Andyjr1515

Yes, although I will probably make that a mm or so thinner

Spent a happy morning making lots of noise with the Makita thicknesser. First was slimming and narrowing the through-neck blank to thickness and width for the next steps. After that was slimming down some purpleheart splices that will become the demarcation between the walnut top and the oak back wings. The main pieces of purpleheart were then cut, oversize, ready for gluing. The final couple of pieces of purpleheart will be cut when the rest are glued on so I don't end up with any cumulative dimension changes once they are all glued: And the gluing of those pieces is underway...what was that old adage about clamps...hmmm can't quite remember. It's on the tip of my tongue

I'm pretty sure it's a welded one. That said, I would give it 1/4 turn loosening first, just in case it's gummed up, and then tighten back up and carry on to the adjustment you are aiming for. Then you know it's free and working. Given that the photo shows a definite flat, you should be able to use the same modified key in the future.

It's out of the clamps and with a quick scrape to get the glue off, it's ready to go through the thicknesser in the morning once everything is at its full strength. This is the other side to the above photo - quite pleased that the sections, held flat against the bench clamp supporting tubes are lined up nicely...and it's actually square to the sides! : The other side is a bit of a dogs dinner at the moment (no - I'm not going to post the photo...think Pal with a bit of Winalot and a few spoons of last night's left-over gravy ), but with this side being flat, square and straight, a couple of passes through the thicknesser in the morning will get me the ready-to-use blank The purple of the purple heart will come out properly once the light has got to it and the finish is on (when you cut and scrape it, it actually starts off brown). Good job there's a lot of timber to be cut away from this - the blank is currently 7lbs 6oz...which is heavier than the final bass is going to be

I glue the splices one face at a time - I find there's too much floating around of wood on glue to do all 6 faces (or even 2!) at a time First one - I am using the two thicker outer sections of maple as my main clamping cauls (they are also protected from the clamps by some plywood packers) and the name of the game is to have squeeze-out all along the length. I'm using the two bench clamps either end and then as many G or screw clamps as necessary in between: ...and a few hours later, the last one is curing in the clamp: I will leave this all to fully set overnight, then in the morning start cleaning and squaring it up ready to rout the slot in the top surface where the walnut top will slot.

Hi @andyonbass I can't be sure, but that looks like the type of trussrod where the nut is welded to the rod and so can't be removed. In fact, it looks a bit like this type, where the adjustable nut itself is inside a fixed outer metal cylinder: The good news is that there are still distinctly visible facets and so an allen key shape, if it was the size of the slightly enlarged hole, will have enough purchase to turn the nut. While the Torx option is often a good thing to try, I agree - you need something allen key shaped to get into that very restricted space, so I think the filed-down allen key is a decent option (incidentally, if you do have a set of imperial sized allen keys, often they are a few 1/10ths of a mm larger or smaller than the metric ones and sometimes you can hit lucky with one that is just enough bigger...) You don't need to be super accurate with the faces - you just need it to be small enough to get into the chamber and jam itself against one of the flatter faces when you turn it. Start with an allen key 0.5mm bigger than the original one. It takes a bit of patience - the metal is HARD, especially the outer layer - but I use just a fine needle file (the diamond one shown is from Hobbycraft - a set is dirt cheap and they are remarkably good!). Here's one I've done that way that I use for a similar problem. This is about 0.1mm bigger than the next 0.5mm smaller key in my set :

Hooray....Mafeking has been relieved....the wood's arrived! And the gluing of the sections will start this very day This is how it should look when it's all together: Purple heart in the middle, walnut stringers either side, maple everywhere else So by the weekend, we should have a neck glued and cut and the top demarcation purpleheart bonded, ready for the top to be glued to the neck

@Hellzero is absolutely right about this, @bagsieblue. Holding a wire against a contact just doesn't cut the mustard with bass and guitar electrics. I know, because I've tried that myself in the past It is also correct that the contacts 2-3 bridge is essential and that on the original circuit board this will be happening within the board. It should be a 2 min job to solder the contact bridge, @bagsieblue . If not already done, it's worth doing it because I'm pretty sure that, all else being correct to @Hellzero 's description, it should work. The series /parallel switch, by the way, often doesn't produce a huge amount of a tonal difference, but you should hear a volume difference through an amp or see it through a DAW wave-form. In terms of split coil, tapping the poles lightly with a steel screwdriver or similar when the bass is plugged in should tell you which rows of poles are connected and which are shorted out.

