al heeley

I love zebrano for bodies but for a neck/fretboard it sort of looks like my kid drew it with crayons ! Lol, no offence!

Then I woould look at sandwiching a thin veneer of wood between the neck and the new fretboard to build it up back to the original thickness. How much are you talking about?

Could you drop the nut and lower the saddles? Shim the neck pocket? It's a huge hassle having the frets replaced.

I too have some spare kite spars in the garage from my former days designing and building stunt kites, and they are very flexible: they are meant to be. I'd be happier trying to find a propoer solid pultruded section, square or rectangular beam, than a cf tube, to really aid stiffening the neck.

Luthiers Mercantile have them but again its hassle and cost getting them in from the U.S.

http://www.lmii.com/CartTwo/Secondproducth...ds%2FNeck+Parts

There MUST be somewhere closer to home doing pultruded beam sections!

With the end offcut from the fretboard piece I made a lid for a jewellery box for my wife. It's her birthday.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v609/al_heeley/lid.jpg

More parts arrived today; here's bridge ass'y, knobs, truss rod, tuners, pickguard blank and white binding. Just need the maple now

Can anyone help me find out more about the use of graphite rod reinforcement for a bass guitar neck?

Where to buy? (preferably UK source...)

What size/spec?

Method of fixing?

thx!

[edit] Found this on StewMac's site, but struggling to fins a UK outlet for the rods. http://www.stewmac.com/printfreeinfo/I-4007.html

Fretboard sized, radiussed, slotted and dotted.

Sorry, not brave enough to try for the triangle inlays yet.

LOL, thats my 2007 rough'n'ready p-bass homebuild at the back with solid slab of 1-piece bubinga body. It sounds marvellous but weighs several tonnes.

Fretboard arrived this evening. Gave it 20 mins with the sander to take out the saw marks, it's coming up nice real fast, rich deep colour.

If you do the inlays first and they are quite thin, is there a danger of planing all the way thru them when you do the radiussing? (esp. if they are not centred inlays)

When do you do the fretboard binding?

Ah, this one will be bound - which i have not done before. I take it the routing and binding has to take place before the frets are hammered in?

Making a fretboard, what do you do first?

a) Plane to radius

b.) slot for frets

c) trim edges to size?

I drew all the plans out by hand from templates sized up in photoshop to the right dimensions, then printed off the PC. A scale pdf of a replacement ricky scratchplate helped me check the size and scale up was right, together with the neck length / scale length data. (33 1/4" scale is quoted, which is a bit odd and means I end up having to slot the fretboard myself )A couple of scans from the pages of a favourite guitar book helped too.

Finish - I have some black acrylic rattle can paint left in the garage and some white binding, so i may as well go with the classic. This is after all my homage to my childhood bass legend, Geddy Lee! (even though he has now deserted to the Fender Jazz side).

I will lacquer the black painted body with Rustins 2-part plastic coating (UF resin).

The neck will be 2-piece maple or 3-piece maple/walnut, depends if they have thin enough pieces up the timber yard. Rosewood fretboard (just ordered).

Not sure I'm up to the MOP triangle inlays but may settle for MOP dots for fretmarkers.

Xanthus - if you want I can send you my scaled-up photoshop image I used to trace out the bass dimensions.

Stage 1 of a new bass build: Ric 4003 replica.

I've really always wanted a Ric 4003, but I can't afford one or wait for x months for one to come up so I decided to have a go at building one.

Here's stage 1 - the full -size plan drawing from which the varioous templates will be cut.

Construction planned: traditional maple body wings, thru-neck maple (maybe walnut sandwich), 4003 electronics with push-pull bright cap on the bridge pup tone.

did u change string gauge or put the old ones back on?

lovely top carve and very nice piece of flame maple. More pics please!

250k pots have a tendancy to drop off the treble more when turned down, compared to a 500k. that's ok when using s/c as they tend to be brighter and more trebly than a normal HB. I'd stick with 250k pots but you could add a small capacitor to the vol pot to reduce the treble bleed-off.

Tell us what model the guitar is. What was the reason you fitted a different bridge? Then we can advise better.

I don't reckon it makes any difference if you ground the tail or the bridge: whichever is easier to rout the wire channel and whichever you feel will give the best electrical contact.

Here's the standard wiring for 2 humbuckers, 3 way pup select, one vol, one tone, from the Seymour Duncan site.

http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/wirin...tic=2h_1v_1t_3w

Take the opportunity to look at the vol and tone pots, and put some good quality ones in if you're getting any crackles or drop-out. Doesn't cost much and saves your sanity.

I always use tru-oil for necks, it's a mix of tung oil and linseed with solvent and dryers that help penetrate and cure hard quickly. Rub on or wet sand in with 800 grit, give s a marvellous smooth sheen neck that will not rub off.

you might want to get a wider nut.

I fitted a blend pot to my jazz bass build but had same problem with the centre detent position having a residual resistance, so when you blend from full bridge (or full neck) thru to half and half, there is a significant drop in volume - significant enough to render this wiring useless. Now i still need to find a true blend pot with zero residual resistance in the middle so the volume of the 2 pups together is as loud as either one selected on its own. Any ideas?

When you use a coil-tap circuit the humbuckers are acting as single coils so of course they lose their hum-cancelling properties. I always reverse the wiring of the bridge humbucker, then when the coils are tapped, if both are selected they work together again as 2 single coils cancelling out the hum. Dies that make sense?

If the hum you speak of is an earth hum then this post is irrelevant (however good practice) and you need to see if there are any fridges, fluorescent lights or dimmer switches in the vicinity of where your amp is plugged in - as this will be the cause of the hum!

Do you put a radius on such a wide fretboard or leave it basically flat?