Jabba_the_gut

A little detail finished - an aluminium thumb nail cover opener thing. This is what will be the back of the second bass. It needs to be flattened before I do anything with it as it has cupped slightly since I bought it a year or two back. Should look alright though!! In the meantime, other bits of wood have been turning up so they can stand for a good while before I work on them. Nice slab of ash which will become a Telecaster shape (might be a bass, might be a guitar - no, no, no you say...)

The only good thing was I spotted it before I glued the fretboard in which would have made it far worse!!

Measure twice, measure twice again then cut. Then kick yourself…… Then spend some time removing LEDs and fit correctly!!!

Yep, I have one bass I made with a reverse headstock. Deliberate of course……

Just a quick update on this build.

I'd also be careful using a non-bearing cutter. If your template is plastic you might find it melting with the friction and the bit wandering. I've had this happen once when I was using a bearing cutter!! Must have had the speed all wrong.......

So this is my Katsu palm router as it comes - this shows the rack and pinion type depth adjustment. This is the plunger base for it. Yep, makes it more expensive but it still lighter and easier to use than a 'normal' 1/4" router And these are a selection of bearing cutters I use. The large one is a 1/2" one for trimming sides (scares me...), the middle one is a standard 12mm template cutter and the small one is a 5mm diameter template cutter for really tight corners!!

And yes, a template bit with a top bearing is what you want.

The Katsu palm router has a sort of rack and pinion adjustment for depth (like quite a few of this design). Not too expensive and pretty decent. I’ve ended up using it more due to it being lightweight. The plunger base was almost as expensive as the router but makes a great unit.

Oh, and you can get plunger bases for palm routers. I bought a Katsu one and it’s great.

You can adjust the depth on them - absolutely fine for pickup cavities. Don’t move the bit out of the router - that is a recipe for something to go wrong (in my experience!!)

Not as bright as the white ones I used previously!!

Blows the dust off this post...... Various things have caused me to have paused building for a bit but hopefully I can continue and finish a few builds I started last year. It looks like I've rounded the body since I rounded the body edges since my last post. I also got round to installing some LEDS in the fretboard - I've taken the feedback from previous builds and made them not so blinding!!

Just love the design of LeFay bridges

This is what I was trying to explain earlier regarding using standard double ball end strings for a multiscale. Not sure how string tension would be affected or what scale lengths you could get from this but it was just a thought. Both drawings have strings of the same length As you will also see, drawings are not my forte!

Personally, I like double ball end strings. I’ve always found the tuning to be very stable and not requiring any tools to change strings (including snips to cut the excess off normal string) is great. Speed to change strings is also really good especially on the Steinberger type bridges though this isn’t something done that often. The downside to me is choice. That is limited in terms of the different types, makes but also scale length. There’s also lots of pros and cons regarding the bridges based on price, adjustment, how the strings are threaded through, if tools are needed, if they work for multi scale, ease of installation, ease of adjustment etc. I like the ABM style single tuners but they are expensive - pros and cons again!!

Something like this came up in the past and I wondered if you could do a multi scale headless with double ball end strings and a one piece bridge. Essentially the strings are all the same length but the nut would be angled and individual saddles used to give the required string lengths (if this makes sense). I did a simple drawing on here for this a while back but can’t remember where!! No idea how this would be for string tension- I really should mock it up sometime to try. I’ve had a few ideas in the past that I think would look neat but no-one makes the hardware that I would need and I’m not going down that custom route!!

Hi Andy. Didn’t have any issues with the bottom sections splitting in these. I drilled the hole with a 10mm Forstner bit - the inserts pushed nicely into this with out much force. I then secured them with CA glue. I think if I had drilled at 9.5mm (which is what I was initially thinking) they might have split. I was looking back for the thread where you made some previously but couldn’t find it so this is what I came up with. I did try some experiments at first trying to cut out the knobs with a hole saw but that was, er, less than successful shall we say!! Cheers

It has been time consuming and I bet I have spent something around 15 hours in total. That includes all trial and error as well as making some decent knobs in the end. One of those thing that if I decide to do it again it would be a lot quicker. But it’s been enjoyable and I learnt something new. Cheers

Completely agree. It’s just another part of the problem solving process that adds to the satisfaction. In this case I neither have the funds or space for a lathe just for this purpose so was really pleasing to find a way around it. Cheers

I’ve bought a few things from them and always been good.

The aluminium was glued in and filed to size. I then put the knobs back on my drill 'lathe', shaped then with a chisel, sanded them and put a coat of sanding sealer on. This is what I ended up with from all the bits: The knobs were then marked up for the position of the grub screw hole (the aluminium has been fitted to follow the grain - the first one I made didn't and it just looked wrong). The hole for the grub screw is opposite the aluminium marker. The holes were drilled then the insert fitted and glued in place with CA glue. After all this, these are the knobs I ended up with. Might need a little more finishing later but we'll see. So that's that part finished and tie to get back on with the bass itself!! Cheers

Next I cut circles of wood for the knob tops For the walnut ones, I cut a slot with my fret saw and glued in a strip of aluminium and filed flat. These are for the knobs that will just have the marker in the top. Tops were then glued onto the bodies. By luck, I found a small socket that had and outside diameter of 10mm and the knobs just pushed onto these sufficiently tightly that I could run them on my drill 'lathe' and trim them to size. The ones for the full length marker were marked up so they could be cut to get the aluminium correctly in line. I clamped these into my fret slotting jig so I could get a nice clean cut. This left me with a selection of knobs with a slot in for the aluminium

I don't have a lathe but I do have a drill stand. I mounted this horizontally and cut the head of an M10 bolt. This allowed me to clamp the knob blanks, run this like a small lathe and trim these to size. I made quite a few blanks as I know having not tried this before it would go wrong at some point and I'd end up with a number of scrap ones!!

I seem to have spent quite a long time over the past few weeks making knobs so here's a few pictures of the process I used. I've used wooden knobs a couple of tie before and I got a local wood turner to make them for me as I don't have a lathe. I still don't but I wanted to make them myself so.... First step - drill a shallow hole with a Forstner bit in the piece of wood that will make the body of the knob. This will be the recess under the knob where the pot nut will end up. Next, drill a hole straight through that will accept the brass insert later Then I drew a circle round them for both sizes of knob ready to cut out with a bandsaw Cut these out and ended up with a load of these