Gilmourisgod

Howdy all, long time lurker, first time poster (maybe second, I forget). I looked in the Downloads section, didn't see it. Been all over the net too, Lots of P-Bass body drawings, none of the neck itself, at least no free versions. Figure somebody must have drawn one, Actually trying to plot an MIM P neck into a different body shape, so I need something accurate. Any leads on either a .dwg or .dxf drawing appreciated.

Kill I checked out your work, amazing guitars, functional sculptures all. The multiple laminate necks and bodies are gorgeous. Wish I could afford to have you make me a bass! In the meantime, I'll hack along with my hobby guitars. I could get addicted to this easy.

Sorry you didnt like the shape, to each his own, I suppose. Any suggestions on how it could have been improved? The pickups are EMG HZB , apparently not made any more. They were original bass pickups for Steinberger basses, wired old school, before they switched over to snap connectors.

Thanks Workingman I've had a hard time putting it down since i finished it, I guess that's as good a test as any. I think a lot of woodworkers are turned off by the graphite neck (for obvious woodworker reasons), but it's impervious to temperature or humidity changes day to day, and the Steinberger tuners are a vastly superior system IMHO. The string is pulled in a straight line tension like a bow string, no twist, so it NEVER goes out of tune (well almost never). The criticism of Steinbergers back in the day was that they sounded too "sterile", which was probably accurate. I haven't noticed a big change in sound while plugged in, that's probably because of the EMG pickups. They tend towards the bright side without a real fat bottom or thick mid. Any suggestions out here for soap bar humbuckers that might sound better out there? They'd have to be the same size as these ones, I am NOT re-routing the pickup holes, enough pain invested there already. One problem: The 23rd fret (and only the 23rd) on the G string buzzes, not sure if that means the 24th is high, or the 23rd is low. I can't see any evidence that the either fret has lifted, no dents or dings in the frets. It did not do this on the old body. I tried re-tightening neck bolts in case it went in a bit cockeyed, no soap. Any suggestions to diagnose this?

Thanks psikoT In for the full treatment next time, a neck -through bass from scratch, so I'll go through the wringer. I feel like I learned a lot, tons of mistakes, carefully concealed for the most part. The neck part scares me, particularly the carving part, little to no experience with hand-carving beyond what i did for this body. Does gingerly nibbling away the belly relief with a disc sander count as "carving"? if so, that's about the sum total of my experience. Anyway, it was fun to build, and feels more alive in my hands than the minimalist original Steinberger body, sounds warmer acoustically too.

My first full body construction/assembly from scratch. The neck, bridge, and electronics borrowed from my old Steinberger XP2. The body is a solid slab of mahogany finished in watco Danish Oil, neck is graphite composite. Sounds and feels great, hope you like it. Constructive criticism welcome.

Curtisa, Yeah that's what I meant. Without the tremsetter, you can actually see the bridge move when you bend strings, and you can hear double stops go out of tune. The Super-Vee tremolo is supposed to act like a permanent tremsetter (without the "bump" at zero) because the leaf spring has "memory" at it's untensioned flat resting state, so it always returns to zero (supposedly). Someone seems to come out with a new fix for Leo's original brilliant but flawed tremolo system every couple of years, maybe this is just latest over-hyped solution. Anybody out there tried one? I like that it requires no modification and it has an adjustable whammy bar.

Has anyone tried the "Bladerunner Super-Vee" temolo? Looks like an interesting concept: http://www.super-vee.com/ It uses spring steel fullcrum instead of screws or posts. I have an MIM strat with a standard 6-screw tremolo. I tried all the well known methods to stabilize tuning, tusq nut, locking tuners, etc., but ended up having to install a tremsetter to keep it in tune when bending strings. It works, but introduces a noticeable "bump" in the whammy bar operation that makes it hard to get a smooth vibrato. I have no interest in dive-bombing, just want a gentle vibrato or slight bending effect. Suggestions?

Thanks Mike. I have some spare screws for this, actually just hex-head machine screws that I can cut down and grind to a point on the tool rest of my grinder. The machine screws won't be threading into the wood at all, so I guess I have a tiny bit of slack in the setup anyway.

Success! I built this one-time jig with beveled top and inside faces, set parallel to the tapered neck and centered via leveling laser, and re-routed the neck pocket, which is now a compound bevel, tapering inward on the neck pocket sidewalls top to bottom and front to back. The laser really helped, a cheap Sears model that can rotate to throw a vertical line that allowed me to line up body centerline, center neck heel, and center nut. I ended up cutting virtually all of the e-string side shim away, plus about 1/16" (hence the neck twist!), and leaving about 1/16" on the g-string side. The neck fits into the pocket with firm hand pressure now, dead nuts on center. Should I finish the neck pocket with Watco Danish oil like the rest of the body will be, or leave it raw? Having cut the neck pocket in dry winter conditons, should I worry about it getting too tight in humid weather? I have yet to drill the neck bolt holes in the pocket. The neck is all beveled faces and radiused edges, so it's really difficult to take accurate measurements off it to template the bolt holes. I was thinking I could use dowel centers or something similar set into the threaded brass neck inserts, drop the neck straight down into the pocket (the only way it can go in, given the compound bevel pocket) and then tap to mark the bolt centers. Suggestions?

