Andyjr1515

I also love a good serial, but it's been a beggar getting any in the any of the supermarkets. The shelves have been empty now for weeks!

True...and that's why I personally prefer to refer to them as powered or unpowered. Unfortunately, all the manufacturers I know of refer to them as active or passive, not just EMG.

Just looked at it again. And it looks even more lovely

To my fellow builders, particularly the ones just starting out on this crazy journey: If you don't already use hand planes and you are in lockdown, then one of the best things you could possibly do with the time is to watch a few videos on YouTube of how to set one up and adjust and use a hand plane and look at @Christine 's superlative guide, pinned at the beginning of Build Diaries, of how to sharpen the blades. And I say that as one who, until my late 50's, had only ever used my handed down Stanley plane the way my father had and, no doubt his father before him - to smooth out the lumps and bumps in poorly home-plastered walls. And that was because the possibility of actually cutting wood with them - even soft woods like pine - was, quite simply, fanciful And now, for me, planing a piece of wood ranks as one of the most pleasing and satisfying parts of the whole building process. So what was I planing this time round? Well - having found a piece of leftover purpleheart 6mm splice, it was time to assemble the neck blank. Before I did that, I wanted to make sure I could maintain a flat surface that the fretboard would eventually glue to, so I put the two mahogany halves together, lined them up and just skimmed the combined top full length with the plane to square it up. Then glued, assembled and clamped it all to within an inch of its life and I have my 3-part blank: Next jobs on the neck blank will be: - Routing the trussrod slot - Thickessing to final width - Cutting the plan and side profiles on the band-saw, ready for the bottom wings to be glued on (after, of course, checking the sizes, re-checking, checking the checks, walking away and then coming back to check again ) Stay safe and thanks, as always, for watching.

I'd almost forgotten just how attractive these little basses are... Great to be reminded

Flippin auto-context

Yes - 8pm this Friday OK with me. I've downloaded the app but then it started asking about all sorts of accounts which I haven't got round to understanding or sorting yet - but I have the rest of the week to do that (you see, Corvid-19 has given us all some time to actually PLAN our lives for more than 45 minutes at a time). My line should be fine - we've done a few longish multi-user skype calls in recent weeks and it didn't miss a beat. Andy

There are a lot of confusing and ambiguous descriptions surrounding pickups EQ's and pre-amps - even by the suppliers, so I'm not surprised that you are confused. But - there are, indeed, active pickups and there are also passive pickups. Additionally there are EQ pre-amps that are designed to drive active pickups and there are EQ pre-amps that are designed to drive passive pickups. Here are examples of EMG active and passive pickups: And here is a Seymour Duncan bass EQ pre-amp designed for use with passive pickups: And here is their equivalent EQ pre-amp designed for use with active pickups: I maybe wrong, but I think that 'Active' is synonymous with 'Powered'. And I'm sure everyone will tell me I'm wrong, but I think all Active pickups require power input to drive their circuits? And an Active EQ preamp also requires power for its own circuitry. That is why both of the EQ preamps above are described as Active Bass Pre-amp's, because they are both powered even though one is configured to handle passive (unpowered) pickups and the other is to handle active (powered) pickups And can you have an Active pickup driven through a Passive EQ? Yes (think powered and non-powered rather than active and passive) So you can put active (powered) pickups, that will require a 9v feed, and send their output through standard tone pot circuits (although the values may be different), which are passive (unpowered). And finally - because it took me a long time to understand this - what's the difference between an Active EQ and a Passive EQ (such as a conventional tone pot & capacitor arrangement): It is simply that the passive arrangement can only CUT frequencies. So it gives bass by cutting out some of the treble. But a powered (active) EQ can BOOST the bass frequencies and/or the treble frequencies as well as cut them. Leastways, that's how I have kept my sanity over the years trying to get the right bits for the right things....

The Wood Database agrees: Additionally, nearly all parts of the Yew tree are considered toxic and poisonous to humans, and care should be exercised when working with this wood species So if it is considered toxic AND poisonous, it stands to reason that it exhibits Toxicity and Poisonosity. So I reckon you are spot on @Maude

I agree with @Frank Blank - I love poisonosity

As @scrumpymike says - it's ingestion and inhalation. So unless Matt decided to chew on it like a dog chewing on a bone, it isn't going to do him any harm. And clearly, you would need to be trying to ingest. But when I used yew once with a router, I unknowingly ended up with a teeny chip in my mouth. It was about 2mmx1mm. By the time I fished it out, my tongue was already going a bit numb! But inhalation of the dust wouldn't do your lungs any good at all. So routing and sanding is probably the greatest risk without adequate PPE

It's been a productive day. Amazing how much you can get done when you are ordered by your Prime Minister to stay at home. And it's amazing how much you can procrastinate about the decorating when you know you probably have thirteen more weeks of the same (so its rumoured) with a guaranteed no-one coming to visit in that time for any other reason than one where the decorating won't really matter anyway... Got the Yew and Sapele to their final thicknesses, the Yew cut out and also found a 6mm splice of Purpleheart for the neck! Here's the Yew, ready for final jointing (that will be just a skim on the handplane) and gluing together: Those who have seen my previous build threads will know that I'm a bit weird in that I will file and sand the top to its final outline and use the top itself as my routing template for the body once it has been glued on. My logic (and remember I simply tell you what I do and absolutely not that this is how it should be done) is that way, for the finish rout of the body outline, I don't then have to let the router blades go anywhere near those decorative horn tips because - for me, at least - that is the road to misery Tomorrow's job will be to assemble and glue the neck blank...

