mistermikev

just a little thought... if you need to mass relabel things... there are a few free programs that make that really easy. I use builkrenameutility, or used to, to name cut up samples. it has a number of ways you can add patterns and stuff. just a thought. also that headstock - love that shape. very nice.

great shape. interesting idea... I would not have thought this would work as acoustic. already making future plans! can't wait to see the finish line.

that's always good advice on everything, I am not familiar with that unit of measurement but I will do my best!

Hello and thanks andyjr. can hardly wait myself! I am thinking of trying some watco danish oil on this one. night before last I glued on the fretboard - shout out to lmii - I asked for 'as consistent as possible, as dark as possible - in that order of importance' and they really cam through. The fb is as dark brown as it could be without being black! Zero light streaks on "west-african gabon" ebony. very pleased. last night I routered off the excess fretboard and sanded my little curve in the heel part of it. looks pretty good but drapes don't match the carpet yet - will be applying a piece of maple burl to the headstock this weekend if all goes well. pics to follow.

that's what ALWAYS happens to me. If you remove the tape and get to the wires that's one thing... but once I'm at the point where I have to add wire... I've never been able to do it. I suppose a bright idea might be to drill two small holes in the bobbin, put a piece of copper wire through and use that to hold the pickupwire. then solder it. I freq use dummy coils and hubucker coils are nice and low profile so I've put them under another pickup in a bass. Unfortunately it's about 50/50 whether I'm going to succeed or just ruin another humbucker! cheers

in answer - yes avoid a ball of really fine wire when I get frustrated and proceed to dismantle a pickup! your last pic... that's where I've been... right there. if you break that wire at the point where it goes 'behind' the coils... it's over. Every time I've been at that point... and I tried to delicately wrap that fragile wire around some other wire and solder... I would break it. Damn you sausage fingers!!!!!! hair actually is harder to break.

well, for anyone who cares... I had a set of elephant ears at home and was able to flip them around no problem. Might be usefull info... should work the same for most. Don't think it will work for the ones I want as they look like they are sort of sealed in... but measuring them the small footprint will fit so - I'm a happy guy!

ok, so sort of a technical question... I am in love with some korean made right handed jin ho tuners - left handed are not available anywhere. I have a right handed bass neck with a reverse headstock. 1) They are open back. I understand I MIGHT be able to take off the gear, slip out the head, re-insert it on the other side. anyone do this? 2) They are pretty small profile so they MIGHT be able to fit without overrunning the neck side of the head stock. 3) Other crazy options: I have not drill ed the tuner holes yet... in theory I could simply move the machines 1/4" towards the end. I know, this sounds crazy. Med scale bass so... string length won't be an issue... might be kind of funny looking, but just a quarter inch? 4) stop being silly and order something else in left hand What say you?

funny, I'm reading this going "cool, it must have some sort of active circuit in it" pouring over the instructions and going "ok I must be missing something... I see no transistors involved in this at all". hehe.

very interesting idea. I have broken several cheap humbuckers trying to break them apart to use as dummy coils. Would love any advice on how not to break those damn delicate wires! was just trying to wrap them around a piece of wire and solder it so I could then tape them up... but time after time I would break the pickup wire and I would lose one end as it broke off right up at the coil and now I can't find it. anywho, cool beans!

well... we know that a neck that is sealed well on the outside tends to be more stable... I'm just wondering why I don't see folks using tru oil in the neck channel. You could tape off the channel and be careful to brush it on. was just wondering why that's not a thing.

so in response: I did mock up some colors but have decided to go natural. colors, once I got the color dark enough, sort of hid the beauty imo. Questions: 1) why don't folks seal the truss rod rout? It would seem like it would be a good way to add a little stability, then again I suppose once you toss some silicon on either end that is enough of a seal? 2) neck grain... so the piece I chose was obviously flat sawn and the grain does not run the length of the neck. I've heard mixed ideas on how this may be better as it allows the truss rod to do it's job easier, but am aware the age old standard is to find grain that runs perpendicular. Am I getting that right? so next time I want to look for grain that starts and finishes on the top/bottom? progress updates: finished thicknessing my neck... rough cut the profile and routered it. built a jig for the truss channel and routed it. screws made it a simple job to line up the blade right inside the lines. loosen one and tighten the other and voilla. truss rod fits like a dream. not tight, but can't move around at all. not my best work on one end... need to get better with a chisel... did the cut for the "fretboard stress relief thingy" by hand w router and chisel. (was gonna go out the other side but in the end decided heal adjust so had to fit the additional square bar there). I guess I've got a little spot for some silicon! it's not too bad, about a 1/16th of space on one side. cut some slight reliefs for my controls... did the control cavity cover and 9v battery compartment I know I know... had a piece of mahog and figured I'd use it. perhaps w a little light tobacco stain it will match better. very happy with the fit tho.

hate to focus in on what is a trivial detail in the face of so many stunning examples of great craftsmanship but... just wondering if those pickups are just veneer glued to the top of a sealed pickup? really is a nice touch.

wow, lovely top. that is quite the flame.

def good advice: will do.

