Andyjr1515

Did you try this, @CLR ? I agree with @A.G.E.N.T.E. and @tommorichards that it is most likely to be the nut that needs a small tweak or the break angle need increasing by fitting a string tree or winding the strings further down the tuner post. It's often not either of those. The nut slot is supposed to be angled a small amount downwards from the fretboard side of the slot to the headboard side so that it is just a sharpish edge that the string is sitting on right at the start of the fretboard. If the slot is too level, the string can vibrate - 'sitar' - in the slot. A quick press of the buzzing string immediately behind the nut as @A.G.E.N.T.E. suggests will - if it is this that is the problem - immediately stop the vibration.

Interesting stuff It's worth considering whether a truss rod is needed at all. That is going to be an exceptionally stiff construction - maybe into Vigier territory (which I seem to remember don't have a truss rod).

For completeness and as a 'How To' guide for @Jus Lukin I'll confirm all of this when the real strings have been fitted, but this is how I would do it with what I've done with the test strings. Below assumes that the bass has already been intonated and therefore the tuner holders are already clamped in their playing positions: 1. Normally, the ball-end socket blocks are going to be in the right place - because normally you will have recently loosened the strings. But assuming that I'm starting from scratch, I would unscrew the brass block, then reattach and screw it on around 3mm to ensure that enough thread is in the block to start off with: 2. Then the ballend of the string is pushed through the tuner holder: 3. The ballend is hooked into the holder and the unit pulled into the holder: 4. The string is pulled straight, the position to the end of the clampblock noted and the string is clipped at this point: 5. The string is fed through the clamp block until the string is straight and then clamped: 6. String is tightened to pitch: I trimmed and fitted all four strings in less than two minutes. Oh, did I mention that I love the Nova system...? . Ref intonation, if you were, say, fitting a different gauge or make of strings, you would leave them overlength, tune up, check and/or adjust the intonation, then, when the tuner block was secured in its final position, just loosen, unclamp, shorten and reclamp.

All incriminating photos are destroyed, of course. As I say, I am developing at least some skills...

Sounds and looks OK to me. I've said before that even after quite a few builds, I still make slips and certainly have major fingers crossed moments. If I am developing skills, then many of them are that I am simply getting better at sorting the c**k ups I continue to make... This is looking very good

No grommets necessary...well, other the ones that are filling all of the holes I drilled in the wrong place

If I get time tomorrow, I'll pre-trim a couple of the strings and take some photos of how I string up with this system - it'll double as the 'How-to' that I would normally be doing for @Jus Lukin anyway Before I used these, I had the same questions in my mind, but now having seen how the Nova system works, it takes all the guess work out of it.

It should be OK. These are just rough cut old strings, I haven't finished sorting the intonation offset and the ebony end cap isn't sorted yet. Once the intonation positions are set, then I see no reason why the ends should poke out of the back of the clamp block at all. Having now put them on and taken them off pretty frequently as I was sorting up the fixings, I have found that it is exceptionally straightforward to push the string ends into the block and clamp them and it won't be any more difficult once the strings have been pre-trimmed. It'll look better too

Next big step is sorting the positions for the tuner blocks. The only sure way I know of getting the bridge units (or even a fixed bridge!) in the right place is to fit some old strings to the headstock and try it for real. It's relatively easy with this because the strings are clamped at the headstock : Then, with the tuner units positioned with a minimum of 5mm back movement from scale length, it was a case of pulling the two tuner blocks tight and positioning to be even either side of the fretboard and 54mm apart to give @Jus Lukin his preferred 18mm string spacing. Then I could mark the front screw hole positions for those 2 and then divide the remaining space for the other 2 : With all 4 front screws fitted, I could now string it up lightly and check the angular positions - they could be set straight (as, of course, fixed bridges are), but with single element bridges, I always think it adds a little to have them following the string line: Then I could fit the back screws to each of the four bases and...of course ... do a mockup. I've dampened some of the walnut to show broadly the colour it will eventually be. The fretboard also will darken from this: Next job is levelling and recrowning the frets and then I can see what my action range is so I know if I need to sink or raise the elements at all. And yes - this above is actually tuned to pitch and actually plays acoustically. Admittedly not a great sound...but, trust me, with my playing, a lot better than when it's finished, plugged in and louder And I love that Nova system. It just WORKS!

Hi, @Raslee PM'd

Actually - if you are lucky, you may not need to replace the fretboard (although there's always a risk). Not a DIY job, though I'll send you a PM

Lovely job

LOVE this!!! And don't worry about the lack of workshop - 50% of my builds to date were done on a workmate on the back patio (including @TheGreek 's above ). Takes a bit longer but where there's a will there's a way Love the design thoughts. Can't wait!!