I had a single length of David Dyke neck timber - as usual a beautiful piece of quarter-cut mahogany. I always buy bass-length because of my slightly quirky way of doing things. With luck, I would be able to incorporate the headstock angle and the neck angle in the one blank to be able to flip one blank over and get the mirrored end grain pattern when the two are put together. There will be a 6mm centre splice of harder wood between the two in the finished 3-part assembly. For anything to do with through-necks, I always start with the physical bridge in my hand and draw the thing full-size, with the adjustment ranges of the bridge so that the angles are going to be right: You can see here why I buy the bass length. There is then enough extra length to allow for the extra depth each neck side is going to need for the neck angle (looking like 3 degrees) and the headstock angle (I always use 10 degrees). I wouldn't have had enough depth of blank to do this if it had been a guitar-length blank of this particular width (which is sold to be part of a multi-splice arrangement). Cut between the two sides: And checked that my 'upside down & back to front' stuff was correct in terms of end grain. And luckily it was A bit difficult to see with the saw marks, but hopefully you can see the V of the mirrored grain which should, in theory, give good stability of the finished neck and avoid twist, etc.. And then back in the shed to see if I've got anything suitable for a centre-splice. As always, thanks for looking and your encouraging feedback

I've used a similar veneer (I forget the species, but it's a type of birch) for a couple of projects - it's spectacular. Both of mine were stained but I have to say, they looked at their most impressive before staining I very much look forward to seeing this develop

That Pat Metheny one is through the K&K Pure Mini and an external Yamaha stereo mic into his DAW interface. With the Pure Mini, it's pretty much how it sounds unplugged. He's just published this, which is the LR Baggs Anthem (both systems are fitted with independent outputs) and the same Yamaha mic, again plugged directly into his DAW interface. He's a great player:

In between some domestic stuff, managed to start the thicknessing of the Yew and the Sapele. While you clearly have to flatten the top, for bookmatched wood you need to minimise the wood removal from the bookmatched face - just a few mm and you already start losing the match - so most of the removal to get it to the correct thickness is off the backs. And with Yew - there's no messing about. Hat, goggles, respirator, gloves. Every bit of a yew is poisonous except - I am told but do not take my word for it - the red fleshy bit of the berry (which is the bit that looks the most poisonous). The seeds are especially poisonous. And poisonous doesn't mean it make you sick. This is meet your maker poisonous. And so, with the tiny bits that throw off out the thicknesser, despite decent extraction, it's the full PPE approach. As it is ingestion or inhalation that is the particular risk, same precautions will be done for any routing and sanding. Does look nice, though:

That looks lovely

Drop a teeny drop of water off a pin or nail tip into the dint. Get a piece of cloth and wet it in a small area. Put the dampened area over the dint. Apply the tip of a hot iron to where the dint is. Don't hold it there more than a few seconds - you don't want to scorch the wood. Repeat a few times. The wood that's been crushed will expand to try to return the its original form and, with luck, completely refill the dint back to its original level

Sounds good. I'll PM you soon.

If you ever wondered how they bookmatch…. (Assistant in bulk DIY store,"It's tree wood, sir. You can cut it, sand it, glue it drill it - just like plastic") Well - I broddled around in my bits box and the number of things I've bought and never used invested in over the past few years is a bit eye-watering. Certainly, these will do fine on the build - and even with a choice of roller ToM bridges! : And I even found a full set of chrome locking tuners! Except, I then realised they were 6-a-side and not 3+3. Never mind - I'll probably go for Axesrus's splendid lightweight ones.

Got the timbers out today. As I had hoped, I have: the Yew; the Sapele for the back wings; a lovely piece of quarter-sawn David Dyke mahogany for the neck. I’m pretty sure I also have a piece of bubinga somewhere that I can use for the centre splice on the neck. And I’ve also found all the original templates from Pete’s build! Assuming David Dyke is open, I will order a length of ebony for the fretboard and headstock face-plate on Monday – but that won’t hold up the start of the build. I’ll also have a broddle in my bits boxes over the next couple of days. I’m almost certain I have a tune-o-matic roller bridge somewhere and I may even have some locking tuners. I’ll see.

Actually, with the present relatively insane bulk buying going on, the value is going up even more

Probably got as far as I can go at this stage. Other than applying the finish to the neck maple (which will darken and amber it a touch) and fitting the trussrod cover, this is now pretty much just waiting for the hardware. Just for @SpondonBassed : The Osmo has come up nicely. Just one more slurry and wipe with 400 grit and then two more very thin applications wiped on with kitchen roll has given just the level of sheen I was after: The pickup rings will be properly lined up when the final install is ready to be done but this sort of gives the vibe: It's not over until, etc, etc, but I'm really pleased with how this has turned out

Lovely set of instruments

Glorious.