Phil Mailloux

Put your switch back to 230V, buy a new fuse and don't do dumb sh** anymore

EDIT: beaten by Drak!!

I've got a cheapy router from a hardware store, it's an own brand thing (champion or something) & it works great but....I discovered after making an overhead table thing (like setch's carve top jig) that it needs the button pressed in to work...DOH!

You can also use a velcro strap to keep that button pressed in permanently. That's what I use on my home made router table.

Thanks Tim but it's a bass not a guitar

Get yourself a copy of Melvyn Hiscock's "Make your own electric guitar" to learn how to design and build your neck through bass (and the other two styles too)

As I've said just read up like a maniac for a little while. Websites like mine, which you've obviously read, will give you a lot of tips and trics. Just go through a whole bunch of in progress threads to give you an idea and a feel for the whole process. Make sure you've read most tutorials on the main site too and re-read them until you understand everything. Once all that is done is the time to start designing and putting your ideas to wood.

I love the bass, it looks very good. Keep up the good work.

Yes this is the right place to start building a bass. Your best friend is the search function. Search on the word "books" to start with and spend the next few weeks or months just reading up on the whole process.

As for funding their trial & error...I don't think so. I asked whether anyone would make a neck to my specs, if they don't meet the specs then I don't have it...as far as I'm aware that's a common practice. If it takes 5 attempts to get it right & costs the builder 4 times what they're charging me then that's not my problem.

As for Warmoth necks....no extended heels, no 25" scale, no rosewood necks

That's exactly where you'll find a problem. No amateur guy here will agree to that. Nobody's got money to throw out the window if they screw up a neck 4 times. Most likely you'll be asked for the funds before the build starts anyway to buy the wood and hardware for the project. We've seen our fair share of angry customers publicly yelling at amateur builders who couldn't get the work properly done and on time before. Do a search on this forum. You're better off looking elsewhere for a pro builder if that's what you expect to get for quality.

I've got two bits like that of two different diameter. I love those, they're from Freud.

Jon,

I didn't remember so I went and had a look and at the same time took a pic for you. So I just basically lower the router a bit and it's still on the straightedge. After looking at this I can tell you that my hardwood edge is 7/8" thick and the cutter area of my bit is 1" long. I took two passes so the cutter head wouldn't take too much material out at one time and risk chipping the neck.

Magni, thanks for the tip. The neck will be blended. I wasn't worried about nicking the back of the neck I was worried about nicking the small gap between the edge of the body and the front of the neck where the fingerboard is.

I've been thinking of doing it Erik's way for a little while but haven't got to it yet. Eventually I'll make permanent templates (in better material than MDF) that will have screw holes in them to do just that.

In the picture you showed, you're actually missing half the information. There's another clamp attached at the bottom of the neck. Those two clamps are screwed on really tight! There's nothing that's going to move them. I reposition them once or twice so I can get the whole lenght of the neck done. It goes pretty fast and the result is dead flat.

Even if I were using two clamps, I wouldn't be comfortable using a router pressing against a board that is clamped (I had my board screwed into the neck). If it were to slip, I would be kicking myself for days on end

I wouldn't try that with MDF, from what I've seen, it feels like MDF has a lubricant capacity to it. It slips easy. Plus it's a bitch to work with. I love that neck blank I've been using as a straightedge I was going to use it for my next bass but now I might keep it as a fancy-pants laminated straightedge. It's 1" thick and has been jointed flat on all four sides. It's great for these applications and doesn't slip as much as MDF. At 1" thick I know the bearing is not going to miss the template and ruin my workpiece.

This is why I hate MDF I've had that stuff happen to me too. I only use long flat pieces of hardwood these days to make the sides of the neck, I know there's much less chances of this happening.

I can't really tell why your bearing seemed to have chewed your template, I always have the template go thinner by about 1mm when I use a bearing bit on it but not as much as yours did. maybe someone else will chip in with an idea.