yeah, about that... I'm not decided on what I should do... perhaps if I work it out here in text it will come to me. So I have a west african ebony fretboard on the way. I was planning on taking a piece of leftover from the top and planing it down to about 1/8" and overlaying the headstock and doing a nice 1/8 round on it. I was planning on using other scraps to make some fret markers. I think what I'd like to do is to tape off the walnut and just do clear over it. then dye the burl medium blue and sand it back in hopes of just getting light blue veins. The difficulty is... how is that going to work out on the fret markers and ebony fretboard. I will likely need to dye the fretboard black. so I guess I should do that before doing the fret markers... then dye blue over it after the fret markers are in and sand back. I want the fret markers to match the body and headstock but am not exactly sure how that plays out best. then again the lovely cream of this burl would really look nice all natural against an ebony fretboard. I'm not sure if the burl will stand out enough without some sort of dye. perhaps instead I should go with a light tan dye and sand back? any thoughts and ideas appreciated. what would you do with it?

so started on my neck this weekend... just started planing it down. below a shot of my planing rig. got my body all buttoned up.

wow, that really does sound acoustic. the mm majesty and parker fly all have similar. with a piezo, controlling the highs cutoff point through the circuit would probably be crucial as w a guitar oriented circuit it would likely introduce all sorts of unneeded noise (if used for bass). will have to do some more research on that point. perhaps pull apart my ibanez and try to reverse.

right on. I have a piezo in my ibanez ergodyne that sort of got me into it. It is a very bright crisp sound, and I'm not sure I'd want it on its own, but mixed with another pickup it sounds pretty good. I figure... if I'm going to go active anyway... and if I'm going to that type of bridge - it might be fun to diy it.. I'm very confident with building preamps. I've built many. 7 of my current guitars have everything from musican bass/sabre clones to lakeland/fender deluxe clones, jackson mid boost, alembic stratoblaster... the list goes on. Just another of my hobbies. afa connectors... I've never done that. Always just figured it's easy enough to solder something else in if I change my mind. I generally test things out pretty good on a test harness first anyway. speaking of which I just put in a 9v box in this bass. Got my roundover bit and rounded off my edges. Will post some pics again soon. cheers

too flat... so if I'm reading you right action would be too high then? Couldn't you just lower the bridge? Guess I'll just have to take your word for it - a shame to toss away your work... your stuff is really nice. I hear ya on the burnt it thing... if I screw something up it is like an obsession to obliterate it so I can move on and forget! I've seen that a few times with other woodworkers. "bury my mistakes"! did you do an acoustic electric bridge on that? do your own pcb/preamp? I was looking yesterday to see what was out there as I'll probably do bit circuit etch in the next 4 weeks and might want to add something like that in. I saw a few ideas but nothing I'm sold on trying yet.

both are so beautiful, but yes, the wenge one really catches the eye, but not going near the idea of fan fret any time soon. do tell prestheta... geometry? never heard of it. afa I know the neck is not an angled pocket... right? so I'm guessing fretboard was too high? multiscale was off? what was the downfall? afa carve... learn me... my thoughts were to get a 3/4 chamfer bit and then carve back from there with rasps? also, was thinking I would do mine as a neck through. build the three pieces, carve the inside cuts but leave the edges square, use a mirror pattern to gue them together. this is a ways off as I have yet to complete my first bass and my next will be some sort of reg guitar... but somewhere down the line. was hoping I could get a full size pdf with the layout/lines of the carves and the body and headstock shapes if you have it. mine was simply done in photoshop using a picture, the pen tool and then smoothing... so it's drifted from orig quite a bit.

not sure I follow? you don't play? you maybe need some 'the house on the rock' contraption? (if that's the case you can always send me your guitars to test play hehe!) or do you mean pickups ... that's another direction I need to explore... building my own pickups. It has been my experience that in most cases (pedals/guitar) you can buy stuff way cheaper than you can build... but you can build stuff 1000 times better than you can buy. It seems like pickups would likely be the same.

You mean neck plates? Guess I've just not seen that before. Can't imagine doing it freehand. am still on the fence about what I'll do there. might go for the sclupted/inserts for a bit more challenge, then again I never play above maybe 17 on a bass... and only if I'm playing zep's/ramble-on! ps I just noticed that you have built 'the next bass on my list'. a carl thompson. I'm a huge les fan and have been working on a drawing of his 32" bass. that bridge piece looks intimidating as hell! amazing. am going to have to give that thread a read through. any chance you would pity me and pass along any design docks? if not, I understand. I want to do a 32" 5 string version and have all sorts of ideas about an acoustic preamp/bridge. I've done some work with piezo on my diy elec mesh drum kit so... have some piezo ropes lying round I was using for ride cymbals.

so... some minor updates... here it is after routing the f holes, the pickup cavities, and the neck pocket... then after routing out my control cavity odd... after removing this material the bottom felt really light and it kind of made me think this thing is going to be heavy. funny how balance can hide weight. Should have picked up a scale to get the actual weight. Am debating if I should give it another pass on my router sled - at this point I'm at 1 7/8. could remove an eighth. also need to do a battery compartment and am considering buying a plastic one or doing it myself. saw norris's cool idea to inset the neck plate - might steal that.

find myself thinking "It's too bad I have all these great guitars". I can really see myself getting into this 'passion' but I suspect it's a lot like salt water coral, or pedals, or home built elec drums in that you can just toss money at it in so many different directions and find yourself spending all the time on the journey(building) instead of the destination(playing). (that's fine by me)