Andyjr1515

Family stuff has subsided for a while and so it's back on the bench. And - well, may as well see if it adds to or detracts - I have a sheet of 0.2mm ali on the way. I couldn't get hold of any scrap lithographic sheet but, from memory I reckon it was around that gauge when I used to use it in RC aeromodelling. It will add less than a gnat's whatsit to the weight of the headstock. I won't bond it to the headstock face until I'm certain that it enhances rather than detracts but, if I do it well enough (yes, I know...that's a big 'if' ) it should balance the look nicely.

With the caution of 'always try first in an unseen area' , for gloss I use Meguiers Ultimate Compound from Halfords with one of their white lint free polishing cloths.

More than happy to fit one. Gives you the option depending on the venue/arrangement

Yes - thanks. I'll see if @Happy Jack wants switchable but my question was ref the existing simple circuit and actually, when I took the green white and red out of the connector, it turns out that the white and red were already soldered together and so will have been originally wired in series, which is what I would have expected. So removing that pair from the connector and insulating them and yes, I have a fully working humbucking pickup. And that means that I can move to thinking about the pickup ring/scratchplate Got a busy family week coming up so am trying to make as much progress as I can before MrsAndyjr1515 says the inevitable and well-used phrase 'That mess has got to be tidied up! And that means now!!'

Yes - popped the black back where presumably it had come from and we have sound And yes - only one coil operating. I don't know the actual make of the pickup so will need to get my multimeter out and see if I can work out which colours are which coil. Once I've done that, what do folks think - go the standard humbucker series approach or parallel?

Well call me presumptuous, but I suspect this might have something to do with there being no signal: That will be easily fixed. Slightly odd, though - the red white and green all joined together - surely that shorts out one of the coils?

I found the tuners. The bushes were nominally the correct size but were a little loose in the headstock holes - nothing that some decent quality plumber's PTFE can't sort. Now they are a firm push-fit With the tuners fitted, the next decision was 'which of the two sets of strings that Jack sent should I use?'. While the Thomastik-Infeld ones look very interesting, the blurb on the back makes it clear that they are intended for use with fretless. Probably best saved for one of Jack's fretless basses (maybe the Lull?) so I fitted the D'Addario XL's for the first trial fit. I will probably add a degree or so neck angle so that the bridge can be lifted enough to give a decent break angle rather than lower it any more (which it has the clearance to do) but, that said, this is one of the best 'first fits' in a long time! No signal coming through at the moment - I will investigate that before cutting a pickup ring/scratchplate just in case it is the pickup (unlikely - more likely to be just a loose connection/earth). Weight is coming at at around 5kg / 11lbs Based on that I've come across Gibson Les Paul guitars at over 13lbs, that is actually not too bad. Hangs level on the strap (again, not too bad).

The new neck fixing holes are only 5mm or so away from the originals and so, to ensure that the surrounding wood to the new holes has no unnecessary weakness, I have plugged those and, after measuring and checking and measuring and checking the requisite number of times, drilled the new pilot holes on my small pillar drill. It fits! I haven't checked yet, but in the stuff that @Happy Jack sent, I reckon there's a set of compatible tuners and so later today I should be able to get some strings on and see if/how the geometry works.

Lovely

Very nice indeed. Lovely job.

Great job and great result.

Beautiful job!

Ah OK. Happily, although the width is, indeed, slimmer, the radius of the curve at the end is pretty much identical to the Fender. In an industry where the main makers are not even consistent within their own models and versions, that has to be a bit of a first. Phew!

The original aluminium pocket had been made to 'standard Fender' shape. As was the neck that Jack had sent me. The way I used the router simply held that shape as I cut away some of the length and so the fit remained OK.

Sorted! It just needed a quick whistle past the bandsaw and then the neck heel jobbee on the router table repeated. Intonation might be affected a touch - but to a player of your caliber, @Happy Jack , I'm sure that won't be a problem at all

Actually, in the model aircraft world folks use cast-off lithographic aluminium sheet used in the printing industry that is even thinner - it is used once and then thrown out for recycling. It is very thin and weighs next to nothing. WHAT AM I SAYING??????

