Andyjr1515

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

What colours are the four wires you mention? If they are green, white, yellow and brown, then the Green is hot, the Yellow and White would normally be connected for full humbucking and the brown is to ground. Any help?

I've just recorded Ray Hatfield (played with one of the incarnations of Wishbone Ash for a number of years) gigging with one of my 6 string electrics. It used to be my gigging guitar and I can assure you it NEVER sounded like that when I played it!

That is crazy good...

By the way - it's all looking absolutely splendid

Great save! Consider that inspired design feature stolen

I can't think of one in terms of functionality for the Maruszczyk single rod type. The adjuster attached to the right hand thread end rather than the left hand thread end would have functionally an identical effect on the rod and relief . On a modern two-rod or rod-strip type, then yes - if there is an access issue to the adjuster, which is normally attached to the bottom rod and therefore sits at the bottom of the of the trussrod channel, then flipping it over brings the adjuster to the top of the trussrod channel and, for some designs, giving easier access for the allen key (but in the process reverses the direction it bends). Same goes if the adjuster is deeper than the rod...sometimes that gets the trussrod channel too close to breaking through the back of the neck. For home builds, it can also happen by accident...crazily, many adverts show modern trussrods upside down! This is a typical shot from a much-respected supplier (and it's not just the photographer - the accompanying technical drawing shows it upside down too!) : Put it in this way up, it will be reversed. In that no fitting instructions are supplied with the rods, it would be an easy mistake to make in a first build.

Excellent. Watching with interest Also, @Jabba_the_gut has some great experience at getting crazy short bass strings not feeling or sounding like a piece of wet spaghetti. Hopefully he'll drop by from time to time

If you look closely, you can see that sanding line is a slight bit lighter, but for most observers, well, I don't think they would see it. Just need to let the blend coat fully dry over the next few days and it can be shipped back to @evan47

I would PM Andre directly Don't worry that Nova are based in Brazil - mine arrived as quick as if they had come from Brighton

That looks alright

Nova Guitar Parts. Excellent quality and decent price. There are Chinese fakes about, so best to look them up on Facebook. The owner is @Andre_Passini who is a member here

Impressive stuff on many fronts. I read with interest the challenges with 3d printing...but that is a high quality result by any measure!

Well, as the saying goes, "There are many ways of skinning a cat!" (Although they all feel much the same to the cat...)

After sanding the headstock, it was time to cut the blank of maple constructional veneer (constructional veneer at around 2mm is quite a bit thicker than standard veneer, which is generally 0.6mm). Whereas the standard veneer will bend round the curve running up to the nut without any problem, this thicker variety needs to be pre-bent, especially as it is being bent across the grain. So out comes the bending iron I use for acoustic guitar sides: After a decent soaking, the nut end of the blank was carefully bent. It has a tendency to spring back when drying and so, while still damp, it is clamped to the curve (below) and will stay there until fully dry. I will be gluing on the plate when it is fully dry in the morning and by when that curve should be pretty much set.

At the moment, I just keep looking at it with a mix of satisfaction and relief I've said before that guitars and basses are made of a series of compromises held together with hope. None more so than when you have to do open-heart-surgery stuff like this! What that slot tells me at the moment is that, because it is now exactly the same width as when I cut it, the board must therefore be absolutely in the right place. And that isn't always easy to judge - naturally over time, but accelerated when you have to heat them up like this, the fretboards shrink a little bit (it's why often a new bass, after around a year or two, often starts getting sharp fret ends that need filing back flush). And so having such a precise datum like that slot is useful. When the tinted finish arrives, I will mix a little with some maple sanding dust (I keep dust from all the woods I use for this type of purpose) and fill the slot in the same way that the original fret slots were filled by the manufacturer.

@evan47 is - as it should be - slightly ahead of the rest of the forum on this He's asked me if I could do him some offset dots on the face of the fretboard. Here they are for the rest of you to see Just got to wait for the tinted finish to arrive and then I can blend the joint line to the original finish and have something that feels right and looks right.