bassman

I actually prefer the look of a multipiece neck made with several kinds of wood. In order to route the truss rod groove you can do it the same way as on a one piece neck, just glue up your pieces first. Perhaps you are concerned about tear out from the router because of the two different grains? You could always make it a three piece neck, routing the groove in the middle piece without having to worry to much about grain direction contrasts. I had absolutely no problem routing the truss channel in a seven piece bass neck, routing grooves for carbon fiber rods was also easy as pie, even though the CF grooves crossed the "seams" of the different laminated pieces. Peace, Ryan

A suggestion... If you trim the "striped" sides striaght then you can run them next to each other in the middle of the guitar giving it a streamlined natural stripe! Check out this link to see what I mean, I have a peice of bubinga that I want to use like this.... http://www.warwickbass.com/images/big_fnaj...ajazz2002-1.jpg I guess you have to cut and paste this link to your address bar. peace and good luck, Ryan

LGM, No I do not have one but I would like to get one soon... How wide of a blade do you use in order to get a cleaner "bend free" neck so that you dont have to sand the hell out of it afterwards? This is assuming you do not have problems with it cutting out of line. I suppose that i could use the same method on my accurate belt drive table saw... I am just a bit hesitant to put so much time into a multipiece neck, with several channels for carbon fiber rods and 2 truss rods, and then screw it up. But I guess I just need take my time setting it up and then go for it. John, That is my plan for when I make a headed bass, right now I am taking the headless route. While most people are hesitant of such different looking instuments they usually change their minds very soon after playing my bass, not only is it balanced perfectly but it is also very light (thin body-yet a nearly full size profile), the pegs dont get knocked and throw it out of tune, etc.

John, I would do that but I am building neck thru basses, and as you know the f-board is not nearly as long as the entire instrument. Derek, I might have to just go at it like you until in can afford to get either a ten foot edge sander or a nice joiner. I will tend to use very hard woods, rosewood, wenge, purpleheart, hardrock maple, bubinga ebony, and planing that stuff by hand will take a lo of time. That is not a huge concern when I am building for myself, but when I am building for someone else I do not want to put so much time into it that it is not financially beneficial. Thanks, Ryan P.S. I suppose I just need to come up with a way to buy a joiner. I am just looking for a way to do it more quickly without putting out more money, at least for the time being.

for those of you that will suggest using a router and template... I am building multilaminate necks-5 to 9 pieces each... and routing may be a problem for the switching grain directions between the differet pieces of wood Ryan

After building only one bass many people have seen it and now they want me to make them one as well... but I no longer have access to a full wood shop- I have graduated from the college where I had such priveleges. I used a bandsaw to roughcut the shape of the neck (the taper) then I used a 10 ft edgesander to make the tape exact. Since i no longer have a ten foot edge sander or a million bucks to buy one, I need a different way of making a dead one accurate taper. There must be a better way of doing this besides using a hblock sander (way too much work for an extremely hard neck), I know that using a joiner is possible, but what it the bast way to do this? Peace and thanks. Ryan Rice

checkout this website www.highlandhardware.com look for Sam Maloof's furniture finish, I used it on a bass that I just built. Sam is one of the finst furniture makers in the world, try to find oms epics of his stuff on the net, you can get a feel for his work/finish. The finish is one that he came up with himslef, it is very cool. Tung oil alone is hard to wipe on evenly, and watco (danish oil) is extremely dull looking. Sam's stuff is a mixture of boiled linseed oil, tung oil and poly it works very well, after 3 or four coats of that use his wax/oil finish for additional portection. It will not give you a thick layer like most finishes but it will protect the wood and leave it with a natural feel and give it a nice sheen, but not to shiny at all. Peace, Ryan

Who played the solo on "Call me al"? I have seen many spellings of his name but it is Bhakti Kumalo, he is certainly a fretless badass. He played bass for the whole album.

