Andyjr1515

That neck has come out beautifully!

Best way of kicking off doing something better is by ripping the old ones off and THEN worrying about how I'm going to do it. I carefully scored round the exterior to try to minimise wood or varnish chips and then used a soldering iron on cool (200 degrees C) and a small chisel to break through to the wood: ..then ditto the other side: I will be setting in some ebony to continue the dark heel strip and then some cross-grain maple. It will still look like an infill but hopefully will look more like it's supposed to be there.

I think if there ever needed to be evidence that the bridge bushings were an afterthought, it might be this: In the meantime, I have added the rebate strips to the hatch: The cover is too thick and heavy to be able to use magnets but I will be able to fully sink the screwheads in below the cover surface. While I'm waiting for the EQ to arrive, I'm going to have a good long hard think about those horrible ivoroid strips. There have to be strips of some sort because they are hiding the erroneous join...but I'm thinking maple at the moment

Great sounds and fine playing! The guitar looks really good indeed.

I like the shape and grain patterns very much. The neck to body transition is particularly attractive. Things I would now be considering at this stage, if they are not already covered, are How much drop can I achieve at the headstock from the nut to achieve a decent break angle With a (presumably) zero neck angle, what type of bridge will I be using How and where to drill the control routes (or maybe you channelled out the bottom oak piece before gluing it?) I look forward to seeing this develop. If it comes anywhere near your first build it will be a corker

...and a few dribble stains...

Now this is the bit where @Prostheta and a number of the others hold their heads in their hands, screaming, "Nooooooooooooooooooo!" Based on that we now have a fully playable instrument, the owner has asked for a control panel at the back so that in the future he can experiment more easily with alternative pickups, etc. The starting position is going to be present pickups but plus a 3-band powered EQ - which I have confirmed can probably be fitted the 'usual' way, but he prefers the additional access. I don't know if you remember the ES-339 I did a while ago? This is one of those cases where I have to stress the "please don't assume this is the way to do such a task - all I am doing is describing how I personally tackled it." cautionary statement. I cut a paper template the right shape and size, checking that it isn't going to be overly visible through the f-hole: It's the one and only task I use the Dremel wibbly-wobbly router base for...simply because it has provision for a ring guide that the precision base doesn't. It's a 1.5mm bit. I would prefer to use a 1mm for minimising the resulting gap between cover and body but this task is no time to be having to swap broken bits: I attach the template very very firmly with heavy duty 2 sided tape and clamps. I will be doing around 10 circuits of the template so this mustn't move at all. With the bit retracted, I also simulate running the router round the template a number of times - this is no time to have to change your grip halfway round! Then first very light cut: I repeat the procedure, dropping the bit around 1/2mm at a time until I get an initial breakthrough: I then go VERY carefully. Ideally, I want a short bridge to be retained so the cover doesn't drop in and catch the router bit. I cut that final short bridge with a razor saw: And it's done

I love the look of that all round I like the lines very much indeed and personally LOVE the colour.

Very nicely done

Yes - very much 335 style. The central block missing the bushings is clearly a c**k up. There is no doubt in my mind that if it was recognised during the build, at the very least the extension pieces would have been full depth of the centre block. As it is, they are small blocks only just thicker than the bushes length. Pretty sure they were indeed retrofitted through the f holes. Nice wood, as you say

Well....there is green slime coming out of the f holes now you come to mention it! Seriously, I'll have a peep at the cheap endoscope market - for an acoustic it would be an absolute boon! I'm happy with the bushes on this as long as it's a vertical load - I'll draw a cross section of the construction I get a moment - it's a solid top glued to a solid centre-piece plus the maple blocks. From a transfer of vibration, it's as close to a solid-body as you can get without the pesky centre-block having been a touch wider in the first place. Pretty impossible to glue and clamp anything fed through the f-holes and no possibility whatsoever of removing the top. Sounds pretty good too

OK - we now have a fully functional bass. Intonation spot on, relief OK, holding tuning and -although unquestionably long-scale - comfortable to play even for vertically challenged folk like me Here's how it's looking: I'll keep an eye out for a trapeze with a slightly wider string spread to try to get slightly straighter runs, although on a bass this is probably less critical. Now we have a playable bass, next comes adding a control hatch (yes, really!) a powered EQ and doing something about that horrible ivoroid cover strip at the neck join.

They will be absolutely fine, Carl. Remember that there is now only downward pressure on them - no sideways or twist at all. If you think of, say, a Les Paul, the stop tail bushes are a very very tight fit but usually you can pull out the bridge bushes very easily indeed, even though with these you are applying side pressure with string bending. As long as they are in the right position and don't rock they are doing their job. Mind you, in terms of the maple block extensions that the bush holes are drilled into, I spent quite a bit of time with my dentist's mirror and a torch making absolutely sure

OK - still got to check the measurements with some real strings in place, but I reckon this is a winner: Still probably need to plug and re-drill the holes (I say probably, because the new bushes are slightly bigger and would snugly fit in a reamer-ed hole) but I should be able to string this up later today to make sure it is all sound before the added cost of the next steps, more of which anon

Yes - but still a bit weird. Because the bridge assembly itself also has intonation screws, you would need to sort the position before you could secure the stop-bar. I think what you say is the only practical explanation but still a bit of a weird design! And how on earth would you be able to set or adjust the bridge height? Very odd... Absolutely it has. This is a bit shocking, regardless of how the gap got there in the first place. As I say, this is a notable builder (and was already, 25 years ago) and many aspects of the build are reflective of that.

