Andyjr1515

To the untrained eye, this looks JUST like the last couple of shots Trust me...it's different. The profile is now sanded and has passed the Andyjr1515 air guitar test Next job, hopefully later today, is measuring and drilling the tuner holes.

And so the good news... @fleabag has the neck And...let's think, there must be some other good news...ah, yes! With a judicious and expected scrape off of the extra finish thickness at the heel, the heel was a satisfyingly tight and accurate fit in the pocket. But it was a little high... It turns out that @Andyjr1515 's Fender-ish donor body with 'fender-size' neck pocket was deeper than @fleabag 's 'fender-ish' body neck pocket. OK - when I say a little high...hmmm...at least 2.5mm high Oh...mmmm....yes...the headstock finish which was, at last, glossy enough to call finished. Well...who would have thought that bubble wrap would leave octopus marks even after a week of curing Oh, yes..hmmm...and the other stuff But the good news, is that @fleabag has done a fantastic job of rectifying those issues Mind you...there's a bit of refinishing needed. So the moral of this story is: the wise sages are quite correct in saying that you should never try to make a neck if you don't have the body physically on hand to fit it to. And if you do, then make sure it's going to someone like @fleabag who has the skills and enthusiasm to put it right

Shhhh! - it's to our great advantage to keep quiet about this. While ever the market thinks that the more expensive basses are better, then the prices of the GREAT affordable basses (Squier; Epiphone; Yamaha to name but three) stay affordable In the guitar world, there is a fair bit of life-wisdom around that boils down to: 'If you want a Gibson Les Paul, then buy a Gibson. If you want a quality Les Paul, then buy an Epiphone' Oh - and I personally would always buy a Squier over a Fender for basses and guitars (much as I like Fenders including, actually, their build quality).

I agree with the above. I would sell as is.

So, what are the weight-reducing things that can be done. The ultra-slim body centre is something that evolved from 'Tom's African Bass' through to @TheGreek 's 'cross section of a contact lens' concept on his Psilos Bass through to @Len_derby 's Swift Lite Bass, that sought to get the weight benefits of a slim centre, with the playing, electrics and visual benefits of a more conventional depth of body at the sides: @Len_derby's bass, below, worked out at 6lbs 6oz playing weight with two pickups and fairly conventional timbers and hardware. @Happy Jack's will be an inch longer scale and 5-string...hence the design extra work to be done. Chambering can also be done within the remaining thickness, both in the back and top: You do, of course, have to remember that the back is carved too! Light timbers - swamp ash...great but more difficult to get hold of due to some die-back problems. Paulownia - lots of folks starting to use it. Used to be cheap bodies - now it's some of the 'better names' who have clearly been following my 'Why are basses so heavy?' threads It is cultivated, sustainable, good for the soil, soft but very, very light...but at the moment VERY difficult to get hold of as body-blanks. Light hardware - better and better choice Design - Thickness of the body, covered above, is critical but so is: getting the top horn as far forward as practical for on-the-strap balance; ditto the lower waist for over the knee balance; if you are going to have any heavier hardware, make it the bridge; putting the bridge as far back as you can get it. So all of that and more will need to be incorporated...

You know me - I'll have forgotten again which is going to be for which by the time I've even started cutting any timber so we can go to the safest option of 'I'll fit whichever neck you send me...' (thinks: I know Happy Jack's sense of humour...he's bound to send me a bass uke neck now... )

When I passed across @Happy Jack 's lovely Mike Lull P5 back to him, fitted with the new Andyjr1515 fretless neck, and watched him play it, I thought - no...we both thought - "that fretless neck ain't going to be swopped back for the original fretted one for a good while!" For those who followed the thread, you will remember that the idea was that the two necks were designed to be able to be swopped over quickly and repeatedly with minimum fuss or reset. Trouble is - and this is more to do with fretless necks rather than my skills - some fretless necks and their set up just 'have it', and some are playable but don't have that extra 'mwarr'. And, by luck, this one happened to have it in bucket loads. So Jack has a lovely Mike Lull 35" scale neck sitting gathering dust. And so stage two of the project has just begun...building a new body for the original fretted neck It will be a bit of a slow burn, but the idea is to build: - a lightweight body that balances both on the knee and on the strap. It's a fairly heavy neck (2.5lbs) and Jack was thinking in terms of trying for 7.5lbs playing weight. We may not get there, but I have suggested we try to see how close to 6.5lbs we can get. I know...but at the very, very worst case, we will get a lot closer to 7.5lbs if we are aiming for 6.5! - fitted with a Fishman Fluence 5 pickup (I'm quite excited by that) - (subcontracted) Shell Pink nitro spray finish. I've got some ideas of the best combination of techniques and materials to get the weight, play 'feel' and balance and are now exploring how to get hold of the materials I'd like to use (more challenging than you would think) but this is the kind of shape I'm thinking: I'm still pondering on some of the critical datum points, especially recognising that the neck is a 35" scale and so I have to allow at least a further 1/2" of balance-point critical items In some of my previous lightweight builds, I've incorporated: - light timbers (although my lightest used oak!) - ultra slim centre area of body - chambers - lightweight hardware For this build, I will need to use ALL of these...and more I'll keep you posted

Well, this seems to have taken for ever, but it's at last hotfooting it across the UK road and depot network to @fleabag as I type: Fingers crossed that he will like it

Yes - that is indeed exactly what you said and yes - it did make sense

So, pulleys at the very back, strings loop behind the back and double back on themselves and the tuner block faces the other way to normal? Hmmm...it doesn't even need to be pulleys - it could be brass channels... Blimey - your ideas are even crazier than mine...and most folks think mine are completely bonkers. Love it

I think I'm right that the string tension to tune to a particular note for the same scale length is the same, regardless of the extra string behind the bridge or in front of the nut. So your concept wouldn't affect the string tension. It's a neat solution whether or not double ball ends were used.