Yes his work will blow your mind, the curves in his pieces are just plain sexy...... in the limited sense in which furniture can be sexy... I lucked out, just a few minutes with some 600 grit took smoothed out the glue lines without removing the finish. Sometimes the solution is easier than you would think, although I still might add some additional layers of finish. Problem is that I do not want this bass (5 string) out of commision, I play shows all of the time (3 this week) and I want to minimize the amount of switching between 4 (my others) and 5 string basses. As I am sure you can imagine switching can be quite odd for a player that really never has to look down at what they are playing, it plays tricks on your perception, on the occasions when I do look down something like this goes through my head "what is wrong with my vision? how confusing, which string is which? is the riff rooted on this string or that string?" while i am getting used to it I prefer not even risk the disasters waiting to happen to a new 5 stringer, escpecially one how often switches basses... I would prefer not cscrew things up when I open for one of my all time bass heroes, Family Man. Peace, Ryan

I considered installing inlays, only in the "players view" paert of the neck, if you catch my drift, on my fisr bass. I decided to opt out of it since it was my first instrument, and a 7 peice neckthrough already. Still I would love to do it to another porject, maybe my next. I have already experimented with color changing LED's I have a "false button" on my first bass if I change my mind and decide to actually put it in, it just looked to classy with its killer quilted top and burled knobs to have a flashy light. Employing the color changing LED is something you guys might want to look into, you use it virtually anywhere, even in neck inlays. I have an LED that can either be green, amber or red depending on how you wire it, it has three leads- a common ground and two + terminals. If you wire the middle and one + side you get amber, if you use the other + side you get green, if you bridge the +'s then you get red. So if you wire it up for red and then use a mercury switch between the two + leads and place the mercury switch at just the right angle, the color will change from red to green depending on your level of excitement (dancing, jumping) during performances. If you had them on the neck you could could make it so that every other light was "reverse wired" with alternating colors. I have not put in the the time to figure it out, but it may be possible to get all three colors out of one light if several merc switches are used in tandem, of course you have to make sure of their position so that conlicting signals do not occur. Have fun with this one guys. BTW if they were on a neck side of fretboard how would you guys flsu mount them? You obviously would not want them to be sticking out as LEDS often do... PEace, Ryan Rice

Paul, I may have gotten carried away with this post... I have wondered about that to, its effects on sustanin that is... Just play it and you will find out. Even though there is not a large area of contact between the nut and the top of the neck there is a very solid connection between them via the set screws, with the pressure of the strings adding to this effect. Just think of the "floating bridge" that can be raised or lowered into the body, it is not in direct contact with the body, it is floating on some bolts, yet the conection between it and the body is very stable. Some guitars I have seen have the bridge and tail piece held place via two little metal rods set into the body, the string pressure keeps them in place, otherwise they fall out. We have to remember that the amount of contact does not increase sustain or resonance unless the "connection" points are very stable, and if you reduce the contact area you will not lose sound transmission if you proportionally increase the pressure (stability) between the parts. I would think that when you reduce the area of contact between a bridge/saddle or nut and the body/neck you are effectively keeping the pressure applied to them the same, however that pressure is distributed in a more concentrated area. On another note... has anyoone here built their own amplifier? I am learning about electronics in general and amp schematics from a book right now, I think it will be a blast to do. However, since I play bass I must deal with the hassle of building a much larger and more complex amp. Peace, Ryan Rice

paul, I have two warwick thumb basses (4 string fretted and 5 string fretless) they both have this same feature, it is called a just-a-nut, as in adjust a nut. Those allen set screws are not just to keep it in place they are there to adjust the height of the nut, it is sort of like adjusting the height of a jazz bass pickup. In fact they do not really keep it from falling of, the tabs on each end of the nut keep it from falluing off. On the older models the nut height is adjustable for each individual string, pretty cool eh? Just turn them clockwise to raise the height of the nut. If you have any problems with the bridge let me as the saddles are kind of weird if you have not adjusted them before, but they are extremely flexible in terms of adjustment, you can also use them to change the string spacing. Peace, Ryan