And so today's job was getting the neck to fit the immoveable and un-modifiable neck pocket at the correct scale length. I don't use the DIY router table that often, but there are certain jobs that are perfect for it. First was getting the length right, while retaining the heel end shape. I used a narrow router bit so that the sides of my fences either side of the bit could be close together and making the cut follow the heel end curve. Little by little is the golden rule here - this is after 6 passes of around 1mm length removal at a time. The height of the cut is around 1mm higher than the depth of the pocket, leaving an overhang for the unchanged fretboard size and shape: Then, positioning the neck along the length of the fences, I narrowed each side by a couple of mm. Here's how the new heel comes out: It fits! On this side, I have narrowed the whole length of the heel to give a clean face in line with the pocket width - I will blend and refinish the join later On the other side, I could do the same - but I have another cunning plan I am considering and so, for the moment, have left it as a cut-out And this is how it looks at the moment with the neck heel sitting fully and snugly in the pocket : And the all-important scale check... Phew!

The general rule for setting a neck position is to wind the top string saddle fully forward and set that at scale length. That is because a string will never flatten when fretted and the one that will sharpen the least (all other things being equal) will be the top string. The thicker strings will tend to sharpen more the thicker they are. So if the top string saddle is set fully forward when the bridge/neck position is determined, then it will give you the maximum backward adjustment available for the other saddles. In this case, I'm working out where the neck position needs to be. So with the G saddle fully forward, I place the steel rule at the saddle peak and adjust the position of the neck until the nut slot edge is at scale length: A pencil mark where the end of the heel comes to tells me how much I have to shorten the pocket area of the neck heel for the neck to be able to intonate. The heel is a little too wide for the pocket and so that will need some tweaking too. If I get this right, I will only need to rout the heel to the depth of the neck pocket and so the fretboard itself will remain unaffected and will overhang the body. It's a job for my DIY router table...which might mean a bit of tidying in the cellar... By the way, that's a crackingly good pocket that @6feet7 and his supplier have created there... This is how it's starting to look so far:

Yes - that's another way. Usually it depends on how soft the top is, how deep/hard the back wood is and how stuck the insert is. With a wood body, the 'broken screw' trick can work quite well - heating the bush up with a soldering iron to expand it, then letting it cool back down before trying again. The main thing is to work out how you would do it for the particular instrument you are working with before hammering them in

So, still to finish the stop tail. How to gain that mm of post width for the bridge. One side of the bridge has, designed in, some slide adjustability but the other side does not. Well, to be precise, did not. A bit less dramatic but I realised that if I filed the side of the retainer-nut recess, I could elongate the other side and gain myself the mm: Pretty invisible - especially on the stage So time to drive in those bushes! And here is a pro-tip from a rank amateur...before driving in these kind of bushes, always work out how you will get them out if (when) they get stuck! And in my box of bits, I have an old bed-head fixing screw that is the same thread as most T-o-M/Stop tail bushes: If it gets stuck. I screw in the screw until it bottoms...and then with a large screwdriver, keep screwing. Two possibilities - the bush stays stuck and the screw bursts a hole in the back of the body...or usually, if you are careful, the screw stays bottomed and the bush pulls out. And yes - I did need to use it. One of the bushes did, indeed, get stuck. And yes - this got it out: And so that brings the thread up to date - more fettling to do, but we have the T-o-M fitted: And that means I can properly measure the scale length and work out how much I need to take off the back of the new neck heel and see if we can get the neck to fit in the pocket

You are right, @BigRedX , and I'm always impressed what folks can do with metal. I'm a bit limited with no bench vice and no room for a separate area to do this kind of stuff (and metal filings don't really want to be where wood work is going to be done) - but also nowadays it's more about the pesky hand arthritis. Modding this has turned out to be doable but, nowadays, filing and sawing metal, even soft alloys is problematic. As is, increasingly, wood...