Hi, @a2k Yes - it's a very nice bass. Very high spec, in spite of the one or two issues. Ref the acoustic advantage, I agree - I don't think there is any advantage in perceptible terms. How Stuart, the owner, has described himself, of 25 years ago when he commissioned it, is as 'young (21) and foolish'. He says he had read something about maximising the waveforms in the neck itself on the basis that the longer the neck, the better would be the sound. While there maybe something in this bit, I think we would all agree 'not at the expense of being able to play it!' Reading between the lines, I suspect the builder had to compromise a number of times during the build Ref the tail-end button, yes - that was originally going to be my next step, although further round the side rather than at the back (I find back buttons problematic whatever - they tend to tip the instrument forward causing other issues). However - and by total fluke - the one change to the heel COMPLETELY cured the playing position. Stuart thinks I'm a genius. I think I am a lucky b*****d!

Just to clarify, by the way, the reported 'very high bridge' wasn't in the end anything to do with the potential height adjustment of the bridge, it was simply that the bridge was being pulled and tipped forward and the bushes pulled out by the strings. It's lucky for the owner that it didn't shoot out like a trebuchet!

In terms of the bridge placement, alternative placement of the bridge or standard stoptail doesn't help because the bush centres would still be outside the width of the central block. Subsequntly, a bush based stoptail would need some wood adding to the sides of the central block, positioned and clamped through the f holes. The carved top and back is fully glued top and bottom along the full length of the block and so isn't possible to remove without destroying the instrument. I think a trapeze stop tail will work and, because of the style of the body will look OK. Keep posting the thoughts, though everyone....there is usually a better way of doing things than I naturally incline towards

I did, but in the end moving the strap button was a lot easier . With the moving of the button to the neck heel, it's now perfectly playable, sitting nicely on the strap and everything in reach. The thoughts of a tidy up of the neck joint is purely aesthetic to get rid of that very unsightly ivoroid strip that just looks wrong.

I REALLY like the contrasting cutouts. Very classy !

I also would go for a recessing for the bridge. Warwick basses do it as a matter of course. The retro work I often end up doing also calls for it on set and through necks - this one recently needed to be massively recessed to the point that you had to de-string it to set the intonation! Had to also recess the stop-tail, too to get anywhere near a decent break angle. Still worked OK, though :

So onto the bridge. What Stuart reported was that the bridge sat very high and at an angle. It's a slightly unusual stop-tail bridge (German made - not quite sure whose) and you can see here that it's been digging into the body: The cause of that - but not the root cause of the issue - was quite easy to work out - the bushes were very loose in deformed holes. Both bushes just lifted out. You can see the gap between the hole and the bush here: The root cause, I believe, is two-fold. Firstly a basic design/installation flaw in the bridge itself. The stop tail slots into the bridge: But there is much more distance between the ball end and the bushes than a normal stop tail. With the strings here being angled, there is a significant twisting force on both the bridge and the bushes. Now - although I can't work out how you could install such an arrangement - it is notable that there are a couple of threaded holes at the back of the stop tail that presumably are intended for it to be screwed somehow to the body (as I say, can't imagine how that could ever be done, particularly as the bridge itself has lateral adjustment screws - certainly not possible on this type of bass): The additional root cause can only be seen properly with a dentist's mirror. The stop tail bushes are wider than the central maple block. You can just about see here where the drill used for the bushes holes has caught the side of the block: To ensure the bushes have got something to drill into, there are small maple blocks glued either side. However, with the best will in the world - and that enormous twisting load on the bushes - the holes are likely to distort. You can see gaps and cracks in the bush hole sides here: The solution in theory is: Have the bridge as just that - so that the only force on it is downwards. Install a separate stoptail. However, this can't be a Tune-o-matic or similar, because of the same problem - the bush centres would be wider than the central block I did some thinking and measuring and think I've come up with a practical solution that will also look right - an archtop-jazz style trapeze stoptail and a standard t-o-m bridge. The latter will fit within the cicumpherence of the original bush holes , plugged with walnut and re-drilled and will be fine because the side and twisting forces will have been eliminated. The bits are on the way - I'll update with pics when they arrive.

Actually, the project is just my cup of tea. Lots of 'how the heck am I going to do THAT?' moments to come, I'm sure I'll come to the bridge in the next post - I think I have a solution that might work and have ordered some bits for it. The neck join....hmmm. Based on the fact that, in many other respects, this a very high spec build - and one by a deservedly renowned luthier at that time (and still around), there is one of two possibilities : a straightforward miscalculation of the heel position. It is exactly one fret out. a 'cut the losses' after a further customer request in what was probably a very difficult build I say that advisedly. Stuart, the owner and original commissioner admits freely that at - then - 21, he was a bit obsessed by articles about resonance, scale length, and pushed for a number of things the luthier advised him against, including an extra-long scale/length or neck. Maybe there was a further push to extend the scale length once much of the hard work and cost had already been put in.... As it happens, it is a standard 34", but feels much longer because of the forward positioning of the bridge. The surprise is the exceptionally ugly fill-in. I would have thought some matching maple strip would have been much more in keeping and I may (depending how brave I feel) offer to try to do that as a retro because I know it bugs Stuart immensely.

Interesting video @Tim37 Not sure this is the cure for the red bias on my slr but actually might be worth a try not for the high cri fluorescents he talks about but actually the greenish hue domestic ones! The basic problem is the ccd chip in the camera. For astro work, Canon actually sell a version of their slr with a specific change to the chip filtering. Costs a fortune but tackles the red bias which can be really problematic when you are photographing such faint iridescent gas clouds. i will give fluorescents a go, though...thanks for the lead