I finished building my first self designed/homemade bass several weeks ago it, it is pretty killer and will post pics of it soon, or send them to Brian for review.... Anyways I have noticed that the hide glue I used is has swollen a bit in a couple of places. You can now feel the glue line in many places between the 1/4" 5A quilted maple top and the mohagony underneath it. This problem has not shown itself between the mohagony body and the "bottom" of the body wings, which is about 1/4" bubinga. This problem has also not shown up in the seven piece bubinga/purpleheart neck or rosewood finger board. I finished the bass with a special mixture of boiled linseed, tung oil and poly that are all mixed together an applied with a rag, I used 4 coats. This mixture is used (conceived) by Sam Maloof who is one of the worlds top furniture makers, he uses only the best of woods, almost all of his work I have seen has beautifully 3D figured wood. Anyways, what might I do about this swelling problem? I am considering just sanding down the glue lines and then refinishing the bass with twice as many coats as I previously used.... Any suggestions? I know that hide glue is not to fond of water- but the poly should be sealing it and protecting it from moisture. Peace and thanks for the help, Ryan Rice I am quite excited that I will be using my first self made/designed instrument to open up for The Wailers in a bout a week- "Famly Man" (Wailers Bassist) made his first bass out of a bucket and a two by four around 1960, hopefully I could use our connection to meet this reggae bass legend.

I finished building my first self designed/homemade bass several weeks ago it, it is pretty killer and will post pics of it soon, or send them to Brian for review.... Anyways I have noticed that the hide glue I used is has swollen a bit in a couple of places. You can now feel the glue line in many places between the 1/4" 5A quilted maple top and the mohagony underneath it. This problem has not shown itself between the mohagony body and the "bottom" of the body wings, which is about 1/4" bubinga. This problem has also not shown up in the seven piece bubinga/purpleheart neck or rosewood finger board. I finished the bass with a special mixture of boiled linseed, tung oil and poly that are all mixed together an applied with a rag, I used 4 coats. This mixture is used (conceived) by Sam Maloof who is one of the worlds top furniture makers, he uses only the best of woods, almost all of his work I have seen has beautifully 3D figured wood. Anyways, what might I do about this swelling problem? I am considering just sanding down the glue lines and then refinishing the bass with twice as many coats as I previously used.... Any suggestions? I know that hide glue is not to fond of water- but the poly should be sealing it and protecting it from moisture. Peace and thanks for the help, Ryan Rice I am quite excited that I will be using my first self made/designed instrument to open up for The Wailers in a bout a week- "Famly Man" (Wailers Bassist) made his first bass out of a bucket and a two by four around 1960, hopefully I could use our connection to meet this reggae bass legend.

Please help me find out more about finishing this almost completed sweet-ass bass... I am building a 5 string, headless bass, specs (so people know what the level of sweetness I am going for on my first try a luthery)... seven piece neck thru-purple heart/bubinga neck with tot rod truss rod and graphite reinforcement bars, rose wood fretboard, master grade quilted maple top- concealing nech thru design, mahogony middle in body "wings", bubinga "bottom caps" for wings, 34.5" scale, 24.5 frets (end of board is curved), ABM headless unit, Seymour Duncan A JJ pickups with active 3 band EQ. Question? I am trying to decide what kind of finish to use on this bass, I like the natural oil/wax finish on my warwick thumb basses, but I want something a bit harder to protect the wood, yet I am not fond of a layer of lacquer being over such sweet wood. Some one has recommended that I try Sam MAloof"s (killer furniture maker) special formula for finishing, what do you guys think? here is the link for the info on that stuff... I would be using both the oil/poly and oil/wax concoctions... http://www.tools-for-woodworking.com/searc...sam+maloof&1=Go Peace and thanks for you input

I recently bought a piece of bookmatched quilted maple from northridgehardwoods.com . I am happy not only with the figure but also with the grain/ring orientation, the darker lines of grain have a burl effect to them. To the pint though, the wrong side of the set shows the most 3-D effect- even though it is more rough than the inside that I have sanded. I thought that sanding would help bring out the effect, yet the rough "wrong" side still looks much better than the inside. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I can increase the 3D effect some more? Besides geting another piece and/or staining it with different shades. Is there a certain way to sand it so that the "folds" will be as prominent on the right side as they are on the wrong side? Peace and thanks for the help.