Andyjr1515

Well, the swifts, swa!lows and house martins think so. They are all here

The bass looks delicious. I'm sure you'd make just as good a job on a guitar. I think you could sneek it in

No - it's varnished to match the headstock I did wonder about adding a swift, but I thought it might be overplaying the theme 😁 And, by the way. They've arrived!!!!! Summer is truly just around the corner

Wow look at that! No one would have thought I made it all up. Wouldn't catch me doing something like that. Goodness, no! P.s. Delighted it worked Well done.

This is looking pretty damned fine to me

Well - a small but important part: It's the ebony truss rod cover I've just made. Important because it is the last made item that needed to be made! And the strings have arrived. And I picked up the pickups from Matt today. So it's now just about assembly and setup. And I have a pretty clear day tomorrow

Sorry back @Reggaebass I've completely lost track of this. Not an unusual situation for me, mind you

The steel rule isn't used to score the lacquer. It's to 'walk' the gap up as you progressively soften the glue up the fretboard and to stop the lifted board re-seating and re-gluing itself behind you. The reason you want something like this is that the rule is less than a mm thick and so will be lifting the fretboard less than a mm at the glue line. Any more and you risk breaking the board. You could bet away with a 6" one but a 12" one would be easier to hold. In my picture: ..the fretboard is 5 or 6 mm away at the nut - but that is because the fretboard is bowing. Look at the front edge of my steel sheet and imagine this is a steel ruler (just behind the 6th fret and you can see that the board is only lifted by the thickness of the steel (about 0.5mm). At the 6th fret, it is still fully glued down. So I am heating the 6th fret area and I will walk the edge, pulling left then right towards the 6th fret line, to get the steel to cut through the softened glue under the 6th fret position. And so on towards the 7th and all the way up.

Good points and yes - it might. As might the side binding, which will definitely be plastic, and also the varnish on the fretboard which may or may not be heat sensitive. There's really no way of knowing. The kitchen roll tempers a few of the hot spots and much of the heat will be transferred through the frets (and yes) but it's still going to get mighty hot. But as @stewblack says, he believes he has run out of options relating to recutting the thread (and I think he is probably right) and therefore the alternative is probably to hang it back on the wall. There is another way some folks do it - they plane off the fretboard and put a new one on...but that definitely WILL damage the inlays It boils down to my disclaimer that this is a risky process and to only do it if the bass has no high monetary value and if it is otherwise unplayable anyway. And we haven't got to all the things you need to do and could go wrong gluing it back on yet!

OK @stewblack Found the pics First the standard disclaimer: this is a risky process and so only do it if the bass has no high monetary value and if it is otherwise unplayable anyway For taking the fretboard off, you need: - A hot iron - household iron is fine. If it's a steam iron then run it dry. Hot setting - Some kitchen roll - A Stanley knife blade or other very thin sharp blade - A thin steel platter of some kind. Worst case a wide but thin steel rule, but a pie spatula or similar (very thin flexible steel) is better This example below is a fretless board, but I've removed a fretted board in exactly the same way 1. Take the nut off and start at the nut end. Get the iron hot and heat up the area of fretboard before the 1st fret. Protect the fretboard with a sheet of kitchen roll or similar. I use an old heat shrink iron but household iron is fine: You need to get the wood very hot - hot enough for the glue underneath to soften 2. Take your Stanley blade (the single edged razors here are even better. Don't use two sided razor blades - you WILL cut yourself badly ) and ease it under as the glue softens. If it doesn't enter the gap at all, then the glue is still hard. Work on this until you are able to insert the blade across the whole width of the board at the nut end. This bit can easily take half an hour. If after half an hour there is still no way the blade is going in at all then either the iron isn't hot enough or the board has been (rare but not unknown) epoxied on. In the former case, turn the iron on even higher if it will. In the latter case, hang the bass back on the wall : 3. Ease your steel platter/ruler into the gap (a couple of mm will do)and carry on heating that area, walking the platter forward a mm at a time. Keep it flat at all times. DO NOT lever it up at any stage - this will almost always snap the fretboard - especially a fretted board. Again, nowadays I use a steel flexi sheet from my acoustic sides bending stuff, but first couple I did I used a metal ruler: 4. Carry on, mm by mm all the way up to the end. When you are an inch or so from the end - and this might be an hour or so later! - don't get over enthusiastic and try and pull the last bit off - you WILL break the board. Just carry on mm by mm until it is off I'll cover getting it back on in a bit. But you will need lots of decent screw clamps and some decent blocks of wood as clamping cauls and a bottle of Titebond.

