Phil Mailloux

I have to agree with rokeros. You're not going to make any fans with one mod over here Next time keep the personal questions in Pm's since it's obviously adressed to him.

i've got a better idea for you. Buy a bridge and build your own pickups. You'll save even more money. Search the forum there's already several threads and tutorials on the subject... ... including my website at the bottom.

I use Aguilar OBP-1 (2-band) in my basses which I buy through bestbassgear.com It's small and kicks ass but it runs on two 9 volts though (that takes up space)

if you're willing to order a bridge from germany there's ETS. Have a look at their "MKIII" bridges www.ets-hardware.com

Yep, you're totally right, I had a look at the site. I would still glue this like I explained earlier though with the neck still in block form and I'd use small cork lined bits of wood at the neck/headstock transition as clamps. The headstock/neck transition does look like it has a much smoother transition than a normal 13% headstock. It looks like it flows into the neck to ease the veneering/clamping instead of having an abrupt 167% angle.

Setch and Erikbojerik have got it right.There's definitely a volute there, if you look at the picture there's a difference in clarity through the lacquer where the volute is. It does look like it's very small though. I've been contemplating doing this on my next bass and what i'd personally do is to glue the veneer layers when the neck is still square. Shape first the back of the headstock and the volute area (at this stage it's only a cylindrical/mountainous thing (scuze my lack of clarity )) glue the veneer on it then after all is nice, dry and peachy cut-out your neck and shape it. Setch, maybe i'm a moron but I really can't find any links to that backstrapping thing on mimf.

I built 3 necks in total. First one was scraped because I cut it too thin. No biggy, I saved the fretboard and rods for the second one. The two other necks are perfectly fine and on my two basses. I can undertand why someone wouldn't want to build his own neck. That's allright, after all this is a hobby for most of us here. Me, on the other hand I want to do it all. That's why I build my own pickups and if I had the equipment I would also build my own bridges. That'll definitely come soon. If you're only building guitars for fun and don't feel you can do it buy your own necks. I personally want to sell my basses eventually and that's why I want to do it all from scratch. ...but... building necks isn't difficult either. Just try it if you doubt you can.

Speaking of Victorian Ash I was in a wood yard a couple of days ago and the guy showed me a pile of victorian ash. I have to say that if that stuff is not like american ash it sure looks identical, same type of grain, color very close to identical... I don't know... On the other hand I bought a piece of silky oak big enough for a top with the nicest quilt figure i've ever seen, all for $10

Any multimeter is good enough, that one included.

Bienvenu fof, t'en as pour tout les gout. Tres jolie les basses (Tr: Welcome, you've got basses for all tastes, very nice)

Hi making pickups isnt too bad, you just need about 6 months to practice, plenty of wire to break over and over, ctting the wound coil back off the bobbin a million times before getting everything right, oh and make a winder and have at it. Let me know and i can point you in the right direction for some parts if needed. Benbo ← Have a look at Dash's second "here" link, that's my website showing how I built my first pickup. It took me a couple of hours to do not 6 months. It really isn't that hard to do provided you researched a bit on the subject before.

to me,this is what i think of as "phil mailloux" ← Actually, let me clear this up now. I'm a chef in everyday life, plus I just think the swedish chef is the funniest muppet of them all p.s. that's some pretty impressive compliments Crafty

Thanks guys! I'm still very surprised by the voting pattern that the members took. I was so sure that most guitarists wouldn't vote for a bass, how wrong was I!! That's got to be the first time in the gotm thread that I didn't see any comments along the lines of: "I didn't vote for the fretless because the builder took the easy way out and didn't fret it" On a different note, do you guys know that this is the first bass to win GOTM since January 2003? That's 32 months! All you bass players out there, that proves it, it can be done! Get out your tools now and finish them off!! Happy building everyone and thanks again.

That certainly makes sense David, but right now the action is like 3/4" high at the 20th fret. It would be nicer just to be able to play a bit on it to test those pups instead of just playing open strings. After Soap's comments though, it looks like making a new neck might be less of a hassle. Well I do have an extra truss rod leftover and i've wanted to make a one piece neck for a while....hmmm... *thinking hard*

Howbout some insights on the fretjob from hell? At least what i'm about to get myself into.

I've got this old Japanese Squier bass with a totally warped neck. This piece of crap could be useful as a test bass for my homemade pickups. However, i'm too lazy to put the energy (and money) into building a new neck for it. Anybody here ever straightened a warped neck? Or maybe someone here owns Dan Erlewine's "Advanced Fretting vol.1" video and could explain to me how this is done? That would be nicer than me spending 50 bucks for it just for this one part of the DVD

You already have more tools than I have. You don't need anything else. Unless you want to go in business. Did you glue cork material under your homemade clamps? If not i'd be scared to use them. They look good and solid though. That's exactly why I got into guitar building. Maybe I can also sell my "high end" bass of the month for 4 grand like these guys do Your bass looks great Scott, i'm sure it'll be fantastic by the time it's done. Keep ti up and keep us posted.

I assume you mean the fretboard, the lines are not curved but straight, the pieces of wood are just angled. I just fited them together and filed away until they fit perfect, after that I glued and (to quote Sir Drak) "clamped the living piss out of them".

You'll never fit 6.81kOhm of 42 AWG wire on a humbucker, it just doesn't fit. 43 AWG is the way to go. As for getting Vai's sound from crossroads, odds are better that you'll get his sound from buying the same amp and recording studio that was used in the movie than making those pickups. If you want to learn how to build pickups the way you explain wihout losing all those highs, or mids or ect... the only way to go is to build LOTS of pickups and analize them one after another. That's of course a big investment in time and money. Another solution is to build the humbucker for your project yourself and just see if you like it. You can always rewind it if you don't and at least you'll learn something without busting your head about *the sound*

I'm still freaked by all the wonderful comments i'm getting... Contrary to what some of you seem to believe this bass didn't take that long to build. Four months of very part time work in total, my first one took me 12 months. There's less than 60-70 hours of work in there. The glueing of all the laminates was the longest part and that was done within 2 or 3 days. Actually you could say that the longest part was the design, that started when I found that piece of olive wood and decided it was so beautiful it had to become a bass, took me another three months after that before I started the bass itself. There was a lot of planning, looking around at basses and bass builders sites' Most of the credit is due to Conklyn, Warrior and Alembic, they were truely the biggest inspiration for this bass. Bill Conklyn was even nice enough to answer a question I had through e-mail

You're not serious...

Wow... thanks guys for all the nice words

Wes, Actually I gotta get used to that neck too, it ain't easy! If only I could get free time to play I gotta find myself a good bass player over here in Brisbane to show me how good this thing can really be. Skibum you posted faster than my reply to Wes Thanks again for the vote.

Much to my surprise I never put pictures of the finished product on this thread. Since it's on the guitar of the month competition right now I might as well revive this ol' thread and put those pics up here too. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v104/phi...loux/jl3043.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v104/phi...loux/jl3032.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v104/phi...loux/jl3025.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v104/phi...loux/jl3023.jpg

Whoah! Drak voted for my bass! That's the coolest !! Thanks! Thanks also to MATT, Crafty and Scott and the other unkown ones too. I'm pretty shocked (for now) let's see how it goes until the first of september