scottyd

Well heck I was hoping to see you go with the full walnut top This still looks very sharp! Nice work so far, I can't wait to see that scarf joint on the underside.

Cool build, this promises to be very nice, one question though, why don't you build your own neck?

Edit: Also the link to Soulmate is wrong.

Using my drillpress as a lathe I made some poplar knobs tonight. They are coated in satin poly.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v626/sco.../Picture066.jpg

The bridge pickup looks slanted in this picture. Was that intentional? Either way, I like it.

Are you going to share your tuner design? I'd love to see the plans, but I understand if you want to keep them to yourself.

Yeah the pickup was intentional, kinda an experiment if you will. I have a thread about the tuners at another forum heres a pictorial. This is just the tuner part. You would need a stand alone bridge to work with these. The ones on this current bass have built in saddles and intonation.

Ok heres goes, any questions just let me know, I think its all in order, the pages are numbered 1-12.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v626/scottyd/1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v626/scottyd/2.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v626/scottyd/3.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v626/scottyd/4.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v626/scottyd/5.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v626/scottyd/6.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v626/scottyd/7.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v626/scottyd/8.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v626/scottyd/9.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v626/scottyd/10.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v626/scottyd/11.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v626/scottyd/12.jpg

Purple like the top, hoping this will make them kinda disappear.

Here's some more pics of the "Prince bass" as the wife calls it. This thing plays very nice. Im very pleased with the bridge/tuners. The neck still lacks a finish I can't decide if I want to use satin or gloss finish on it (It feels nice just the way it is, too bad I cant leave it:hmm: ). The fiber optic setup still needs done, I might do that tonight. The pictured pups and covers are coming out. I will build some new covers to better match the maple top. Also I Im going to wind my own pups because one of these is dead and the other just doesnt do it for me. Its something Ive been wanting to do forever but have been putting it off. I can't complain about the Bassline pups they are used. They sounded good in an older bass of mine but sat in a box for along time before I decided to use them again. Apparantly when you leave pups in a box you should seperate them from one another....:rollno: Oh well you live and learn. Im considering winding a set of thinner humbuckers. Wonder if this is possible, about the size of a soapbar would be great...Any thoughts are greatly appreciated.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v626/sco.../Picture053.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v626/sco.../Picture058.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v626/sco.../Picture056.jpg

Here in Waco we got nothing, the only wood Ive been able to buy locally for a project was some poplar I used for a body core on a bass, got it at home depot. Ive gotten alot of cocobolo, purpleheart, walnut, paduak, ect from Rockler.com. All figured wood comes from mostly ebay.

+1 Very good wording, this site has gotten to be almost (almost!) not even worth checking out on account of these peoples attitudes.

http://litchfieldguitars.tripod.com/home/index.html

p.s.

Whatever happened to KrazyDerek

Maybe he got a real life and stopped hanging around here.....

HOw is it constructive if you just point out the mistakes in a hee hee look at that type manner? Where is the advice on how to do better? Seems to me we have a few pros around that want to be the only few pros around.

I think I would leave the neck showing just in the back. The walnut is too nice to interupt and the neck will still be visually striking from the rear.

Very nice!

THats what im talking about!

How do they work??? are they magnetic or mecanic? All the guitars that I haved played with piezo are the one that have them on the saddles!!!

They dont contact the string at all. They translate vibration via conductors and chrystals, they have many purposes, they even use them for drum tiggers. There are no magnetics involved. You can put them in a saddle like a parker, under a wooden bridge like on an acoustic guitar, on the underside of a sound board in a horn ect.. For the most part under the saddle or bridge would probably be the optimum spot for the pup on a guitar for high and mid freq purposes. This is not so important on a bass you can mount them anywhere the vibration is and get sound. You have to use an active preamp with them so its no big deal to boost the signal to make up for volume differences wherever you mount it.

Ain't piezo pick ups suppose to be in contact with the strings to translate the sound?

Not at all.

I like it! Im glad to see some update on it. Little mistakes here and there only make us better. On those side dots, I think I would replace them with some oversize ones.

Opinions?? Ok, you asked...

Where are the pickups going to go?

You should really try reading all his posts......

I think its a cool design, It has a Double Bass feel to it, but then again I like something more than your run of the mill Jem Jackson Tele and Strat ripoffs. If you use the piezo under the saddles and one in the horn that would be a first I've heard of that being done. Should have a great range of acoustic sound that way. You should chamber the horn! On the body I would smooth off the lower horn where it meets the neck just to make it flow a little better. I think you can round this area out and still keep enough cut-away to access the third octive. Oh and to keep with the double bass theme you really need to put a deep scroll into the lower horn. Or redesign the headstock with one, that would be pretty neat.

I usually use House of Kolor high build poly with a gun, but since this bass is being built on the cheap this particular poly is Minwax spray can. I applied it like this: 4 coats 10 minutes apart, let cure, wet sand flat with 1000grit, 4 more coats 10 minutes apart , cure, wetsand 1000grit. Its currently at this stage, After it cures this time it will get 8 succesive coats (really wet ones;) ), cure, wetsand progressive to 1500 grit, buffed, polished, glaze, wax. The minwax takes a while to cure well enough to sand so that sucks, (House of Kolor is good to go in 24hrs) But on a positive note it seems to recoat good and "burn in" well. Ive done instruments with the minwax before and it seems to hold up nice, takes forever to fully harden though.

Heres a few more pics with 8 coats of poly and the hardware laid out. The hardware worked wonderfully during mockup. really smooth and intonated great. The neck will get 4 coats of satin poly and I will wetsand the bass and spray another 8 coats when its cured. (A few days) In the meantime I'll set up the electronics. Since budgets low this will be a dual volume/ dual tone setup with stacked tone knobs, a Neutrik locking jack and of course the Led setup for the fiber optics..

another view

tuner view

Heck yeah, and add some venner lines around them to give it some flash and then lay down the claim that it was meant to be like that! Heck who would ever notice a few more venner lines on an Alembic?

I wish i knew, poplar tends to change colors. I noticed it when I built my fretless five and the poplar was white unfinished and turned a light shade of tan with poly. I know all wood will change color some but poplar seems to go all out with it. My best guess for this one is maybe it had something to do with the minerals.

Oh and just for the record the $200 budget was meet with the poly for finish. I still lack buying pots and a jack so Im over about $10.00........So far

They are human!! I knew it.... Thats what you typically see on handmade basses in my shop . I agree on the screws. But as far as the control cavitys Im thinking that as long as the wood is as expensive as buckeye the mistakes would have to be rather fubar before it would be scrapped for such minor flaws.

Yeah Im afraid to admit but purple is my favorite color and being the neck is about 95% purple heart I found it fitting. My only gripe was that the purple that was in the poplar turned to golden gray color.

A little bit of sealer.

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