Acousticraft

30k, thats one hot mother. The lights will dim when you pluck the strings. I received my pickups and they measure 9.66 K Ohms on my multi-meter. I couldn't actually find a figure Fender quote for the Mexican pickups but they certainly have a different part no. to the American series. The rout is interesting for the P pickups but I have drawn up a template for drilling the holes and routing. I never knew they used a piece of thick 'draft stop' rubber for the actual spring under the pickup and long screws into the body. I thought they would be mounted off the pickguard Strat style. I never thought I would be making a Bass in my wildest dreams a while back, after making various acoustics and electrics. All I need now is to learn to play it. I figured my guitar scales I know, well the bottom 4 strings of the scales should come in handy?

I was reading up about nodes (least vibration) and anti nodes (most vibration) of string vibration waves when a string is plucked. Theoretically for most open string vibration the pickup should be positioned at about 1/4 of scale length from the bridge but of course once you fret a note the positioning of those waves moves back towards the bridge so the theoretical position changes. Anyway to cut a long story short I am placing my pickups with them centred at 150mm / 6" from the low E bridge saddle or forward slightly of the standard P bass placement.

Yes you can do that no problem. The Strat I built has a glued in neck using a neck that was originally was a screw on type. With a snug fit you have a large gluing surface with the underside as well as the sides of the neck and the pocket. I like the look of the clean lines without a plate and screws and the rigidity it gives.

Thanks for that. What is the measurement from the low E bridge saddle to the centerline of the two pickups?

I bought a Pickup/pots and jack socket that came out of a Mexican made Precision bass cheaply off Trademe, our version of E bay. I plan to fit this to a Telecater body I made a last year. I read that the optimum distance to mount the pickups for string vibration was 6" from the bridge. Can anyone confirm this? I have a piece of Maple for the neck and Purpleheart for a fingerboard so should look good.

Your headstock may not break but over time it will bend up slightly with string tension. (My own Strat does this) On many Strat type guitars, if you put a straight edge on the bottom of the headstock and along the neck they will have bent up very slightly. To the normal eye you would never notice this, so would be probably wise to leave it a more standard thickness.

I use the Stew Mac double edged fret file. It has medium on one edge and jumbo on the other. Works great! Not many guitars nowadays use narrow anyway.

Thanks for the replies. I suppose the bonus is they are very cheap. As long as I can lay down a reasonable bass line to go with all the guitar tracks that will be fine with me. I can plug it straight into my Line 6 Toneport and model different basses anyway.

I am going to build an ash Telecaster bodied bass with a Maple P bass style neck, purple heart fret board and large P headstock for home recording. Has anyone used the EMG select bass humbucker pickup? There are some reviews on the Select P bass style pickup but none I can find on the standard humbucker shaped pup which is the hottest of the range. I want to keep it simple with a tone and volume and a single neck mounted pickup. I was planning to build a Tele guitar (the body is already made) but as I already have a real nice Strat I built, I figured a bass would be more use. A Tele shaped bass is less common than most other body shapes as well.

The easiest way to achieve those counter sunk hollows is to grind a spade tip wood drill of the correct diameter so the corners are radiused evenly. Mount in a drill press and drill them at a slow speed. Practise on some off cuts before you try it on your 59 Les Paul.

Give it a tap from the fingerboard side with a block of wood and hammer and it will come off easily.

I would use Polyurethane as it is cost effective and has a hard finish.

You can mix a powder into clear epoxy to thicken it to use as a glue. The epoxy suppliers will have it. Thickened slightly it can be forced into the grain with a putty knife or old credit card for good grain filling. In NZ and Aus you can get a craft epoxy from Spotlight called "Liquid Gloss" that is crystal clear, self levelling and ideal for inlays and grain filling. It also sands really easily once cured for 4-5 days.

I make all my cases curved and custom make every one to suit the guitar. The case is stronger than a rectangular case and takes up way less room for storage and transport. I lay the guitar on the sheet of ply and mark around it then add about 20mm / 3/4" bigger all round. I then use thick fake fur and glue that to the inside of the finished case and the guitar fits as snug as and doesn't move around. I always make a fitted neck rest as well to support the neck. A good tip is to make sure your case hinges are in line so they dont bind up when you try to open them.

Did you bend an even radius in the fret wire before you tapped it in. If not then it will not sit down properly at the ends where it really matters.

Have a look in this Fender guide under the Vintage key section. I have the same on mine and this guide worked perfectly for me so you can precut the string to the correct length to get the right amount of windings on the post. http://www.fender.com/support/stratocaster.php

I just had another thought. Can you hear air leaking into the crankcase by removing the oil filler cap. This would indicate air is leaking past the outlet valve and escaping past the piston rings down the bore. Im sure it is a moisture related problem and there is corrosion that causing vital parts not to seal.

Yes I agree that the High E break over point on the Earvana nut should be on scale length. Obviously the Earvana nuts are a compromise as the action, scale length and string gauge /brand is going to change things from one guitar to another. But I guess its a step in the right direction. I thought about not cutting the first three fret slots and stringing the guitar and intonate at the twelfth fret and use a piece of wire to figure where the frets should be to be in tune and mark each side of the wire. I guess you would end up with those crooked frets if you did that. Very hard to cut slots like that without a CNC machine as well.

Can you hear air leaking back thru the inlet when its up to its max pressure and turned off?

I be keen to hear your thoughts about it when its finished.

I have noticed that with a pre-slotted radiused fingerboard getting the intonation correct is a problem. Its easy to get the twelfth fret an octave above the open string but noticeably on the wound & B strings they play sharp at the first three frets or so. That means all the normal open chords are sharp as well. I know usually .5mm is taken off the nut end of the fingerboard to try and compensate for this. This means the open string length is fractionally incorrect. I have looked at those compensated nuts they make but another idea which I had thought about is actually compensating the frets from their mathematical positions. I found this excellent article that talks about just this and has a calculator to tell you where fret placement should be. I know the guitar is a tempered scale and will never be perfectly in tune all over but it would be nice to have more in-tune open chords. http://homepage.ntlworld.com/coleman005/intonati.htm This way the fingerboard end is not shortened just the fret placements. Has anyone tried this?

The scale length is determined by measuring from the nut edge to centre of 12th fret and doubling it. On a Strat usually the trem front edge sits fairly close to the end of the pick guard. What you can do is measure from the edge of the nut to your saddles. High E needs scale plus about 3mm compensation and Low E about 5mm compensation. Make sure your saddles are about in the middle of their forward/backwards adjustment range so you have adjustment either way.

You may well be right about having no springs as I havent had one of these modern (Chinese built)? compressors apart. The symtoms point to faulty valves or shot piston rings. As the compressor is not that old then the issue of one or other valve not sealing properly is most likely the cause, maybe because of moisture if you havent drained the tank each time its shutdown. The valve youve pulled apart on the side of the tank is a non return valve so once the air enters the pressure tank it cant backflow to the compressor.

There should be two valves with springs. One for the inlet and one for the outlet. That looks like the valve housing that is sandwhiched between the cylinder and cylinder head. You would need to remove that to get at both valves. Heres a link showing how a compressor works. http://www.popularmechanics.com/home_journ...131.html?page=2

Ive worked on both industrial and truck compressors over the years. A very common problem is the springs that hold the valves closed break so the air just bypasses. If its done a lot of work the seat the disk seals on gets worn or a carbon buildup stops it sealing properly as well. If you havent used it much an inlet valve may be stuck shut. Without seeing the compressor I would envisage the cylinder head would need removing to get acess to the valves for inspection.