Yes. There's a bit of final tweaking still to do at the final sanding stage which will widen it a touch (a la 'you can take more stuff away but you can't easily put it back' ), but it is quite a tight and deep scoop: The V in the grain pattern makes it look a little tighter than it actually is. If it ends up too deep, I'll be encouraging @Fishman to drink a few more pints of beer

Todays tasks are about doing the final main features on the body blank before doing the final tidy up of the edges and then the round-overs (always last otherwise you lose the edges that you might want to use with a bottom bearing flush router bit). First was a repeat of my preferred 'chamber method' to fit the pickup: Next were the two cutaways. For the forearm relief I used a hand-plane: For the back waist scoop, I hogged out with my trusty Veritas Pull-shave and then finished off with a microplane, minus the handle and just held between two gloved hands and finally tidied up with some emery wrapped round the micro-plane. The whole job could have been done just with the micro-plane blade and emery, just with a bit more effort:

No rush, A. Got lots to still do elsewhere on it that I can still carry on with In the meantime, pleased to say that the joint looks good: No one panic about that dark line in the mahogany - it's a grain line, not a crack.

There are many tasks in guitar and bass building where I still haven't found the 'perfect' way to get things right or accurate. One of those is the short area of body wood that the fretboard sits on in the way that I do through-necks. If you remember, I cut a notch in the neck blank that the top slots into. The top face of this area is at an angle to the top face of the main length of the neck - and that's what will give me my neck angle to the body: But, because the fretboard extends over the body for a short distance - and is an an angle to the body - I have to take steps to make sure that the end of the fretboard doesn't end up with a gap. And so I set the body a couple of mm proud of the neck top face. And so I then need to cut an angle in the body wood to make sure that the fretboard is flat against wood all the way from neck to heel to fretboard end. And the challenge is cutting that angle. In the earlier days, I used to think just a levelling beam would do it. But two things tend to happen - the beam does quickly remove the edge of the body wood - but then tends to ride high over the body and leave a lump but also starts to sand the neck (which I don't want - as that is already flat). My present method is to take the bulk off masking the neck and pulling a fine microplane blade down gently across the body wood parallel to the neck top face, and then use the longest, sharpest chisel I have to go the other way - using the neck upper face as the datum for the chisel and slice away the excess, lumps and bumps in a sweeping movement up the body wood: It seemed to work. And why do I outline this in so much detail? Well, how else am I going to remember next time that this is how I did it this time??? The full length was checked with a straight edge, truss rod put in, back stop glued and it was ready to have the fretboard glued on: And it's clamped up and glue drying as I type: And that means that I can start carving the neck over the weekend. And all guitar and bass builders will tell you that neck carving is the most satisfying part of the whole process. Happy days

Still time...still time.

And the next challenge - getting the chamber cut for the electronics when the screwholes are going to be so close to the edge. The process was basically to cut it undersize, and then fit it bit by bit a bit like when you are making a tight-fitting control chamber cover. The tools were the same as the neck pocket - hog out with forstner, bring to line with a chisel and to depth with a router. Here it is hogged out and edges being tidied up with a chisel proir to the trial-and-error fitting: And here with the battery box also cut, the chambers deepened on the router and the cutaway for the truss rod access next: And fitted, ready for a repeat of the process to fit the mighty Wal pickup :

Of course you can Thnx

Mad doesn't even begin to describe it

On Pete's EB-3 Tribute, I used a DiMarzio Model One and an Artec mini: Now, whilst I love the DiMarzio - it has that real mudbucker ooomph but without the mud - and the above combination works really well (it is still his go-to bass), the Artec Mudbucker wasn't on the market at the time I built it. And I have yet to come across an Artec product that hasn't blown the socks off everything in terms of bang for the buck. So yes - I would try the Artec and if it's not great then consider the DiMarzio.

That looks a really nicely made body...

This is what the back looks like @Maude You can clearly see the four coils. The switching isn't overly rocket science other than getting the magnet orientation and phasing correct to get the 3 way switch to get those combinations. However, there is a touch of great cleverness in the shape of some tiny resistors on the switch PCB because the one thing these pickups do that most split-coil arrangements (much more common on guitars than basses) can't do, is achieve pretty much equal volume between the 4-coil humbucking option and the 'single coil' (actually two coils) options. In a guitar you generally get a major volume drop when you switch to single coil on a single pickup. These don't - you can play on one pickup and switch between the three options and the volumes are unaffected. Very clever - and exceptionally useful in a live setting. There's discussion on, and a demo of, that at the back end of the Bassbash video on P1 of this thread.

Absolutely splendid!