RestorationAD

That burst on the top looks tasty

23 hours ago, ScottR said:

What wood is that top? It is rather pale dry and looks like claro walnut when wet. Leaks like claro too.

SR

The absolute worst piece of Claro Walnut you have ever seen. 

On 1/1/2019 at 11:54 AM, ScottR said:

The control cavity must be seriously close to the edge of that thing. That's a phobia of mine-I always try for extra meat on the walls nearest the outer edge.

SR

One would think your brother was used to your sense of humor by now.....

sr

 

Yes it is close.

and my brother is a bit happier now. However when he finds out he isn’t getting it back...

22 minutes ago, avengers63 said:

some sort of moisture leeching underneath the perspex....

Epoxy. I filled some voids then covered it with wax paper. It will be flat when it is cured

5 minutes ago, Andyjr1515 said:

What glue do you use for the veneer, @RestorationAD ?

West Systems Epoxy.

titebond is ugly yellow and if you have voids in the wood the yellow fills the void in an ugly way

I looked all over the shop for something to use on the back of this thing and nothing was big enough. I had this wonky piece of purple heart laying around. I had cut several veneers out of it and what was left was not square... so I ripped another veneer out of it and sanded the leftover flat. It fit so well that I decided to try a new clamping method for the back. We will see how it turns out.

I put my vintage plane to work and used the removable center in my workbench.

Turned out great. The seem shows a bit but I really don't care. Sanded it flat and we are off.

Time to put a top on the old BTB. I have had this top laying around for years. It is severely warped and just not in good shape. I am going to epoxy it down and clamp it straight. I would never do this on a customer guitar but since it is mine it will be fine.

Next thing to talk about are necks. When building a thin guitar you have to be conscious of neck weight. Because the thinner body has less weight to counter a heavy neck.

Things you can do to combat balance problems.

Smaller headstock. 

Reduce the thickness of the fingerboard.

Use a thin "wizard" style profile with the neck

--

Brett

2 hours ago, Andyjr1515 said:

Fascinating, @RestorationAD !  Very useful information.

Any experiments with stacked 'noiseless' singles?

Yes and no. Yes I have built several stacked traditional sized Strat Single Coils and J Bass Single Coils. No I have never done them in a thin context as they are almost always taller than a stock pickup. 

No I do not like them much. Personally I would rather the pickup be noisy and dripping with "swag" and "voodoo" than be clean and pristine.

15 minutes ago, Andyjr1515 said:

Still on the subject of the pickups, the white wood Psilos bass above had yet another variation on the theme - individual coils.

The customer wanted the magnetic pickup (it has piezo also) hidden and so it basically had to come in from the back.  But he didn't want to lose the continuity of the through neck that fitting a conventional pickup from the back would result in (basically, the neck would all be cut away).

We had a think about it and he talked to a custom pickup builder, Martin Herrick, who suggested individual coils:

It didn't matter, for this solution, how wide they were so I could stipulate the maximum depth I could live with.  He arranged the polarities and the winding direction to at least give a passing nod to hum cancelling (and note each coil is shielded) and also adjusted the windings - and therefore the resistance - on each to match my configuration of the coil positions relating to each string:

I like the design of those pickups I may "borrow" the magnet concept from that design in the future.

A look at the height differences

A look at a traditional humbucker with a forbon baseplate (I can make them out of almost anything). For future models I am planning on moving to Garolite. 

It is pretty hard to tell the difference  between this pickup with flat baseplate and a traditional nickel baseplate.

This is probably the easiest conversion for non pickup makers as the baseplates can be ordered from Mojotone and swapped out pretty easily.

The thinnest decent HB I ever built is based on a design I borrowed from Tom Anderson (a hero of mine).  It uses .25" diameter A5 pole pieces for the magnets and custom bobbins I designed to help keep the profile low but allow enough wire to get into the higher K ranges (15K+). I still have tweaking to do on the design and probably need to make about 10 more to get enough data to make a nice range from clean to mean.  

For pickup materials (not winding styles or wire gauge or # winds) I would rate the order of importance to the tone this way:

1. Bobbin shape and height 
2. Polepiece length and material 
3. Baseplate and bobbin material 

So if you adjust the pole pieces usually you have to adjust the winds

If you adjust the bobbin height and shape good luck making it sound like some other pickup. I have always had to use trial and error and judgement. A lot of times adjusting the poles and the magnets in accordance.