I glued a couple strips of mahogany to the sides of the pocket and made beveled rails to let router ride along at the 7 degree bevel to match the neck heel. I have a top bearing pattern bit that will ride along the edge of the rails , which are also beveled. The trick is going to be setting up the rails parallel to the neck heel, which also has a slight taper from back edge heading towards the nut. I'll be cutting out most of what I glued in, but hopefully the neck will end up centered this time. A painful lesson in planning ahead!

I guess this thread should probably be in the "In progress" section. If the Administrator wants to move it, pleas feel free.

I guess what i was picturing was a set of rails either side of and parallel to the long dimension of the neck pocket, each wide enough to carry the router base. The rails would be beveled strips, thicker at the side closest to the pocket, and beveled to match the neck heel angle. This would angle a pattern bit to cut the right bevel. The bottom of the neck pocket is good, so I'd have to set depth on the pattern bit just short of bottom and chisel out the last little bit of glue-in strip. Has anyone don something like this, any suggestions or photos of a similar jig? Maybe I should trial and error on scrapwood until I get it right, then try on the body?

I have an original 1986 Steinberger XP2 bass, which had a graphite composite bolt-on neck and a wood body. I always like the tuning stability of double-ball tuners, headless design,and super-slim neck on this bass, but it always sounded a bit sterile. I started making this one-piece mahogany body for it a couple years ago, and the project fizzled when I ran into some roadblocks. I really want to finish it, hoping for some advice to move forward. This will be my first time posting photos on this forum, here it goes: This is a photo of the my original hardboard template, a plywood mockup, and the mahogany body as it stands today. I loosely based the design on an Alembic Mark King Deluxe bass, but adjusted proportions to my liking. The cut-out at the rear is for the Steinberger bridge tuner assembly. I had no idea how the balance would turn out with a headless neck, so I built the plywood mockup to test it out, balances quite nicely for seated playing, and feels good with a strap standing, which is just random good luck on my part. A couple more body shots: Here it is with the neck in loosely in place. The neck fits the pocket nicely, but the pocket is a little cock-eyed. Here's the painful shot, with a straightedge aligned to bridge and body center, the neck is out of line by about 1/4" towards the G string at the nut. Ouch! This is where everything came to a grinding halt two years ago. The neck heel has a beveled profile from fingerboard down to bottom face as shown here against a square. I didn't know how to go about routing an angled pocket, so I used a straight pattern bit, which leaves the pocket a hair too wide at the bottom if it's correct at the top, which creates little triangles of empty space along the bottom edge of the neck pocket. I had intended to infill these with a thin strip of wood or some mahogany dust and epoxy mixed to "bed" the neck into the pocket for full contact. It's probably a fat 1/16" of air showing. Saved the best for last: An evil gouge in the nut end of the headless neck. I nearly wept. Near as I can determine, the shiny black surface is just jet-black gelcoat. You can see the carbon fiber substrate below. I can easily get black gelcoat, but blacks can vary considerably, I'll have to experiment with it. Any advice on patching this as invisibly as possible appreciated. As I see it, I have two options to correct the neck pocket: 1. Glue in new strips of mahogany and re-route the pocket correctly with beveled walls to match the neck heel, no clue how to do this. My initial attempt must have gone awry due to inaccuracy in my template making skills, as I cut this directly from the template. 2. Gradually chisel,file and sand away enough wood off the neck pocket sides to straighten the neck, and then "bed" the neck in a mahogany dust/epoxy mixture. Any advice (no matter how brutal) greatly appreciated. I'd really like to salvage this one, the mahogany blank is lovely despite my screwups.

I used to own a 1979 Rickenbacker 4001 bass (my first bass!) and stupidly sold it in my callow youth. Now it would probably be worth $1500, and they run $1800-$2000 new. I've always wanted to make a copy for my own use. Rick is one of the few companies that seems to really ruthlessly pursue copyright on the design. I get a kick out of the "Chickenbacker" bass copies available through various shady outlets (Trade Tang, Alibaba Imports, etc). The name of the companies that sell them change every couple of months, must be how they stay ahead of Rickenbacker's lawyers, not that the Chinese give a hoot about trademarks or patents anyway. I wonder if they would bother to pursue a single one-time builder (maybe me) making a copy?