While I rate most of Artec's products highly, the DiMarzio Model One is the kiddie - and some -in terms of sound. I fitted one on Pete's EB-3 tribute and it blows your pants off when he plays it.

Lovely job (again )

Well...ummm...that was my way of bringing it into the conversation. We need to...well...we need to talk....

Plenty

That's a shame. I generally use clear epoxy and mix in ebony dust that I collect when I'm sanding fretboards, etc. As it isn't a dye, it can't bleed and, as long as you put a decent amount in the mix, it's pretty much jet black.

It depends on the machine-heads themselves. Strength-wise, there isn't really an issue, but it needs to be far enough in to make sure the back of the machine-heads or the top washers don't end up hanging over the edge, and far enough out to make sure that the tuner knobs don't hit the headstock. On most of mine that usually ends up at 7-9mm but, as I say, it depends on the machine heads and the angle you are planning to fix them at.

This is ridiculously good

Hmmm...I can't help thinking that this is a bit like the middle of "Grand Designs" just before the commercial break. Where things are all going tip top and falling into place and everybody is smiling...just before the announcement that dry rot, death watch beetle and japanese knotweed has been found everywhere in and around the property. Because, so far, this is going suspiciously well. I've just put the level on the neck again and: As I had hoped - but didn't dare to expect - the set in the neck, now it's had chance to fully normalise, has disappeared and it is completely straight Which means no carbon rods are needed So, back to the act, assess, act, assess, fix if feasible - we are now well in the realm of the fixable This will rapidly move into the 'make progress in between the more urgent stuff' (I have a birthday to hit with @Matt P 's build! ) but I now know this isn't going to be returned as a bag of bits. Over the rest of Easter, I will order a new modern trussrod and add some thickness and strength into bottom of the trussrod slot. While I'm doing that, I've lightly sprayed the top of the fretboard and clamped it upside down on the bench to allow the differentially expand and dry flat and straight:

Well...that went better than I expected. If these kinds of things carry on working OK, then I might end up confident enough to start sorting out some of my own basses rather than just experimenting on other peoples Because this morning the clamps are off... I knew this side was going to be OK, because I could see it: But this was hidden by the carved block so I couldn't see if it was even aligned. I'm well chuffed with this! There's no step between the two sections at all : So this should now be strong enough - just the aesthetics to sort out. So next thing to look at is the neck straightness. I'm still thinking carbon rods but with all the shops shut today (oh yes... and for the past three months ) and @Matt P 's neck splices still not here, I'll give that a good ponder before doing anything rash

Thanks! Yes - while I wouldn't term it 'normal', it is nevertheless a very common method of avoiding the 'Gibson headstock snap' that said firm has profited suffered from over decades. It's one of the reasons that you don't see many 50's and 60's Les Pauls and SGs around (yes, seriously). It also saves timber as the two sections can be made from slimmer stock. That said, you see it just as often on high end stuff as you do on budget instruments. The problem is where the headstock is more than, say 10 degrees and so straight headstocks, such as Fender, don't need it and so don't have it. Gibson don't have it and should.