Meanwhile, back in the Andyjr1515 workshop (a posh word for a bench in the cellar) files were being laid out as a surgeon lays out the scalpels and bone saws. Files, no less, manufactured for proper jobs. Yes - files manufactured for cutting METAL. And up until now used by Andyjr1515 for shaping nothing tougher than...well...bubinga! And even that made him sweat... So, starting on one side first so that it could be chucked in the bin before expending any more energy if it turned out like a dog's dinner: Hmmm...well, it would need to be tidied up. But that might just work...may as well attack the other side... Bit more fettling to do (not least being to file off the copper outer layer), and a proper sanding and buffing of the exposed ali - but this might just work...and maybe even suit the overall vibe:

I took off the pickguard, I'll admit, with a bit of trepidation. Was it hiding something horrible? Actually, no - not bad at all. The gap round the pickup can easily be covered with a normal-sized pickup ring; the couple of snail trails (reminder to always use a pillar drill wherever possible when drilling metal) are insignificant; a few surplus holes that maybe can be disguised but, in any case, would be invisible at stage-to-audience distance. Cutting straight lines in aluminium as thick as this is immensely difficult - this is pretty darned good So...to the tailstock. Stop tails on basses are not that common - and there is no commonality across makers. The bushing hole centres do actually match one version of the Hipshot T-o-M ish set...but not the one most commonly available. And the price is eye-watering. So @Happy Jack and I agreed that the only practical first step was to see if I could mod the one he had supplied. But that would mean filing and drilling aluminium alloy away. And that means that, wherever the filing was done, the black powder-coating would be no longer. So I had a ponder. @Happy Jack and @Silvia Bluejay were on the road at the time and our dialogue was being carried out by text via (one hopes) the non-driver. You can imagine the discussion in the car: 'Jack - Andyjr1515 say's he's having a ponder!' 'On no! Not a ponder!' 'Yes - I know...' 'He says if you can't hide it, then you must flaunt it.' 'Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo' ** (** As heard by a pedestrian patiently waiting to cross the road)

@Happy Jack wanted to change it from a 5 string (it originally had a modified 4-string neck - see original thread above) and so promised to send a couple of possible necks and most of the other related hardware, etc, to me to assess and, if it could be done, to get on and start doing it. So how to send a big lump of aluminium and a couple of necks?? The DPD man, when he arrived at the door, gave me a 'WTF?' look...but then we agreed that this was actually a splendid way of sending a large, heavy parcel. Has its own carrying handle! Protected. Weatherproof. Padded. Tear-proof And here it was! An amazing piece of engineering - have a look at @6feet7's original thread. It is hollow, made up of multiple components, ali-welded together. But you would never know - the grinding off of the main front/back weld line is completely invisible. The swirl finish of the top is very impressive... @Happy Jack sent me his preferred 4 string T-o-M bridge and stoptail and challenge 1 was that the post centres were not the same as the pre-drilled bush holes. I did some googling, based on that a different T-o-M type might be a better option than to mod the one sent - but no joy...the stop tail was going to need a major mod, and the T-o-M bridge a smaller one. The right hand side has a 2mm sliding bolt arrangement, but the mismatch was more like 3mm. But as you can see - the stop tail would need to be a major mod if this was going to be used: So out with the heavy gear...they don't call me Bodgers Rogers for nothing!!!

There are builds on this forum that make me go WOW! Builds that are SO different, or so challenging, or so intriguing that I remember why it is that my own build journey has often veered towards the 'bet that can't be done' project gauntlets that are occasionally thrown my way. Occasionally, I even get to see these in the flesh - the regional Bassbashes are great for this And now and again I have been flattered to be asked to assess, or tweak, or mod one of these marvels - either for the original owner or to suit a new owner. One such opportunity has come to me in the last few days - and has to rank a bit of a pinnacle in clambering up the learning mountain. Many of you will remember @6feet7 's remarkable Alumibird 5. If you missed it, his build thread is here. It was an awesome project in the literal sense as well as in the vernacular: Well - to cut a long story short, @6feet7 put it up for sale in the marketplace here recently - and @Happy Jack bought it And @Happy Jack has asked me if I would consider doing some of the tweaks on it he was considering to suit his own playing style and gigging needs. Now, with me having immediately bitten his hand off, he'll need to sort out some prosthetic alternative before he will be able to play it - but my answer was, of course, YYYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!