Yes, Jez. You were way ahead of the poor old fella wheezing behind

I confess, I haven't got my head around the pulleys yet

Yes - that's how jazz guitar bridges are and even Paul McCartney's Hofner violin bass is. You literally intonate them by sliding the bridge across the top.

It's a dog eats someone else's sausages world out there...

OK - I have a bit more time to explain where I'm coming from in terms of the double ball ends. Leastways, that's what I was going to do. Until I thought about it I'm sure most folks are ahead of me on this, but have a rest while the old fella catches up If you really want to use double ball ends** : - It's only the saddles that need to be multi-scale. - You could use standard headless tuners in or on a standard block - Fix that at the very back and square to the string runs - Take the saddles out - Set up individual floating saddles or a custom saddle block (3D printed with fret inserts...think Hofner Violin Bass "Extreme") incorporating the multi-scale Then the string runs are equal length and double ball ends can be used with same length strings (bear in mind, they will still probably be customs because of their length). **When I did @Jus Lukin's headless wonder, I timed how long it took me to fully string, including cutting to length, a new set of strings on the Nova system and bring them all up to pitch... ...2 minutes. Just sayin'

I'll put some more meat on the bones in the morning, but I think that the double-ball approach is an unnecessary complication for the short-scale multi-scale you have in mind. Cheaper to buy 4 allen keys and keep one in every place you can think of than being stuck with always having to buy some very custom strings (and getting their spec right) or compromising the functionality. And on a bass, how often do you need to change strings? Look up Nova Guitar Systems (there's a similar topic somewhere else on the site) on Facebook and pm @Andre_Passini (the owner) on this forum. They are great quality and will be a lot cheaper than some of the above you mention. More about my view of the double-ball issue tomorrow And yes - as @3below says, the Steinberger tuners you show are great, but designed for guitars, not basses

Hmmm...that maybe my issue. I probably am using 9.5 hoping that the inserts will cut their grooves cleanly...but I think there's probably a bit more brute force involved I'll try 10 next time. Also, I use a plug cutter - but they are not great. I like your home-made lathe idea. Consider it stolen

Other than the genius of the aluminium insert, the use of your drill jig and, of course, the perfect final sizes and finish you manage to get, I make mine in a similar way One question, though. Do you ever suffer the bottom cylinder sections splitting when you insert the inserts? I lose around 20% of my bottom sections where they just burst open along the grain...

And so to the neck carve. Every builder has their own preferred way of doing this, but my own way is that, having already earlier thicknessed the back of the neck to final depth, including taper, I basically mark the centre spine in pencil and remove wood, along the whole length of the neck, moving towards this line, flattening the cut as I move towards it. And basically, after removing the bulk, I creep up on the final shape. For bulk removal, I start with a spokeshave: And quite quickly move to razor plane blades, held two (gloved) handed and again drawn up the total length of the neck: And then pretty quickly move to the good old cabinet card scraper - again, drawn along the full length of the neck: Notice that my pencil line is untouched... The above process is pretty quick - an hour tops to the 'starting to get there' territory. This is it ready for the second stage where I start getting the templates out and start creeping towards the finished shape: The next stage will use only card scraper and sandpaper. And, because it's relatively easy to remove wood but it's very difficult to put it back, this next stage will take a little longer

Yup - pretty much, on all counts

Update on the neck. I got @funkle to take me some profile drawings of his favourite-playing bass so that I can get at least a familiarity of feel with the Wal-ish neck. From those drawings I've cut a plasticard template and so am now out of excuses not to start carving the neck

Just catching up with this. It looks great - some very clever and attractive features - and that new bridge is very impressive

Missed this somewhere along the way! Looks great

I've said it before, but guitars and basses are basically a series of compromises held together by hope Yes - there are certain geometrical truths Yes - there are laws of physics But that is maybe only 10% of the design decisions that are fixed or constrained for you. That means that 90% of the decisions aren't constrained and are more about choices and compromises. But most things do affect other things to a larger or smaller degree. So I find that the best way is to pin down something that is important to me in this design and then consider: - what is affected by that decision? and - do I need to mitigate that effect? and, if so - how can I, or can I, mitigate it? And while it is always worth thinking, 'why are most xxx's you see on basses done like that?', never assume that it has to be done like that. Sometimes that is as simple as some guy 70 years ago picking up a bunch of ex-army surplus switches that were 2 1/2" deep and so that's how thick the body will have to be. And because the basses worked quite well, everyone else started using the same switches and built bodies the same thickness. So tell me again...why are 'traditional' electric basses and guitars SO heavy?? So yes - the lower B is the one that is going to flop around the most. The shorter it is, the worse that gets at a given string thickness and tension...but you can change those. And yes, changing those will indeed affect the intonation...but as long that has been considered, that it quite easily fixable by either fixing the bridge in the right place or having enough adjustment range in the saddles. Sounds like an achievable objective to me