Fluke

Ebay has EVERYTHING!! just check it every few days.

Well at least you have your in-laws backing you up. so whats your project anyway?

I'd go the nitro stains from www.stewmac.com . hey also sell small glass vials with "power-units" which they hook up to so you can spray without buying expensive spraying equipment.

Its actually a vintage bass humbucker. And actually pretty high output for the ohms, I have no idea why though.

Go for Taylor's "big baby", a truley awesome acoustic, only $400

would you make the template from plywood or Plastics? also I didnt really understand your decription of how you made yours (I'm tired and brain-dead right now). But my advice is to use a picture thats directly to the front of the body (no angle), maybe from an ad the company released. kind of obvious I guess?

I am curious as to what you have put together in your planning stage. Have you created drawings, selected and purchased wood and so forth.... I like to compair my process to others it usually helps me find better ways to get things done.

Well, while unpopular to many instrument builders, I have decided that for my first project I was to build an accurate remake of an RD Artist Bass (1977 model) which was overly complex and thus, wasn't around long (5-7 years) so they are rare expensive as you might guess. After going through a kind of "Nirvanabe" phase and seeing Nirvana's Bassist (Krist Novoselic) using the RD, I kinda "fell in love" with that basses punch and "growl," and when the nirvana phase went away, the love for the bass stayed. All that was kind of a pre-planning time.

But anyway, As said before, I've spent many many hours on the the internet looking for pics of RD's at different angles and with different finishes, And I was eventually able to find the body and neck specifications from a blurry picture of a gibson ad on ebay. I finally found the right bridge at www.allparts.com , but it costs $75 so I've been looking for a cheaper one. I bought the original circuit board from ebay (actives the compression/exspansion effect and a bright/lead mode, while the tone pots acts as an eq system and the volume pots act as pickup intensifiers). I have recently made a full size drawing of the body, but I have to go back and fix a few things, but its very close. I'm going to use hard maple for the body and set-neck, ebony fret board. Peg-head inlays (like the original) and lots more info on it that I can't recall on command.

It will prove difficult, as just getting info has, but I'm up to the challenge and would like to copy the circuit and begin making and selling copies of this bass as well as the guitar version, and hope for no lawsuites.

Thanks for the posts! But also, What do you use for cutting these things?

I think I'm going to need to make some templates, so I was wanting to know where any blank templates would be for sale?

I dont care about a 1 peice neck, it can be a million peices for all I care (not that many, but you get the idea). It just has to be maple. But I need a source for the wood too. And I dont know enough about set-necks yet. I already know where the nut is going.

I take that back....... just 34'' scale

I'm trying to build a set neck thats 34 1/2'' scale, with a 14 degree angled Gibson style peghead. The problems are finding the wood (theres all kinds of body blanks out there, but no good neck blanks) also I need some smaller peices for the head stock, a few good close up pictures of the gibson style set necks or a good description of how it goes together, and any other advice about angled headstocks and the like would be great. And whats a good glue to use? If theres a company who will make it for me at a resonable price, post me a link.

-Fluke

damn, no one knows?

I dont have access to any CAD programs. And It isnt as much work as it sounds , Speacialy if you demand it to be very close to the original. I just finished mine a few minute before making this post and am very happy with the results of my work. I noticed that all I ever did on these forums was ask question to help mself, never having anything of my own to contribute, so this is my contribution. Any body helped by this at all?

Hello! As I often see, Many people are plagued with the seemingling impossible (to them) task of making a template thats the right scale size. Diriving from other ways of doing this; I have made my own, which, for me, has worked better.

Stuff you need:

1. you are going to need a printed photo of the instrument you are trying to make. You will also have to know something about the specifications of the body, and if you cant find that out, you can use the scale length (from the bridge to the nut, I beleave) which you should be able to find either one by searching the net.

2. You will need a peice of paper big enough to contain the size of the body. If you can't get a single peice of paper that big than just NEATLY tape peices of printer paper together (tape on both sides).

