Jabba_the_gut

Had the opportunity to do a little more work on one of these today. First up was drilling the holes for the neck bolts. This was followed by routing the pockets for the neck and for the bridge using the template I posted previously: Next up was round the edges of the bass. I fill in the pockets whilst rounding the edges to reduce any chances of splits or bits going missing!! So this is how it looks next to the headless version. I'm quite liking the way the grain is flowing on this. Should be nice when finished.

Bought a pedal board of Simon. Excellent all round. Many thanks!

Bought some tuners from Dave. Really friendly communication - top bloke. Many thanks!

Quite surprising how many templates I've ended up for these mini basses whilst trying different things out!!

I wanted to put a thumb rest on here but something that could be removed if wanted. I like the look of basses with the extended fretboard but obviously a bit late for this one so I looked at trying to it with drilling and holes in the top. Came up with the idea of using the truss rod adjustment slot on the principle of once it is set it could be covered. Messed around with a few shapes and came up with this from an offcut of the original fretboard ebony: Took a little while to shape but it fits nice and snugly into the slot like this: It's a push fit so can be removed anytime if needed.

I'm in the process of trying to move house and it is really dragging - hopefully this will be sorted in the next couple of weeks!! This has meant that I have had very little time to get on with building anything. I had a day off and thought 'Stuff it' so I got some tools out and had a couple of hours doing something. My last post on here was to do with fitting a new bearing on my thicknesser - that worked out a treat but was an absolute pain to put back together. I've sorted out some fretboards ready for this build and a couple of others I'll start as soon as I move house (that's my priority but Mrs_the_gut might disagree and want jobs doing on the new place when we get there - I'll cross that bridge then!!). I bought some custom length strings for this build and laid them over my templates and bridge and they looked fine. I did notice that I could extend the neck slightly to 25.5" which still looks in scale with the rest of the bass. Benefits of doing this are that you can use a standard guitar fret slotting template which would speed up that part of the process or you can buy ready slotted fretboards of that length. The other thing I'm going to try on this is a scarf joint on the neck. I've only tried this once before but it turned out well so thought I'd give it another go. This would give easier access to the truss rod at the head end I think. I've made a new neck template (very satisfying after no being able to do anything for so long) and cut the body template for the bridge. Here it is with a Bonsai tree for scale... Overall length is 33". I liked the previous mini-bass I made that was fitted with an EMG 35DC so I've got another one of those and a 2 band EMG preamp but I also got hold of a Bartolini M34 dual coil pickup (new-old-stock for £30 - bargain!) which I can try passively with a couple of different switch options.

Here's one by Le Fay using an angle grinder - you get the idea of how much dust!! https://binged.it/2LCnfPER

Lucky that!! Just order stuff and get it delivered to a mate..... I do like the look of the Status necked P.

Lovely build. Really like the binding. Be interested to see what you make of the pickup - I got given a L R Baggs Anthem SL that is sitting in my parts drawer waiting...

I presume this will be finished for us to try at the Midlands Bass Bash next year......

Very nice!

Excellent customer service!

Out of interest, I just tried some nail varnish remover which seemed to remove the sticky stuff. I also removed the broken mechanism and replaced it with an allen head bolt (there was already a tapped hole) - works a treat! So ended up with a working, non adjustable stand, better than binning it.

No offence taken, but for info these look rough due to the plastic turning sticky and anything they have been in contact sticking to them! Apart from half a dozen car journeys, they have been stored away from anything else. Don't get me wrong, I don't expect them to last forever - I was purely raising this as I have never checked the mechanism as such and I guess that there are other people that would be the same. I still have a Hercules stand, a rack type, which is great.

I probably should add that these stands are about 5 years old so the design/materials may have changed on this mechanism on newer ones (the current stands on their website do look slightly different). I only posted this in case anyone else's stands start going the same way and they haven't noticed. Cheers

I've got a couple of Hercules stands and really liked them until various plastic parts turned sticky (there is another thread on here about that). However, this morning I got the two stands out of the garage and one fell to bits when I picked it up!! The height adjustment mechanism just fell to bits - the plastic on the stand just failed. I checked the other stands and that is starting to fail too. Both stands have only seen little use. I have e-mailed Hercules regarding this. Glad mine didn't have a bass in it at the time but might be worth checking your stands to ensure they are still okay. Cheers

Workshopheaven.com? Haven’t heard of that until now. I feel many hours of browsing and dreaming coming on.....

I think it is - I bought both tops from the same supplier at the same time.

Maybe with a top like this....

Cheers for all the comments. I must apologise for how slow this build has been, I've had a few non-bass related things going on that have occupied far too much time...….should be able to get on with things properly in another month or so. I'm hoping to build a five string version of this amongst other projects. Cheers again Jez

Nowt wrong with the table - it's relic'd…..

Got a few more jobs done: Frets installed Fret end slots filled Fret ends finished Nut slot cut Nut fitted String tree fitted Strings fitted Knobs fitted and a little noodling....... Doesn't look like the frets will need levelling but I will recheck that again later. Still got some more bits and bobs to do but this is where it is at now:

Likewise, if you would be willing to post I'd be very interested in the tele neck for a project. Cheers Jez