bassman

Thanks for the tips and leads... What I have in mind is a red center, fade out to yellow, and then fade to green on the edges. I am particularly interested in doing this over a quilted maple bass, with stains. I think that if stain black then sand back- but not as much as one would usually do- it might work. I am just throwing around some ideas for a "reggae machine" I am building for a friend. The bass is based off of my hybrid headless basses, but with frets and magnetic pups. I will test on some scrap starting tomorrow and see what kind of results I can acheive, but I honestly dont have my hopes to high for good results with this color combo fade.

I have never seen a red, gold and green burst. Perhaps this is just because it would not look to good if done the usual way. I think it can be pulled off, if anyone has seen one or has a link to one it would be wonderfull. If I am so lucky, maybe someone can even mock one up in some program, I have no idea what is involved in doing so. Thanks for any links or pics.

Here is my second hybrid bass... Specs... cocobolo fingerboard cocobolo bridge, unbleached bone saddle one piece mahogany body bookmatched spalted maple top five piece neck- birdseye maple, bubinga,birdseye, bubinga,birdseye MOP side dot indicators Fishman Natural Matrix I undersaddle tranducer with active preamp rosewood volume knob straplocks, not recessed- in order to give it a "built in stand" body is grainfilled with epoxy and finished with satin nitro neck is finished with Sam Maloof's poly/oil ABM headless hardware - except for bridge quilted maple cavity cover I ALMOST FORGOT! It has a very low ZERO FRET... "OMG!"... and its fretless, well it must be cheaply made in China- oh well. Last time I said that the next one would be all shiny and glossy, I guess I lied. After comparing some tests of different finishes I just had to go with satin. It just looks more appealing to me, but still not as appealing as a poly/oil finish. Its not perfect, but my 50th one will be...

MLedbetter got it right... but if you cant or dont want to have it planed, then just make sure the surfaces that will be together are flush when gluing the "quarters" (two top pieces and two bottom pieces)together. So the back and front of the body would need sanding to make them flat, as opposed to sanding the glueing surfaces. There is a danger of sanding the glue surfaces improperly, leading them to be not glue properly due to curves be sanded into them.

Yes I like zero frets, and will still answer, but the really make a lot of sense for head less instruments where tthe string spacing is aleady set by the "headstock end" string retainer. Warwick use to have their nuts adjustable for the individual string heights. These days their nuts are adjustable at only two points for string height. I have considered using something like that for some time.

I must chime in here..... I worked for Dammann Basses for a little while(www.dammannbasses.com), some of those older basses used the lightwave system. They did sound pretty good, they had good solid lows and clean highs but they were lacking in the mids a great deal. Ralph Dammann told me that Lightwave had been bought by another company, but I really dont know for sure. Last thing I heard was that they were revamping their preamp system to accomodate for the lack of mids. I was interested in using them, but they did not overly impress me for the price, but at this point I prefer piezo pups or good old magnetic pups.

Im no inlay expert, but I would like to suggest that you try using some diamond files to neaten up the edges of the MOP, if you had done that it would have come out even better than it did.

when charging, consider your responsibility of the wood that you take into your hands, and the money you spent on your tools.

I am not challenging Scotts advice, it is good advice for oily woods. I do the same for cocobolo, but I have never wiped down bubinga before glueing and I have never had adhesion problems with it before. That doesn't mean YOU shouldn't wipe it down first, I just wanted to let you know that it seems to glue well and hold up well.

Here is technique that ca be used in some situations, use a template bit when it will not cut into the grain- if you get to an area where it will cut into the grain, then flip over your piece (or your router) and switch to a flush trim bit- in essence you are reversing the spin direction of the cutter in relationship to the wood grain. edit- for the record, I only use my routers when absolutely neccessary. I plan on using a robo sander setup when I eventually decide to spend some bucks on a big and solid drill press.

Hmm, my mahogany basses always seem to be the lightest basses I build. Then again, I do look for light mahogany when I look through the lumber piles. Route out some chambers inside of the boby for extra weight reduction. Or if you really want to take a stand and freak people out, make it headless. It may not "look balanced" but it sure as hell will be, and it will feel lighter than it really is.

