Andyjr1515

Hi Just one or two interesting projects some of you might be interested in that I have been fitting in around the present main build (the 'Psilos Phoenix' dreadnought acoustic documented elsewhere in the 'Build Diaries'). Two of them are for @wwcringe and are similar to a couple of small jobs I did for him last year. Tom, like myself, is a great fan of the present-day fantastic base quality of many entry-level brands. With a relatively small amount of tweaking, many of them can be turned into excellent pro-level instruments. Squier and Ibanez are high on this list! This time round, Tom asked me to tweak an Ibanez Talman TBM30 and his trusty Squier Deluxe V Jazz. I finished the Talman a few weeks ago (Tom sent me a Soho Radio 'live lounge' clip playing it with the fantastic singer/songwriter Nyah Grace ) and am on the finishing steps of the Squier V. In both cases, Tom wanted the necks stripping down to wood and 'slurry-and-buffed'. I used Danish Oil this time but using the same method as do for tru-oil. I had a couple of veneer offcuts left from @TheGreek 's recent veneering job and used them on this, adding a MoP swift for good measure. For the Talman, Tom wanted to swop the J-bridge p/up for a humbucker and then move the jazz to a new high neck position. These were the resulting amended routs: Ordinarily, I don't shield the pickup chambers - usually just the control chamber - but I noticed the original p/up chambers were indeed shielded and so I followed suit for the mods. I modded the electrics to Tom's requirements which, interestingly, is 100% rotary switches, and finished with a full setup. Here was how if finished up: And then onto the Squier. Same treatment for the neck, and the last offcuts of @TheGreek 's veneer used up: Tom sent me some Hipshot tuners to fit. Presumably, they are imperial sizes - certainly, Hipshot bushes tend to be just slightly smaller than Squier bushes. Little tip for what it's worth, I use maple veneer, bent round the chamber to produce a snug fit. Maple is hard, too, so won't crush: Again, Tom's preference is rotary switches. So the plan was 4 rotaries, including: 3 position pickup selection; series/parallel; tone on/off; signal/kill. I'm not bad with electrics, but transposition is always a challenge to me - so transposing the logic of DPDT switches to rotaries took some time sitting in the proverbial darkened room! I used a guitar humbucker diagram as the role model and worked my way through in pencil to convert it first to two bass pickups and then from vertical DPDT to multi-pole two way and three way rotaries: And here is the finished result: To my complete astonishment, it all works! Last job before the set-up was to cut a couple of sycamore covers from some offcut from @TheGreek 's Psilos bass (I think you should be charging at least one of us royalties, Mick ), add a few magnets and then slurry and buff those too: When I've done the set up for this, I've got another small job to start for one of our esteemed Basschat members - but more of that anon Andy

Hi, Owen When you say convex top and concave back - are you talking about this sort of thing? : If so, there are much easier ways of doing it than the thoughts above... There are a number of ways, but I'm more than happy to outline the easiest / safest of the various ways I've done it.

And it gets even more beautiful...

I keep looking at those feature lines on the neck and scarf...in fact, everywhere! This is going to be absolutely splendid.

They are here - half the price as Hipshots. https://www.axesrus.co.uk/1-x-Hipshot-Licensed-UltraLite-Bass-Machine-Head-p/20650kc.htm I have always had good service from Axesrus and would expect that the quality is likely to be pretty good. I've used their own brand guitar tuners for years.

Hi All Sorry for the radio silence over the past few days - we had a major family get together at the weekend that didn't return to normal until yesterday. It will depend, to an extent, on the body weight but yes, I agree with @honza992 about the strap button being level with the 12th/13th fret as being a 'sweet spot' for preventing neck dive. In general terms, at this position you can usually take some liberties with body weight relief, headstock shape, tuner choice, etc.. The further the button heads towards the 14th and 15th fret, then you have to start taking actions such as: Lightweight tuners (there are more good ones on the market nowadays at a more affordable price than the good but eye-wateringly expensive Hipshot ones) Smaller headstock Going 2 a side rather than 4 in line Limiting any major weight relief plans for the body (which, of course, you may not have) And this is why single cut basses look like they look. The 'beluga whale' results (accusations you often see on forums of single-cuts) aren't trendy/avant-garde design statements - they are the result of simple geometry and physics. And yes, putting the button at far side of the heel, acoustic guitar style, can help a bit - but won't be able to compensate for too poor a neck positioning or major imbalance of body and headstock weights. So, if it was me, I would be: Shifting the bridge back as far as I could (as @honza992 also suggests above). This also reduces the arm stretch when playing a 34" which tends to be more comfortable. Then, having worked out the new 12th - 16th fret positions, tweak the upper horn shape as much as I could towards the 13th fret without losing the desired overall shape If I was still some way away from the 12th/13th fret, I would then be considering 2-a-side tuners to reduce the leverage effect of the tuners and the longer headstock of the 4-in-line I would also be looking at the Schaller lightweight tuners or maybe the licenced Hipshot Lites from Axesrus Hope this helps

Yes ^ MrsAndyjr1515 got fed up hearing about such things years ago and so now we just don't speak. As I say, I love this hobby

I can probably give you some pointers too, @owen - the majority of my builds have been convex/concave

Excellent! Go for it

Another HB fan here. I swopped the phosphor bronze strings for the Ibanez black tapewounds and it transformed it! ChrisSharman did the same to his and it transformed his too!