Baseplates changes are subtle and hard to discern changes to tone.

Of course the higher output the pickup the less any of this matters... so all you monkeys running 18.5K pickups are not allowed to comment on anything I write. Work on your metal faces. 

Let's talk pickups in guitars because bassists are usually ok with wonky and strange new things. Guitarists tend to be afraid of change and want to sniff the hyde glue you used to set the neck in their 400 lb Les Paul Copy.

One issue is traditional pole pieces. They directly affect the magnetic signature of a pickup. Standard pole pieces are .75" tall. 

A standard vintage leg HB Pickup measures +/- 1.15" total depth. 

A new short leg HB pickup measures in at +/- 0.865" total depth

The shortest traditional HB pickup using stock bobbins I have ever built is +/- 0.63" in total depth. (Also would note they tend to sound very modern because of the 1/2" pole pieces. I used a forbin laser cut baseplate for this one but you can bend the legs on a short nickel baseplate, cut the excess, and drill and tap new mounting holes. 

The shortest custom HB I have ever built that still sounded really nice (and unavoidably modern) came in at 0.605" total depth. The particular pickup in question has custom bobbins and a custom baseplate.

John is right. I just measured 5 of my favorites and they are all around 1.25" thick with the thickest being my SG at 1.35". The big problem is I use a lot of push/pull pots and they need at least 1.25" to recess the control cover.

My favorite guitar (right now) is 1.1.42" at the thickest part with a good carve on the rest. Very comfortable. 

I have 2 early Parker Flys that are very thin and light. Great guitars. Very Proprietary. When I set out to design the S9 series I wanted a thin lightweight workhorse that could still use standard parts. 

I can build a pretty shallow HB if I wanted to go thinner and use burns mini pots. The import 3 way I like to use can be mounted in 1" with a recess cover. But I doubt you will see any substantial gains under 1.25" and you lose the ability to use off the shelf parts. 

Also the neck pocket becomes an issue if you get too thin. I use set necks (hate working on neck through) and you need a certain amount of surface area to glue to. 

1 hour ago, avengers63 said:

How many times have we all made up a string of BS to legitimize our preferences!

+1 < 1000

Very Nice. Clean lines you have there.

And I am afraid with this my winter break is over and progress will now slow to a crawl... Happy New Year!

I shaped the new outline. It is a bit like the original BTB outline just less "silly" looking. The horns flow more and less exaggerated. Bass designers love to over exaggerate curves for some reason.  Body turned out very balanced. In the last picture it is standing up on its own.

Decided to fill the battery box.

I have managed better but there is a veneer that will hide this.

Working on the old BTB. Because neither side of the bass is flat I needed to raise the center (original) section to bring the unruly sides I haphazardly glued on into line.

On 12/31/2018 at 1:57 AM, avengers63 said:

Ok, I'll bite.  Why would you angle the pup that direction? Traditionally, they're angled with the trebel side "down".

Cheap guitar is a good place to experiment. I like the aesthetics of it.  Also I have a strat where I pulled the "Hendrix" slant that turned out rather nice. 

"Voodoo"

I measured all my 24.75" guitars that I built. Then measured my 24.75" Gibsons and Ibanez and they all put the bridge humbucker at 24" to the back of the bobbin. The pickup is 24" to the back of the bass side bobbin and angles forward to match the bridge. Since it is a single pickup I wanted to see if angling the pickup helped add some mids to the higher strings. 

"Truth"

I doubt anyone can hear a difference and I like the look.

Cheers!

All over but the sanding...

I am going to angle the pickup. I measured every 24.75 guitar in the house and they all use 24" to the back of the pickup. For this I used 24" to the back of the slant. Then slanted the pup to match the slant in the bridge. "Voodoo"

The pickup route template uses 1/4" bit on the CNC so the 1/2" radius from the hand router was not enough. Luckily I have a 1/4" bit the right depth to use the shaft  as a template guide.

Time to set the bridge. I reduced the neck angle so need to recess the bridge.