Andyjr1515

No experience in either metal guitars (although I did used to be in the aluminium industry) or ABS, @GisserD , but, from a strength point of view, this would be more than strong enough. Significantly so. With this type of sandwich, as long as you could stop the ABS / Ali laminations sliding across each other and allowing the whole structure to bend, 3mm aluminium sheet or even thinner would, I suspect, be more than adequate. Are we talking pure aluminium or an alloy? Worth bearing in mind that the body and wingskin of a modern airliner is less than 2mm. I also would have thought that this would be exceedingly heavy, but if your CAD says that for the finished body, then presumably it's going to be there or thereabouts. I don't know what the strength of ABS is compared with, say, nylon, but I suspect that alone would be strong enough. All you need, to be honest, is enough rigidity between the neck joint and the bridge (and a decent way of firmly fixing the two to the body) and the rest is just a convenient place to hang the pickups and controls. Fascinating - watching with interest

Osmo is great as a satin finish - and yes...they indeed do tinted versions, but I would be tempted to stain it with a proper spirit stain and then put a clear finish over that (Osmo, Tru-oil, nitro, poly - they will all go over OK. Reason for me saying that is that tinted finishes tend to having the colour sitting on top of the wood and it is difficult to get a depth of colour or, sometimes, evenness. With a proper wood stain, you can experiment until you are happy with it and then seal it in your chosen clearcoat finish. I would recommend the trial pack of Chestnut Spirit Stains (the wood colour ones - they also do a poster-colour pack but they won't be any good for what you are after) available from Axminster here: https://www.axminster.co.uk/chestnut-spirit-stain-trial-packs-ax24498 Used carefully, each small bottle would easily do a whole guitar so this pack will last you years of multi-coloured builds! There are a number of colours amongst them that would do what you are after. You can also mix them, either together, or by doing a coat of one and then overlaying a coat of another. Bear in mind that the actual colour will be majorly affected by the colour and porosity of the wood so it's useful to have a colour spectrum to get the right effect. When staining, the colour as applied and still wet is a useful guide to how it will look when the clear finish has been applied. When it dries it will look a different shade. To double check the final colour once it has dried, just wipe over with a damp (not wet) cloth. For what you have described, on Maple, light oak and light mahogany will give the brownish/pinkish tinges and yew the yellow/orange tones - but there are plenty of other colours.

Looks the business. Immensely useful thing to have.

Wowzers!

That's come up nicely

I'm pretty sure that will work just fine

I'm no expert, but I would have thought so. What's the bass? In most/many cases with basses, the pre-amp is actually just a powered EQ and the pickups themselves are passive.

As Paul says in the original thread, it produced a really good sound in this instance but yes - probably, in general. Trouble is, presumably the concept is very low output with the EQ amplifying the sound to give the classic MM tones. If so, going passive is going to be a bit of a compromise whatever. But - and it's a big but - the SBMM might be completely different. I fitted a MM lookalike for someone another time and that was pretty high output - more like 10k. I suppose you really can't make assumptions. Let us know how you get on. Andy

That's going back a bit now, Paul @MoJoI spotted this because I had a vague recollection of there being an output strength issue with the EBMM pickup when converting the bass to passive. Now - I must say - the Ernie Ball and Music Man sites are very, very light on the technical (I suppose they don't want people fiddling with their admittedly excellent products) so I have no idea if this also applies to the SBMM version. If you want the full blow by blow, the thread is here: https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/294193-paul-ss-sterling-5/#comments The issue was compounded by Paul's request to add a powerful Aguilar P-pickup into the equation but the MM pickup had an exceptionally low resistance (from memory less than 3kohm). I believe that it is basically a noiseless single coil and has a dummy coil to counteract the hum but that is only going from a hint on their website. Nevertheless, I had to wire the MM in series (it is in parallel when running through the active EQ) and that got the output to a level where a blend arrangement could be used to balance the two pickups in the middle position of the three way switch. I'm sure it was a bit of an offense against the original EBMM pickup design concept but, I have to say, it sounded brilliant! The SBMM might be completely different in all respects but the wiring convention to put the EBMM into series turned out to be: Red is hot White and black joined Green to ground Hope this helps

It might do - although probably scrapable off with a razor blade if it does. Also - although I've never tried it - I've seen people mask unstained areas with a carefully brushed coat of shellac which apparently acts as a decent barrier and which, itself, is easily removed with a blade or fine sandpaper.

Very neat way of getting the break angle over the nut maximised. Inspired stuff

Looking pretty good so far

They're on ebay for as little as £26.99 with free postage from China...I wouldn't bother looking for a used one...

^ This...but basically when it's new. It's the sizing that seems to be a bit dodgy but the quality if the metal itself seems OK. So when I took the bad saddles or bolts out of the one you sent me and swopped with the best ones of the second block I bought, you have a set up now, Mick, that should and does work fine

Compared with, say, a Steinberger, the Overlords are crazily cheap - but they aren't great quality-wise. I used one for @TheGreek 's Psilos. I had to buy a second one and make up one good one from the two sets of components. They benefit also from dissassembly, thorough cleaning and re-lubrication. The resulting good one, I think, has held good (Mick?) and Mick also has a few spare bits that I didn't have to bin.

Might have missed it above, but the Squier Jaguar is a great shortscale bass. Looks good, plays great, Vintage Modified less than £200 and £340ish for Classic Vibe. And yes - shortscales are getting more popular in their own right by all types of players. It can transform the way you play in many cases.

This is looking positively splendid, @Pea Turgh

Excellent! Can't wait

Glorious! Best yet...and that's saying something....

Just re-read the guy's query. No - he is wrong. The stamped serial number Ibanez plates were fitted to early models. Yours, you reckon, is 2012? That's hardly an early model. If you look on Amazon at the present offerings you will see back shots of the models with exactly the same plate yours has on it.

Looks right to me. The neck plate is right for that kind of year, the neck carve at the joint has the right curved bits and the right flat bits in the right places. Only thing wrong is the trussrod cover - which you've been clear about.

I agree with @SpondonBassed . I like that very much indeed

That binding is beyond superlatives...

It depends what kind of angle you are looking at but you could always add a full area wedge of ply, maple or similar hardness of wood to the bottom of the otherwise flat heel - either glued or unglued ( it's not going to be able to go anywhere). I worked on a beautiful (and valuable) Wal a couple of years ago and noted that was done like that (glued on in that particular case) so it shouldn't be regarded at all as a 'cheap' fix.

Theoretically, the Fender tilt type results in less contact area than standard shims - especially if the latter are wedged. In reality, though, it would probably make no audible difference providing that in both cases the neck bolts are at the correct tension...