I guess the only thing you can do now is redesign the taper or scrap the whole neck. I had recent problems with MDF slipping on my headstock and had to redesign the whole thing. Not nice at all.

The Curtis Novak design wouldn't work in this case because P90 pickups are very thin, making the coil quite large. If you were to build something like that it would look more like a Precision bass pickup. They wouldn't fit next to each other.

I've got a feeling you already know that Russ, right?

My only reservation on that one is that the output of a coil is relative to its proximity to the magnet/slug. In that scenario the 2nd coil would be larger than the first and because of its distance from the center not react the same as the inner coil.

That's exactly what I was thinking. To top it off too, you would end up with a lot more wire in the outer coil than the first one thus making the output of the second coil higher than the first. Unless of course that you wind it to resistance instead of turns count.

Like guitarguy said, try it and we'll all learn from your experiments

Thay are indeed the Radio Shack type of nibblers. I got the same ones here that I modified myself to use as fret nippers. Have a look at post #10 in this thread to see my mini-tutorial on modifying one. They worked well for a bout a day. Now they're a pain in the ass to use, the fretwire gets stuck in the nipping part of the thing, ruining some of my fretwire.

I'll probably go with the stewmac one next time, or modify a Klein nibbler which is the brand stewmac uses for it's nippers.

My favorite fret crowning file, at the moment, probably sells for under $1.00

Would you mind enlightening us?

Which seller sold you this diamond file? I saw some ridiculously priced ones on Ebay going for $16. I'm just wondering if it's the same ones we're talking about.

I didn't remember that that one went off to Brisbane. I'm going to have to suck up to Dan to check it out.

A 1 inch purpleheart center is pretty wide considering your nut width is about 46-48mm. If you really use an inch wide of it you won't need anything else than just 1 truss rod.

Perry, let me draw your attention to the new "musical instruments" forum on the Aussie woodworker's forum. Have a look at the second post here for a nice luthier's workbench.

They sell these sjoberg benches in Australia at Carba-Tec. They sure look real nice but I definitely don't have $1000AUD for that same model you've got. It looks to me like I could build a duplicate for less than $500, my free time is worth a lot less than the leftover $500

Here's my cheap-ass bench. 3 layers of 17mm plywood top -51mm top- All coming from a 2400X1200 sheet. Pine legs and Tasmanian oak for the front clamping part. About $200 for the wood and a $100 carbatec vice. $300 is all I could afford at the time. If I would've known that plywood wasn't flat though, I would have used MDF or particle board for the top So that bench will probably become second fiddle to a second one made out of hardwood when I finally move in my new house.

Volute! volute! volute! volute!

They do look kick ass on multi-laminate necks

and speaking of not having "tools which will reliably mitre a 10° angle" here's a pic of my mitre setup, I'm sure you do own those tools

I'll assume since you went to Rona you're somewhere in Canada (is Rona even outside of Quebec?) I've found flush trim router bits at Reno-Depot if you've got one in your area.

Hey peter, your scarf jig is identical to my cheap-ass 10 minute jig too. How cool is that?

If your fretboard came off when adjusting your truss, it's more likely that your glue joint was weak in the first place. When you reglue it make sure you're using lots of clamps or a very good gluing setup.

That neck should have no problem going in a backbow, upbow or be straight with a double action rod.

Yes, we do love our bicycles here, must be because the weather is always great for riding them everywhere.

Great weather? I wouldn't consider 11 months a year of clouds great weather I'd say the bike thing is because the land is super-flat so it's easy to ride anywhere and the country is too condensed to switch all those bikes for cars (nowhere to park) Ik heb 6 jaren in Den Haag gewoond.

In case you issed it RGGR who posted about the bikes is also Dutch.

Are you guys going to finish the prototype or just leave it this way and start on those two basses?

So far the work is really nice and so is the design. Keep it up.

I found a nice schem I like on guitar electronics.com but I'd like to modify it somewhat. I've got no idea at all how to do it. Can someone push me in the right direction?

I want to drop the 1 on/on switch (SW3) and the pickup selector and put a blend pot in place