Here is a Traben bass, they use metal not figured wood. It is also my understanding that the metal flames are a fused to the bridge- basically making for a huge bridge plate. Using wood though, you should definitely inlay into the top.

Both Home Depot and Lowes have them, but their's may be too big for you to use on such a narrow area.

Next time tape off every little bit of wood on which you do not want the glue to get on. Use some blue painters tape- it is easy to remove.

I just built a downdraft table with a 2'x4' peg boardboard top- a peice of carpet gripper (that allows airflow of course) goes on top of that to prevent scratching and provide some gripping friction. It is attached to a Delta 1hp dust collector-pretty loud. You need to reinforce the pegboard with a wooden grid underneath for stability. To quiet things down... frame the dust collecter unit (not the table) into a small room of its own, insulate the "room" very well, but leave an area for air to circulate back into the main room or better yet to the outside- yes the dust collector has to send its air somwhere. If sending the air back into your shop then point the (filtered) outlet up towards the ceiling, directing the "leaking" noise away from your ears. While it will still be noisy it does cut down on the racket significantly. Of course this means you will need a remote control adaptor to turn it on and off conveniently, but having one will lead to use the dust collector all of the time, not just for "big jobs", which benefits your health.

There was a thread on this topic in the very recent past--- try searching within the last month or two topics and you will find the info you need. Good luck.

Buy some used equipment- cheap but acceptable mixers can be bought from Behringer QSC would be allright for a power amp yamaha makes some decent cabinets- definitely get two

Go for it, As for the piezo pickup, I use Fishmans natural 1 on my basses and love the sound from them. Find a dealer and they order the piezo an extra 1/2" long (3" I believe). The highlander piezo is availble in very long lengths, as it is a flexible coaxial pickup, you can get it 20" long if that is what you need. Making an acoustic bridge with a piezo saddle under the bone saddle is quite easy- just take your time and make sure that the bottom of the saddle slot is dead flat. Another thing to consider is tring tension, if you use a set of strings with different tensions among them then the higher tensioned strings will be louder than the lower tensioned string (at least with a single piezo pup). Two ways two remedy this are to use perfectly balanced strings, or use individual piezo pups for each string, and each of those ha its own volume control so you can even all the strings out. Good luck....

my suggestion, get a book and read it... " Build Your Own Electric Guitar"... you will then hopefully know how to plan a guitar. After you know how to plan a guitar/bass then you can build one successfully. Just really make sure you know what you are doing before you start hacking away at the wood. Best of luck to you! 1/2 to small? make it a three string bass.

Forum is a bit out of wack these past few days.... I have built and I play fretless with only side dots, and have several more in the works right now. With a bit of patience and a decent ear that is all that is really needed, "fake frets" do seem like a bit of a cheat to me. I will admit that I am no pro fretless player, so they definitely would help especially in the higher registers of the finger board where there are no "small mistakes", I don't like the way they look, and I also dont want to learn to depend on them. Keep the updates coming man. I will also post some of my newer work as life permits.

lots of helpful info here... http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.ph...te=neck+shaping I like to use belt sander and a RO sander for the bulk of the shaping.

Thanks Doc, and oh yea, I love the abralon disks.

Thanks, I figured that was one possibility, however, even though I like satin finishes I still like them to be extremely smooth. I like at least 2000 or 4000 grit abralon finish, so I will give it a try.

Here is my ergonomic bass design... The headless design does not require a long upper horn for balance, but for ergonomic reasons the longer upper horn makes the bass feel even lighter (and it is damn light) and brings the lowest notes closer to the body, resulting in less stretching for the notes.

I am testing some satin deft... it looks great so far. I am familiar with the proccess of bringing a glossy finish up to its full potential, however I am not to sure how much of this process applies to a satin nitro finish. More specifically, after sanding out the oragne peel, how far do you guys usually take it? As always I will test it on my own and see how far I need to polish it before I stopping noticing any progress, but advice from those with experience in the matter is always reassuring and helpful.