Whatever I do to straighten the neck, the headstock section has to be rejoined. Always a bit dodgy to add to the thread before you know the result, but it wouldn't be an Andyjr1515 thread if we weren't tip toeing on the very edge of disaster, would it! Normally, a scarf joint would be clean sanded and joined before the neck was carved so the clamps are sitting on flat cauls. Clearly that can't be done here. So the cunning plan is this: To take the neck profile either side of the joint: Carve a block with the shape and taper and check it for fit: Then, protecting the blocks from the glue with masking tape, apply a thin layer of Titebond to both surfaces and slide the joint together to interlock the grain break lines and line up against the break pattern and hold the carved block along the joint: Then, finally, add a flat top block and clamp until it's fully cured (basically, overnight): The visible joint at the back of the neck isn't going to be pretty, but the name of the game here is to get a strong, sturdy and straight joint. The neck will need to be stripped and refinished whatever and so I can tidy up the visible joint line at the time Oh...and if it isn't strong and sturdy and straight, then I'll have to break it open and do it again. But then again, you'd be disappointed if there wasn't a precipice I was walking backwards towards

Yes - as the others say, our thoughts are with you both.

I always like to have the physical bridge to hand when I am working out the bridge position and neck angle. This way I can check the actual and usable range of saddle height and intonation movement. I then draw the fretboard height, fret height, nut height full-size as a side view to the previously drawn plan view of the bass and plot the string run from nut to saddle at it's lowest set action height: I then match that against the saddle height range of the bridge to work out what, if any, the neck angle needs to be to allow the saddles to be able to have reasonable adjustability once it's all assembled: And this says that, in fact, I shouldn't need a neck angle. Which is, as it happens, a decent double check to what I had assumed. Why? Because the hipshot B-style is a modern take for the Fender BBOT...and Fender basses also generally do not need a neck angle. So when the neck splices arrive on, presumably Tuesday (unless UPS are delivering today), I should be able to make a burst of decent progress

Yes - but in a most beautiful way

Yes - that's an option as long as I was careful not to sand unevenly. With a bolt on, I would put it into a jig and rout it flat, but that is impractical on a set neck. Quite difficult to get even and flat with a sanding beam but definitely one option. The other is to leave it and then defret and level the fretboard, but left with broadly the same issue. If I can get back to the original neck straightness with carbon rods, then I know that the neck height and angle is going to be right and the fretboard may even be able to go back on with the original frets. As I say...a series of compromises held together by hope

Happily, this one has no time pressure on it at all. Which is just as well because there will be a number of 'stop and think about it' periods. One is related to this below - and reinforces my view that a bass is a series of compromises held together by hope. Basically, everything affects everything. As in the stuff below This, below, is one of the fundamental issues that will have resulted in the neck crack, however much the truss rod was tightened: There is just 2mm of wood underneath the trussrod...at its thickest! When I build a neck, I try to never go below 4mm however shallow the neck is. A modern trussrod is around 2mm shallower (and considerably thinner) than this type, so it allows me to thicken and strengthen the bottom of this channel as well as narrow it. So that is OK. But: The neck is bowed. Now usually, you would get out the levelling beam and flatten it. But that bow (poor photo) is around 1.5mm in the middle. And levelling would therefore lower the top of the neck at the nut end...which then makes the trussrod slot too shallow Oh....and this is an acoustic. And the neck angle has to be spot on with an acoustic because it relies entirely that the height of the saddle is enough to give the required action height. And the general method is that a straight edge running along the tops of the frets should just be level with the top of the bridge...which it is : ...but probably won't be if I level the neck by sanding, especially if I'm trying not to sand the nut end for the above reason! So...I'm beginning to think I need to put some carbon rods in to straighten it rather than sanding anything.... But I might want to ponder on that while I make a single cut bass And the one thing that I can do over the next couple of days while I'm waiting for the wood for the single cut, is sort out my cunning plan on how to re-glue the scarfe joint

Thanks. Yes, MrsAndyjr1515 isn't keen when I emerge from the cellar too often No wood today for yours, so presumably Tuesday. Pity - that WILL be worth getting back down there. Indeed, a domestic win-win situation. At least we know it's coming...