I've taken a fretboard off a couple of times. It takes care and patience but it's possible to do. I should have some photos somewhere. I'll post something in the morning with some hints and tips

Yes it does and yes...trust me, been there, done that

It's looking really good @Pea Turgh

Basically yes I used to cut away the shielding to glue them onto the wood but came to the conclusion they stick better to the shielding. I use gel superglue and then a light surrounding of epoxy for good measure. To position them, I put a bit of paper packing over the body magnet (which is set in about 1mm) and pop the lid magnet on top. Therefore it is in the exact position and standing a touch proud. I pop a spot of ca glue on the top face and then press the cover in place and hold it until the ca glue has set. I lift off the cover complete now with ca'd magnet, remove the paper packing then repeat with the next one. This way, all the hatch magnets are in exactly the right place without the need to measure anything

You have my sympathies! I'm sure I spend more time hunting round for things I know I have somewhere than actually building!!

Well, here you go Hatch magnets fixed:

This a bit better, @Si600 ? And now you should be able to see the tiny angle of the bridge towards the stoptail at the bass side. Tiny, but it gives me a couple of mm safety factor for different string gauges, etc Other jobs today, I epoxied a couple of carbon rod stiffeners across the grain on the hatch to make sure it stays completely flat: Then copper-foiled the chamber and hatch and added the bottom magnets: Next job is fitting the hatch magnets and then that's down to just 4 things still to do

What - that I am going mad? That bridge, as well you know, Simon, was crossed many years ago... I'd have spotted it eventually anyway and it's a super-easy fix.

Re-read, @Si600 and promise to pay more attention next time The bridge itself is skewed and that should be. But yes - the bridge surround is also skewed...and that shouldn't be I skim read the posts because I was actually pm'd about the bridge and assumed that the other comments were also about the bridge. So, just to clarify: Yes - the bridge is skewed on purpose = Andyjr1515 is a great builder and knows what he's doing and Yes - the bridge pickup surround is also skewed, but in error = Andyjr1515 's work has been found, quite frankly, wanting and he should have gone to Specsavers (if they'd been open) In my defence, there is a bit of an optical illusion too - the two pickup rings ramp up from 1mm thick for the edge of the neck one next to the fretboard, all the way to 10mm for the edge of the bridge one next to the bridge. And the ramp is casting a shadow. But it is undeniably about 1mm out of square. And it will, of course, be fixed OK - that's quite enough c**kups emojis for one day

No - I think he'll play it

Here's a Gibson:

No - your eyes are fine. I've never explained that and it's never occurred to me that basses rarely have the issue. Yes - as @BreadBin says, the bridge is intentionally out of square. This is actually less of a tilt than the original Gibson because the bridge I'm using has more adjustment than the original Tune-o-matic - but it is tilted nonetheless. Basically, the bridge design isn't wide enough to be able to adjust for the intonation, so the bridge tilts a bit like an acoustic guitar saddle.

Gratuitous mock ups are always welcome Looks splendid!

And another one ticked off the list. I popped a couple of P Rails into the pickup rings (Matt will be supplying his own pickups) to line everything up. The strings, again, are just for lining up - they are a set of flatwounds I tried on Pete's piccolo bass build a few years ago. The P-rails are useful as one of the tasks was making sure that the pickups fitted and adjusted in the chambers and the coils of the P-rail are just a touch fatter than most humbuckers - so this should be worst case. Spent quite a bit of time chiselling out the tight spots. These now adjust fine, so I am happy that Matt's will also. And that leaves 5 jobs left on the list

And a couple more jobs off the to do list. First of all, drilling the bridge earth wire hole and fitting the earth wire. I talked about a tip to get inserts out. A bolt would be better, but I found that the screws they use to fit bed heads to beds are the right thread So with great care not to let the screwdriver slip (which is why a bolt would be better) I screw it in until it bottoms at the wood inside the hole: And then I just carry on screwing. The bolt can't go any further down, so the insert has to move the other way: With the control layout paper template, I mark the points from the insert hole to where I want the earth wire to come out into the chamber: I draw a pencil line joining those points on the other side. Then get a very, very long bradpoint drill and line it up with the line. Theoretically, it has to drill through the insert hole. Always a relief when it does, mind you And then simply push the earth wire through, with a generous length stripped of insulation, and just re-insert the insert, trapping the copper of the earth wire as it does so. Finally, drilled the recessed hole for the tele-style jack socket I am using: Just 7 items left to do