Phil Mailloux

Just use a 1/4" bit with a router base bushing thingy. You just have to adjust your templates to make up the extra width of the follower thing.

Did you dislocate your wrist?

The neck looks really good, congrats.

I understand the logic of using epoxy with your dots, after all thats what normally used on pearl inlays but don't forget you've got wood on wood there, Titebond would have been fine if the holes match up perfectly.

Did you buy the ebony dots somewhere or did you make them from scrap ebony? I'd be curious to know how you made them if you did.

Mike Tobias runs MTD's custom shop with him and two other guys. The two guys do most of the work and Mike helps out and does the finishing. He also answers every single phone calls. They pump out about 25 instruments per month in the $3000-$6000 price range each. His two guys have been there for years.

If you are to employ "builders" with you they'll obviously need to be "into" guitars and get paid more than minimum salary if you want to keep them. I once read that 70% of Maton's staff (hundreds of people) are musicians. I wouldn't hire an apprentice carpenter who doesn't know anything about guitars to be one of my builders. I'd rather hire a guitarist that is motivated to learn.

The nut should cover most of that. You can always make a truss rod cover for that area too.

I don't understand what you mean about the slots for a 16" radius. Do you mean the slots are too deep?

If thats what you mean and would rather keep the fb flat then just fill the side holes under the frets with wood dust + glue once you finished the fretwork.

That guitar is hot!

Thanks for putting up the link for ALS, I've been looking for an aussie supplier of black veneer for ages. I think I'll have to look into a native build at some point too, that's really nice

It's a shame about that fretboard. It's good you're going on with it though, it's teaching you a lot of "what I won't do next time"

I suggest you do it the way Erik said. Fender have done it for 50 + years on maple boards. It works.

These are the X1,X2,x3 mills made in China and available everywhere in the world with a different paint job :lol I've wanted one for building hipshot type bass bridges. Do you think they would be up to the task Setch?

You can also buy the $5 stewmac neck jig video which explains how to setup and use the jig. You can easily duplicate the jig just by looking at that video. You don't need a tutorial.

Guys and gals I need help. I have been searching the web looking for an article that was on guitarfrenzy.com and can not find it anywhere. The article is called "How to Build a Neck Jig". If anyone has a copy of it with pictures or can lead me to where I can download it I would be very appreciative. I found the archived page from Google but it does not display the pictures and only includes the first page of the article.

Thanks in advance.

ralph

ralph@highspeedjunkie.com

Why don't you just ask him nicely through PM or e-mail? Let me give you a hint, Matt's login name on PG is "Guitarfrenzy" He's actually quite a nice guy.

That's some pretty large holes for frets. You would normally use epoxy to glue in frets in holes like this. You can find that at any hardware store. The thing though is that you'll need to clamp your frets in the holes while the glue dries. A radius caul should work for that.

felt obligated to post a live shot to prove I play it.

How did you like the sound of the bass in a live setting?

Your pickup is almost done. I thought you'd like to have a look at it It only needs to be potted and tested before it's shipped.

A bit of brainstorming here...

Seeing as how your preamp is a Bartolini NTBT, it should have come prewired and you only have to make the connections of your pickups to the preamp. It SHOULD work. What else did you connect or reconnect?

Did you check if your amp or amp lead are working properly?

Did you check if the 9 volt battery is a dud?

It's been mentioned before about the jack wires. Did you check that? Half the time when my wiring doesn't work it's because I mixed up the tip and ground wires on the jack.

Did you look if you don't have any cold solder joints?

Well, perhaps I did not dig deap enough in the "Search" feature. But I did look, and alot of people have posted topic like: "hey, I need a template for an xyz guitar" and then somebody will link something that you have to pay $10 to $15 dollars for. And everytime I type something in Google, I just get a bunch of places that want to sell you masonite cut outs.

Instead of searching where to find templates you might want to search on HOW to make templates. I'm sure there's a few threads on the subject. Get yourself CorelDraw, Illustrator or CAD software and learn to do it yourself.

Thanks for the link PSW, it was funny seeing my first bass competing against all the other instruments. I was pretty insulted to only have gotten 7 votes back then but look at the competition, wow! that was a killer month.

I remember having as hard time between voting for Erik's double-neck and my own bass too of course I voted for myself I love seeing that spalted double-neck whenever I can.

I'm using a reed switch on it. The magnet it originally came with didn't work very well so I stuck an Alnico 5 Musicman size magnet to it and I've got no problems now.

I've heard lots of good thing about proximity switches but at 60$+ a pop, I'll wait for a little bit. Besides, even if the reed misses a few counts here and there it's not that bad since I check my final output and will remove or add wire to get my magic kOhm number for the final pickup.

Although when I get that pickup from you, I'll be close.

It won't be too long I swear! I'm still waiting on flatwork material. Your pickup should be ready along with the BP tribute one in less than a week or two.

I only do my roundovers by hand. I don't like the look of radius bits on those types of basses i.e. multi-laminate ones. Nothing wrong with a roundover bit on a Fender copy. The coolest part is playing around with the radius to make those accent lines sharper in some areas and less in other. It turns me on baby!!

Very nice Jon, the quality of your work is getting better all the time.

I wish I had as much time and money to build as fast as you do.

Wow Robbie, that looks like a sizeable investment for a winder

Here's a pic of my Schatten clone in it's current unfinished state. I thought you'd like to see it

I read on their forum before that they usually cut their backplates with lasers. Buckeye though is reputed to be very hard to work with. Who knows, maybe they had to do it by hand.

I know from making a few of those that cutting continuous back plates is NOT easy. Don't forget that this pic is enlarged big time too. I'm sure what we see is only thousands of an inch wide.

EDIT: now that I looked at the preamp plate again, it looks like it's been cut perfectly (most likely laser) but was srewed in slightly crooked.

@Mike: I have a real spray gun in my shop here. I'll buy a nitro spray can though, because I dont want to go through cleaning the gun after every coat

You don't need to clean the gun after every coat. Nitro can be left for days in a gun withouth any problems. To clean it just tip out the lacquer put a bit of thinner in it and spray it out the nozzle, done. Save the big cleanup with disassembly for when the lacquering process is all finished.

Nitro isn't Poly, is won't get hard in your gun like Poly does. If Poly solidifies in your gun you pretty much have to throw it away. Nitro stays as a liquid. I've used a lot of the Clou Nitro through a spraygun when I lived in The Netherlands and can vouch that it's no cheap crap. Try it.

No they don't come off. They're epoxied to the pickups like EMG's

Shocking. Me and Bill had quite a bit of communication together a few years ago. He had designed a whole 2-band preamp for my basses in his own free time and totally for free. We spent weeks and months trying to get it to work. Unfortunately, the prototype I built never worked in the end because of my lack of debugging skills.

It's sad that such a nice guy is gone, I'll miss him.

It's indeed easy to make in a snap. I bought a Robo-sander and made myself a drill table with a fence and it pretty much does everything that luthier's friend does.

I find though that the robo-sander is not as precise as you'd think it is. I hate working with this thing. I have to true up everything after by hand.