Phil Mailloux

Have a look at my website in my signature. I made a tutorial.

Kick ass bass Pib!!! Gorgeous, I just love all that carving you've done and can't wait to see the finished body. Based on what I saw of your drawing it should look great. I love the headstock. You're really inspiring me for my next bass.

You could do that. However a neck trough bass with a one piece flat neck thats the same level than the body and a very recessed bridge on it definitely belongs in the second rate instrument box. I personally think that if you're going to spend all this time and money building your own instrument you should do it the right way. And thats the way explained in the thread I posted up there.

Please use the search feature before you post anything. It's probably been answered thousands of times before. Here's one thread. http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.php?showtopic=14036

Here's today's update. I built the pickups. First pic, I bought forbon sheets from stewmac> I measured and then cut out the pieces of flatwork. Here's the bobbins once glued together with CA. On this pic you can see i've put a layer of electrical tape to insulate the magnets against the wire. This makes sure that if the metal of the magnet ever rusts it won't short out the pickup by eating through the wire. Here is my winding jig, a hand drill with a sanding attachment. You can see the wire bobbin on the floor. Down below is the end result And here is another view of them. Before anyone mentions that the flatwork isn't totally straight and that the bobbins look like crap, it doesn't matter because the pickups will be hidden under wooden covers.

I agree with this. On another point, I think the body looks great but the headstock looks kinda "queer"

If you're talking about 4 sets of double strings I think you'll be fine. 8 independent strings is a different story though. The F# and B strings will give some serious pull on your neck.

First picture, I glued the purpleheart then maple strips on the neck. Second picture, the fretboard. Down below, another view of the fretboard. Next picture, Here's the headstock raw with lines where i'll shape the verule. Here I started to shape the verule. Here is the neck shaped with the coarse file. and down below here is the neck shaped and sanded down to 80 grit, there's still a bit of shaping and final sanding to do before it's ready.

Shellac on electrics is usually used as a sealer or barrier coat between layers of dye and lacquer. I wonder why it's also not used on the bodies themselves, it must be on par with oil finishes...

I clamped the neck to the body in this picture to rout the neck pocket. here's a picture of the end result. and down below another one. Then I cut my fingerboard piece of Wenge and glued it to the neck. First picture Second picture

Very good lookin' bass my man 125$ you say huh? I still have to get under the 500$ mark Those chiseled pickup holes look fantastic.

Lucky bastuhd, that would make a great top wood on a bass, wouldn't it

The change came because i've talked to pros who use only one truss rod in a 6 string bass without even carbon rods in them. There's also the fact that this is a three-piece neck. That neck is extremely stable. The 5 string neck I built out of the other half was also done with 2 carbon rods and one truss and that one is stiff as hell. I also happened to get 2 meters of the carbon rod right around the corner of my house at a kite shop for 8 bucks. and finally, it gives me an excuse to make another neck after this bass since I now have a spare truss rod

I bought Jason's book and was pretty disapointed. I was expecting to get all the answers i'll ever need about pickup building in this book, just like everyone on the pickup maker's forum keep telling all the newbies there... but it just ain't there. This book is just a very long plan on how to build a winder and it's got just a couple of pages on the pickup building part. There's nothing there that can't be found by just googling a little bit.

Neck work was started by drawing the neck on my blank. For those who didn't read all the way from the beginning of the thread this blank is the second half of a 3 piece laminate of a maple and purpleheart block that I used to make the neck for my 5-string bass (the other half, that is) The gluing part of the block and construction of the other half can be seen on my website, link at bottom of this post. I then routed the holes for the rods using the side thingy attachment of the router. There's two carbon rods and one truss rod holes. Here they are. With the rods inside and the truss ajustment pocket. I used the jigsaw to cut off all the excess wood on the neck. and glued ears on the headstock. Once I routed the whole thing with my neck template I got this: It's still a bit rough but it's a good start

Time for another update. I built a fretboard radiusing jig to radius (obviously) the fretboard. I found this jig on a mimf thread somewhere in there and built it from the pictures there. It's only two plumbing pipes bolted paralell to each other on an MDF plank and a radiused "trolley" bolted to the router. The trolley (no idea what its called in english) is radiused at 12". I was expecting this jig to make perfect fingerboards but it didn't. What it did do was to make a very good rough carve of the fretboard. Once done I used my stanley #4 plane and radius block with sandpaper to finish the fretboard. ...and the result...

The original piece itself was about 3/4 inch of raw wood. I had it planed down to 1/4 inches (6mm). After I started building the bass I started thinking it might have been better at 1/8". I wanted the veneer layers to show more through the contoured sides but the top wood is just too thick.

Whatever it is you're thinking about Devon, just enter it!!

It's still priced 29.99$ on their website

The preamp is a 2-band design by Lovekraft, i've been trying to build it but get problems, I might get more help from Lovekraft. It'll be installed in one concentric pot along with one volume and one blend pot, might also install a pull-push pot for the volume with active/passive option but i'm not sure about this one yet. The pickups will be two home build jazz bass pickups under wooden covers.

I'm probably going to epoxy the fretboard to protect it better, this should take care of that. I could also inlay side dots in the fretboard for markers like in the picture but i'm not really sure about that. One thing I know is that I definitely don't want fake frets.

Well after working on this Vine of Life inlay for a little while I decided that this wasn't going to be for me just yet, at least not on this bass. I'm just not satisfied with the designs I come up with, I obviously want something original, I don't want to copy Ibanez or someone else's design and I can't come up with something I like enough to make. Thanks anyway to the couple of you that sent me designs, that was very nice. This bass was created in my mind to be a sort of reproduction of conklin basses, they are all absolutely beautiful. By surfing through their site you can see tons of outrageously designed basses that are just beautiful! My original idea was to make a "melted" fretboard (marquetry) with vine of life. The vine of life would have put each flower exactly where the fret usually is. That means when I play and put my finger ON the leaf the fretless makes the sound with the proper intonation. I just think that fake or inlaid frets are tacky, thats my way of having position markers without fake frets. Eventually I dropped the marquetry fretboard in favor of a one piece wenge with vine of life. Now that i've dropped the vine of life, i'm going back to the marquetry idea. I want this bass to look exceptional, neck included. I want this to look like a 5000$ custom job. So i've posted a link in the inlays section to find out more about those types of fretboards. Here is a drawing of what I will do. The oval shaped position markers will be made of gold mother of pearl and placed of the fret position itself to facilitate proper intonation. EDIT What does KUTGW mean Erik?

For those who have followed the thread on my 6 string fretless bass, I decided not to do a Vine of Life on the fretboard but instead a marquetry fretboard, like in the picture from conklin at the bottom. From what can be seen on the pic the wood is not inlaid in the fretboard but its actually many pieces attached together that make up the fretboard. My question is: considering that my truss rod and two carbon rods will be directly under the fretboard, how do I glue all this to make sure pieces of the fretboard don't delaminate with the pressure of the rods. 1. Should I glue everything together with Titebond? or epoxy? then glue the fretboard on the neck? 2. Should I glue every piece one-by-one on the fretboard first? what sort of glue should I use? Anybody on this board work for conklin or alembic? (Yeah, I didn't think so...)

When I wind my own pickups or research info on them I think of "clockwise or anti-clockwise" as the direction of the wire on the bobbin (top of the bobbin facing me). Whether all other people or companies see it this way is totally irrelevent to me. It doesn't change anything to your pickups electrically. (as long as you don't confuse 2 pickups in a humbucking setup)

Right here, Hendrix, don't forget to add the cover to the bobbin size.