter shade of purple to them then the neck does...even 6 months later now. So that'll attest to the fact that the color won't change once your lacquered it.

True, but Bassman isn't looking to strenghten the back of his headstock. He's looking into giving his bass the high-end Alembic look.

I saw a bass made by a local luthier who used spanish cedar as a body along with a burl top. Very beautiful and extremely light bass.

Where did you stuff in my bass Eric? I'm Canadian but I built it in the Netherlands and I now live in Australia?

Thanks Dave, I also look forward to doing more of my work ...but i'm broke right now. This ain't the cheapest hobby...

Cud, Maiden, Thanks for defending what you both saw as an attack on me but it really wasn't. I read that post and took no offense whatsoever. Garehanman defended my bass pretty well on the september poll when he thought he saw it get insulted by Jeremy. I saw the original version of his edited post (the very last one on that thread) and I know that he wouldn't insult my bass.

Definitely Drill Press, I don't own any stationary tools right now. The drill press is the first one I'm buying.

You were completely right Perry, It was tiny. There was two small acoustic builders (not my thing), Maton guitars was also there. It was pretty cool, there was a showing of a "History of Maton" DVD, that manufacture looks great! and I showed my GOTM bass to one of the higher ranking employees there. He gave me tons of tips on it. That was great! Apparently they're always looking for staff for their plant. How I wish I lived in Melbourne right now There was also a small boutique bass builder there. Exactly the same types of basses I build. He was really cool in the beginning but once he saw my bass he became much less interested in telling tips. I was met by BS answers when I asked where he got his woods locally and Nitro lacquer. I guess he saw me as competition All in all, 30 minutes was enough to see it all. It was worth my time to go there just for Maton's tips and seeing boutique basses up close to compare other builder's basses other than that...

Actually, i'm wrking for the whole weekend and will only be able to be there for the last two hours Sunday. I'll probably have to run my ass off to see all the boutique luthiers there

Dude, you just made my day. I've been looking for that type of show ever since I migrated here 4 months ago.

If you've levelled the frets and checked it out with a straight edge you shouldn't have those problems. That kit will not help any more. What you need to do is to learn how to level properly. The first things that pop to my mind is: Are the saddles too low? Is the bolted neck too high? since you bought them separately. Did you striaghten the neck/truss rod with a straight edge? Is your straight edge really straight? Have you checked it? Does the nut need shimming? Ask yourself these questions. If you don't know how to do all these things then I suggest you get Dan Erlewine's guitar repair book or his Maintenance and Setup DVD's instead of that kit.