Great job & nicely documented Love the Brooks-1 and the Acoustic Fretless above too...

Can't add anything to @Christine 's excellent explanation. To make sure the scraper is completely square when honing the edges, I picked this tip up from somewhere - a simple jig. Just a vertical slot in a piece of wood: It's slightly springy so acts like a dolly peg. I pop the scraper in and use is as a pair of vertical hands while I run the edge over the diamond stones I probably use scrapers more than any other single tool-type in my workshop.

I particularly like the second one but, to be honest, they both look good.

Hi The Psilos uses an acoustic type single bone saddle and has an under saddle element. There are a number of UK-available brands but of all of them, in my view, one of the better ones, Artec, is one of the cheapest. But I guess that you, @mcnach , are talking of an electric bass bridge fitted with piezo elements? Graphtec are probably the market leaders - they do retro fit piezo saddles for a P & J type bridges and also some Hipshot type bridges. Even for these if you are looking for affordable and OK rather than top end, I would probably look at an Artec preamp rather than the pricier but good John East ones or the even pricier Graphtec ones.

If it's new, I wouldn't mess about with it at all - I'd just take a photo and send it with an email to Sandberg. Nothing in the ilk of trussrod adjustment or similar is going to produce what you have described.

Lovely job, Jez

For headstock plates I use Titebond. For actual veneers (0.6mm) I use the Evostick (green bottle) PVA wood glue ironed on.

There are two issues that sometimes make it difficult to pin down exactly what is going to produce the required result. First is that any residue at all of previous coatings will generally prevent the stain from soaking in properly. The way I generally check is that I sand it thoroughly, dust off the sandings and then wipe over with a moist (not dripping wet) cloth. Raw wood will immediately darken. If there are light patches and not just because the grain direction changes, it is usually that residue still there. The second is that black is a very difficult stain! And that is because you can't have shades of black. Black that isn't black just isn't black. And stains absorb more on end grain and often not much at all with the grain. So if it was green, you end up with green and lighter green. But 'lighter black'? So I'm not sure absorbing stains are the best thing - I think it needs to be more a coating product than an absorbing product. As stated above, Fiebings Leather Dye is worth a try - I think that is a bit of a cross between both.

It's an option and most builders would have no problem doing this - but I am personally rubbish at lining up such things Some builders actually rig up a false bridge and string up, then use a bone sliver to intonate on the strung up guitar to set where the saddle should be (a bit like a jazz guitarist would intonate with a floating bridge). But again, for me there are more possibilities to introduce errors than emininate them The secondary reason for the rig is that for Matt, the distance of the two E strings from the fretboard edges is critical - so the lining up of the string runs is as important that the position of the bridge. But...that lack of squareness might bug him. If so, there are a number of things I will be looking at: - first is double check that I got my jig right! - look at simply squaring up the external faces of the present bridge - get an unslotted bridge, slot it, check it's OK and then use the jig as originally planned - cut a perfect slot in a blank of wood, then cut the bridge from around it Of the above, squaring up the external faces is probably the most straightforward. All of this sort of thing is why this is such a great hobby. I've said before that building an acoustic is "a series of compromises held together by hope" Watch this space - more than enough opportunities for me to c**k it up yet!

I think they tend to be a bit random. This is a good bridge from a good supplier and is supposed to be to a Martin spec but I agree, it is more off line than I think I would normally expect. It's something that doesn't bother me - jazz bridges and many other floating bridges are usually skewed so it's something I don't generally notice. I will be checking with Matt, who I'm making this for. If it bothers him, I'll get an unslotted bridge. Mind you, they can be a pig to slot accurately which can give you the worst of all worlds...

It's a stunning piece of wood...

It's an acoustic - so it needs yet another jig made Fitting the bridge. Always an area needing accuracy - but particularly with an acoustic where, basically, once it's on it's on. Intonation adjustment is limited to the 1mm difference you can make filing the bone saddle angled towards the back or towards the front. So it has to be right. I use the Stewmac fret calculator app to give me the nut to saddle distances for top E and bottom E, but a steel rule isn't really accurate enough to measure the distances AND get the sideways positioning right. So last night, while watching the box, I made this from some maple binding strip: This is eminently possible to get the measurements right with a long steel rule. Then, the bottom cross-member hooks over the nut end of the fretboard and the top cross member fits into the bridge saddle-slot: I line the jig up to give an even distance between the fretboard edges bass and treble... ...and the bridge should now be in exactly the right position. Fingers crossed

Masterly.

Watching with interest

Not at all a silly question. I put the peak itself a touch behind the nut (ie to the headstock side). The reason is so that a player does not have the peak in the way of their supporting thumb when playing chords at the nut end. But the neck is aleady rising towards the peak at the apex of the headstock angle (ie, under the nut) and therefore I still get the extra thickness and associated strength increase at that weak spot. I'm sure other builders have other strategies...