mistermikev

nice job.

thank you!!

"Perfect is the enemy of the great" is the theme for the weekend. So given that this bass has a very long fretboard/neck... and I will be cutting both in two stages... important to get my materials planed as flat as possible. 110 degrees this weekend so 20 mins in the garage and I'm drained and drenched. adjusted/leveled my planed rigorously, and built a new feed sled. so i took some 3/4 purpleheart, sapele, and oak and some 3" mahog... resawed and planed them down as stock for 1) a fretboard for my prototype in oak, 2) multilam of sapele/oak/qtr-sawn mahog for my prototype, and a fretboard blank in purpleheart for my final build. havent decided yet... but thinking just a couple of strips of oak lam on the outside of the sapele and between the mahog here: my oak has a little tension in it... could change my mind and add another oak strip in and put some lam between it... thoughts? the sapele... just lovely stuff imo. note to self use more of this as it smells just wonderful! left oak fretboard, right on bottom is the purple heart fretboard. and the evidence: man glitter everywhere...

thank you, really appreciate it!!

thank you very much!!

thank you... really enjoyed: "Two troubadours travelled the terrain with twin Twangmaster Tele's while telling tales of triumphant times in Tacoma's taco house". greatest hits album.

thank you biz!

thank you Mike! Very much appreciate it and all the guidance!

Happy to help.

I'm guessing you started from the ledge side... you could start from the other side to prevent it... but honestly given that it's on the top of the guitar... a little sanding and fine. I'm no bandsaw expert but when you are trying to make a straight cut generally a wider bade is the ticket... and lots of tension. I don't think a fine blade would be best because it's going to cut slower and you will be more likely to pull things out of wack. I'd go for a coarse cut and plan on some sanding... but ymmv.

hadn't realized you have such a nice bandsaw... might put mine to work more if it was as nice as that. it looks like it's going to need sanding, but pretty minimal. nice work.

well, only you know what tools you have and what is best with it right in front of you. if it were me I'd take the strings off, flatten the neck perfectly, level the frets, and re-crown them. it's just not that much more work and the only way I know to guarantee they will be perfect. ymmv.

imo... leveling a few frets is almost never worth it. there are some cases where it would be... but that is typically if the frets that are problematic are really high up the neck. if the problem frets are lower than most likely as you level them you just move the problem a couple of frets higher... then chase the problem all the way up the neck. so if there is no relief... just make sure you are going the right way with the truss (check relief, turn truss, check relief again) and eventually you should get there. you should be adding relief which in most cases would mean loosening the truss rod. with a dual action... it could be that it was adjusted so much that adjusting back... you eventually hit the 'middle point' on the truss where adjustment just doesn't do anything until the threaded block starts to pull the truss back in the other direction. 1mm would be incredibly low action.

noice... so can we hear a recording?

well imo i think you answered your own question. if your rocker is finding places that rock... then you need to level and crown. there may be other issues... but unless the guitar is leveled and crowned you can't rule them out. I think you just have to rule things out methodically. your instincts about truss rods are right... ime you do a quarter or a half turn and then it takes a day to fully change. if by the end of that day you don't have the right relief you adjust again. as long as the truss rod doesn't become really hard to turn... you are likely fine to turn it again. if it starts giving real resistance well then you have to be very careful proceeding. this is an epi? so I suppose we are talking about a compression rod? ie... this only goes one way and that is to add MORE relief... is that what you need? get a straight edge and look down the neck... what is it doing? check your relief by holding down the string at the 1st fret and also where the neck meets the body... look halfway between... you should have just enough room between the string and the fret to slip a thin fender pick. get that right first. then you set action... you action looks fairly high... 1.75mm at 12 on low e? that is generally at the higher end of the rec range. 1.5 would be pretty good. 1.25 would be above avg. if your neck isn't doing anything funny, and you've set your relief, and you've set your action... and it's buzzing in an area... that means you need to level and dress. hope something there helps.

well I'm guessing in this context... the likely candidates to be used are going to be avg stainless vs avg steel. that said... this truss rod will def not be holding up the eiffel tower!

so nice to have a lumber place where you can just go looking through the stacks. I have a local spot that used to let me do that... but they recently have gone through some changes and no such luck anymore. really is therapy to just dig through some boards sometimes - enjoy that!

right on, in this application that probably doesn't matter but my understanding stainless is a bit stronger. I usually do as much as possible to seal the part of the rod that isn't exposed anyway... so rust shouldn't be an issue. I suppose at the threads it could be a problem... just something to consider anyway.

right on, i suppose the most important part of this rod is probably the welds. they look pretty good. as long as it holds under pressure... totally worth it. I've tested them and they seem to turn fine while clamped so... it's a good mid road option.

well as it were... this rod is magnetic... but the rod I got from allied luthier (known to be stainless) is not. therefore I think I can conclude the lmii rods are not stainless. good to know. I appreciate your insight.

well that's a good idea... i guess alum would be noticeably lighter... did not know stainless was not magnetic. I will def try that - thank you for the suggestion.

have been wanting to try some lmii truss rods just to see how they fair... thought I'd share what I found for my own future reference and in case anyone else is interested. slightly less expensive than allied luthier... free shipping making them moreso, and delivered w/i about 3 days for me. have to say... the welds on these look pretty good. the feel of the threads is very smooth. seems like an awfully small threaded block but I s'pose that accounts for more potential movement. These appear to be stainless steel but could not confirm via their website. all made in the usa. comparing to a few others... 5.2 oz for a 23.75" rod. 5.4oz for an allied luthier 18.375" w spoke wheel, 5.6oz for an allied luthier 19.75" rod w/o spoke wheel, 5.2oz for a bitter root 15.25" dual way truss rod, 5.3oz for an 18.`25 bitter root rod with a spoke wheel. 2.1oz for allied luthier 18" one way rod.

is a good point... that if anything it's going to be more a pita. that said... every locking nut guitar I've ever owned suffered this to some degree. my jem, my hamer, a kramer I owned a few years back... i always tighten the fine tuners 30% then lock the nut then drop the fine tuners back out to go back to pitch. This suggests to me it's kind of inherent in the floyd style lock nut. my hamer has an original floyd, my jem has low edge pro, my kramer had a more modern floyd (mid 90s).

right on. so you diy bbq sauce? noice. you just made me want to visit famous daves stat!

right on, it's more that if I'm going to buy some... and I know I'm doing a guitar where at least one pu cavity is seen... I'm going to go w/o silver. that said if i do buy a big can of silver based... I also have a spray can of carbon based I'll use at final i guess... or yeah, just spray some black in there. afa aluminium foil... then you have to solder all sheets together... just not worth the hassle imo but I have done alum tape on the back of pickguards where I know it will have several contact points to ensure conductivity to all strips. the advantage w plastic in theory would be to get a tube where I could squeeze out any air as I use the stuff. I think I would still store in a ziplock... but if you've got air inside the bottle... gonna have the evap problem. I'm gonna have to see what amazon has avail afa a refillable container that one could squeeze to remove air. super shield is water sol so should be fine w just about anything. edit - now that I think about it... might be best to get a small mustard bottle or something.