3. A measuring tool is absoluely essential, wheather it be a tape measure, ruler, whatever you can accurately use.

4. A calculator definatley comes in handy.

5. A couple other peices of paper; for jotting down measurements is also a good idea to have around.

6. A good straight egde (optional)

7. A little math knowlege is priceless here

Procedure:

1. Once you have some kind of info on the specs; say you know how long the overall body length is; then you would measure how long the body-length in the picture is. Say, for example, the body in the picture is 4 inches, and the real body length is 20 inches. Your picture would be 5:1 scale (or is it 1:5 ?? doesnt matter about that i guess) because 20 divided by 4 is 5 get it? What this means is that all the measurements you take of the picture must be multiplyed by 5 (or what ever you determine the scale in the picture is). the same logic applies if you use scale length.

2. Once you know what that is it would be a good idea to find the other measurements (how tall it is, the smallest part of the "waist" of the body ect) using the same method.

3. Now that you know the length and height, I'd advise you to make a box within the paper of the using the length and height only. If you have excess paper, which is best to have at least a few cm's of, make sure your lines are straight by measuring the amount of excess paper of all four sides, maybe you should write them down, and make sure the line is straight by measuring the distance from the edge of the paper to the line in several places and "eye-ball it" at an angle to see any curves and straighten them out. Do this with all sides individualy. Also do this on picture.

4. I would say it would be a good idea to mark at notable areas (highest points, longest points, slimmest points, cutaways, and any other place you want to mark) by measuring (on the picture) how far across from a the closest corner of your box, multiply that by the scale size (the example was five remember) then measure the multiplyed number to the bigger box and mark it on the line. Then, do the same with the height to know how far up to mark. I've been working on doing this in many place so I could have a sort of "dot-to-dot" set up. This is alot of work, just a warning. but if this is something you really want, it will prove worth it.

Well that's about it. Hope-fully common sense can continue where I left off. But if I havent made some of (or all of) it clear enough please point it out to me. By the way, any request to sticky this post would be appreciated.

-Fluke

Its not the work itself im worried about, its the parts and body shape/peghead shape that has driven me crazy. I have the ability to buy most of the parts now, though.

I guess I'm the type who has to have everything perfect, because my bass has to be, well... Perfect. But how long does it take you guys?

Hi. I was wondering about how long the planning phase of a project guitar or bass usually takes. I've currently be planning for at least five months of pain-staking spec research and countless hours upon hours of serching for the right products, and I havent purchased ANYTHING toward it until this morning. Is it a good sign of success when the planning phase takes so long, or is it pretty much wasted time I should be using to work on it?

Hi there, If found a rare pickup I need for my project bass on ebay. But the seller doesnt know what position its supposed to be. I was wondering how one could tell them apart. I'm thinking its a neck pickup because its a soap bar and only 5-6 Ohms.

use maple or alder

Post Removed by: Fluke

Well none of this is carved in stone, so-to-speak. What would you suggest I do. I'm at one of those times where I am pretty much insane, seriously. so kinda spell it out. Are you saying I should leave out the effects. Do them differently. or use different effect combinations? I haven't heard any bad sound from these baby's. After seeing Krist Novoselic (Nirvana Bassist), When they were playing a song called "breed", I noticed to expanion/compression having a very attractive and "bouncy" kind of sound. And they all have excellent abilities to be heard over guitars (probably more of a humbucker thing though)

Well the situation here is that i'm probably going to use two 4-string mightymite soapbars, actives are $35 each and passives are $20 each, So price is not an issue. And I'm really probably not going to wire them myself. So what would be the best choice?

Its kinda funny how we perceive the availability of woods. Here in North America we have maple growing out the yinyang but its considered "exotic" in other parts of the world. Vice versa for wood like mahogany. Just an observation, .

Seems like a good business opertunity.

I donno, should I use white or gold?? I'm also thinking of inlaying "Spears" (my last name) over the F, But it seems "dangerous." Any thoughts?