Andyjr1515

It's just nature's way of making room for the rest of the animal kingdom

I love watching your design process, @rwillett Inspiring!

First tips, that I'm sure you already know, is face mask and gloves! I think I would use a cocktail/kebab stick pushed in to give it the support and prevent the crushing - it helps the cutting too. Personally, I use a fine-tooth X-acto razor saw but the dremel cutting disc also works (but don't forget that mask and, for this, I would wear glasses/goggles too).

Splendid, Rob - a well-deserved Gold star & Smiley Face Oh and welcome to the club...clearly your journey towards total madness creative fulfillment will be continuing...

It looks absolutely splendid, by the way....

You shouldn't need to raise or lower the neck for this - the most effective way is by changing the neck angle a teeny bit, as @BigRedX suggested above (and quoted below) If your action is too low, you put the business-card-thickness shim at the headstock end of the neck pocket; if your action is too high, you put the shim at the bridge end of the neck pocket. This teeny angle makes a much greater difference to the action height than actually raising or lowering the height of the neck.

You don't need to do anything as drastic as that. Just use a single-edged razor blade or a Stanley knife blade as a scraper: - Use it two-handed for best control (my right hand was taking the picture! ) - scrape the surface up from fret to fret moving progressively from one side to the other, repeating until you are happy with it - use medium pressure first to scrape any finish off and then, if necessary, the wood below to scrape out any ingrained dirt, dips and dints Generally, the dots,whether synthetic or natural, will be cooperative to this treatment so just carry on as though they weren't there: And, honestly, you can't overdo it. You would be having to do it for hours non-stop before affecting any of the fret security or strength When it's all done, vacuum all the dust away and then add whatever your preferred finish is (I use either decent quality lemon oil or tru-oil just wiped on and buffed off) Except for maple fret-boarded Fenders, where they fully gloss the fretboard, I do this ROUTINELY when I am doing a full setup on basses and guitars -. It makes the fretboard look new and it only takes me about 15 minutes for the full fretboard. But, of course, don't rush it on your first go!

Just picked this thread up. Splendid project - I just love old basses. Ref the fretboard finish - are you OK with that now? If it still bugs you then I have a suggested way of making it look like new with minimal risk and cost. But it looks OK in the photos

Great news! (Phew! )

No, @ped. The only way that the electrical current would actually change direction would be to take all the magnets out (of one of the pickups) and turn them around, or to wind the windings around the magnets the other way round

Ref the diagram, that depends entirely on the pickups whether the phasing of each pickup and the wiring colours match. From what you have described, @Sibob our assumption is that the two pickups are not a matched pair and happen to have different phasing. As long as the pickups have insulated cases and are simply two-conductor ones, then the two wires can be fitted either way round and the pickup, on its own, will work fine - the black wire isn't actually an earth it's a...well...just a black wire. There are fancy ways of checking, but the simplest and quickest is to swop the two and try it - and if it is no better, or worse, then swop them back and look elsewhere for the problem. But I think I would bet a pint that it will sort it

If you swop the blue and the black round at that middle pot it should sort it.

Well done, @mrbacco Looking forward to the next one

Yes - almost certainly this ^ Usually an easy fix - just a case of desoldering two wires and swopping them round.

Splendid!

No - there's definitely a radius. This is an original 60's one I worked on a few years ago: And here's a modern replacement bridge...pretty much identical to the original ones: And looking at these, yes - 14" looks about right

I agree with @Paul S above If it was me but with your preferences, I would go the Sterling Stingray Shortscale. Knockout - well made, versatile, great modern soundscape.

According to this fairly detailed review, it is 14", although visually I had judged it flatter than that: https://performerlife.com/epiphone-viola-bass-vs-hofner-ignition

Never too late for anyone saying nice things, @BassTool Thanks!

This ^ Personally, I wouldn't lower the saddle any more. Because it is a top string through bridge, the break angle over the saddle is quite low to start with...and that may be contributing to the buzz (although Doctor J's method should confirm this or not).

Yes - this ^ My guess is that it will work fine with just a tweak of the intonation. I think it is unlikely that the nut slot size will be an issue unless you do bass string bends like Clapton does on his electric

Hmmm...I'd never considered that but I like it! Well explained too, @BigRedX

Absolutely splendid!

Yes - of course! Just drop me a line if you want to pop across again anytime.

I've been messing around with strings a little and have come across a set that I think suits the tonal dynamics pretty well. It is a mixed tension set from Savarez, their Corum Red/Blue set. The bass three strings are high tension and the three treble strings standard tension. I think it balances out the resonances from the strings. Although this set will allow me to tune one or two semi-tones lower, I think the 'three semitones above standard' still suits best. Here's a second set of short demo sounds in different styles, again recorded directly into my little Zoom H2n recorder. Thanks for looking/listening!!