KingBollock

Does this include the thumbs too? One finger and one thumb on each hand and I don't think it would stop me playing. No thumbs would be a deal breaker, though. I'd just hope I could use my single fingers to build me a carbon monoxide generator.

[quote name='pete.young' timestamp='1373400070' post='2137223'] I tried using 12" drivers, but they couldn't see over the dashboard or reach the pedals so I went back to the normal size. Well someone had to say it ... [/quote] That reminds me of my brother and me at Flamingo Park. There was a "ride" where you could drive a little jeep around a track. But neither my brother or I were tall enough, but that didn't stop them letting us have a go... I sat on the floor pressing the pedals with my right hand and steering with my left while my brother stood on the passenger seat and shouted directions. It didn't go well, they cleared the track until we'd had our allotted time, which was nice of them, it wasn't a very busy theme park.

[quote name='chriswareham' timestamp='1373405998' post='2137343'] It's currently tuned for drop Bb, with the heaviest four strings from a five string set. I'm going to use strings designed specifically for detuning from [url="http://circlekstrings.com"]Circle K[/url] next time it needs restringing, and I don't think they have any silk windings at all which will look better than the red silk on the current set. [/quote] This might sound a bit daft, but... You could always take a black permanent marker pen to the silk. No one would ever notice. I quite like the blue of the silk on my black bass, but now I've thought of that I might just make them black.

[quote name='cloudburst' timestamp='1373323591' post='2136304'] Hey, I appreciate you doing that. But. I have to say it seems those particular calipers wouldn't tell me whether I had a 105/45 set or a 100/40 set. Dang! Thx, CB [/quote] If it is the callipers, then at least they're fairly consistent. You'd need a way to find out how short or long the tool is measuring. Unless you spend an awful lot of money on professional kit there is always going to be some discrepancy. And I did say they were accurate to .003mm, which seems to have turned out to be the case. And they were only £20. But yeah, looking at this thread, something already set up for the job you want, like the card, would be best.

I wish I hadn't done that now, I'm a little disappointed... Having said that, I don't know what to be disappointed in, I don't know which is wrong, the callipers or the strings. [font=courier new,courier,monospace]The strings are: .105 .085 .070 .050[/font] [font=courier new,courier,monospace]And I got:[color=#fff0f5]......[/color] .103 .083 .067 .048[/font] The strings are D'Addario Chromes. I'd test other strings but they're the only ones I even know the make of , nevermind the gauge.

I have to confess that I haven't used mine to check for string gauge as I haven't had to. Sorry. They're supposed to be accurate down to .003mm, but I have no way of knowing if they actually are that accurate because the only thing I have to measure them with is themselves. I can't even judge tenths of a mm with my just my eyes and a steel rule.

[quote name='Myke' timestamp='1373315426' post='2136135'] Well I'm glad you think so! Unfortunately it seems to be a slow starter as I can't find any plywood thin enough and I don't have a planing machine (not sure you can plane plywood, as it's made of layers) the thinnest available near me is 3.6mm. I may be able to get 1.5mm, if they can order it in, but that may still be too thick? [/quote] How about getting some veneer and some glue and making your own? I have never tried this so I have no idea how viable an option it actually is.

Digital vernier callipers?

I wonder if he'll stop adding the "but apparently I am!" after "I don't want to live for ever" when they play Ace Of Spades, live? At 68 he seems old for his generation of rockers but after getting this far it would be a shame of he couldn't eke out another 10 or 15 years. Perhaps I'm being selfish.

[quote name='Andyjr1515' timestamp='1373059801' post='2133428'] I think you are very brave making your own saddles in the first place! Hope your fingers recover soon... [/quote] Actually it was cowardice that caused me to do it. The easiest thing would have been to just grind down the existing saddles, but as I have been unable to find the individual parts for sale I was afraid that if I cocked it up I'd have to buy a whole new bridge just to get those parts. This way it has only cost me £2 for the metal and a whole bunch of free time and pain.

[quote name='Andyjr1515' timestamp='1373057683' post='2133395'] Actually, if you look closely, the top picture in the original post is also compensated (2nd string filed so the string is at the back of the saddle, etc) The trouble is, the saddle only gives you 1-1.5mm difference, and you need at least 3mm basic difference (just look at the saddle positions on a well-intonated standard bass or 6 string and put a rule along the mean) and then each string is a little bit forward or back from that - so generally the better acoustics have an angled saddle AND a compensated bridge. I know it defies logic, but when did our guitars do anything different [/quote] Yeah, I spotted that after I pressed post. I know all too well about intonating a bass right now. I have been making new saddles for my bridge and I have spent a lot of time messing about getting it just right. The stupid bridge is designed in such a way that once you've got the intonation right you have to remove the string to get at the grub screw that clamps the saddle in place. Making the saddles is a damned fiddly job, too. They're 12mm x 6mm x 4mm yet each one is taking over an hour to make! Tapping M3 holes is a pain in the bum and I've already broken one tap, another and I'll have to buy a new set. And the saddles are so small that I can't wear my gloves when making them, so until I've nearly done and can file and sand the sharp little edges off them they're bloomin' painful to work with. Fortunately I am a pick player because otherwise I wouldn't be able to play with my right hand right now because the tips are shredded.

It might just be the light, but that second (straight) bridge looks compensated. Like the second one here: I have one similar to the third one on my Spanish style acoustic guitar. It might be worth considering.

Looks like a good job. I'm not sure what to do about mine. It's an ebony fretboard but it's not totally black (the cheeky buggers at BC Rich had dyed it, which didn't stand up so well to my cleaning it. I can only imagine that the previous owner had never cleaned the fretboard. Mind you, the whole bass looked hardly used when I got it, it even has all it's corners, which I think is technically impossible on a Warlock over twelve minutes old.). I was sort of considering painting the markers black with the ink from a CD pen as it's a very permanent ink. Though, since I started thinking about it I have found myself using the markers because the ones on the side aren't so easy to see, but I was thinking of either replacing the side markers with some of that glow in the dark stuff, or one of those LED strips (I love pretty lights!). I don't know, I've got so many plans for it and they're always changing, so we'll see. I've had the thing for just over a year now and only just got around to replacing the bridge saddles and am about to replace the nut. Pick ups next, then the preamp.

Never been sacked but I got a phone call saying the band had split up. Then, a couple of weeks later, I got another call asking to join a band made up of most of the original band but without the lead guitarist and the singer. The whole thing was set up to get rid of those two. I was once in a band that went through members like crazy. I finally got the idea that it wasn't going to work when I turned up for a rehearsal and the only other person to turn up was a new drummer I had never even met before.

I had assumed he meant the dots, or blocks or whatever. I was hoping someone would come up with something because I would be interested, too. I know you can buy stick on fret markers that come with a pen to colour the current markers the same as the fretboard so they don't show through or around the new ones, but it's hardly suitable if you just want a plain board. I'd quite like my Warlock to have a plain ebony board but with markers at the 12th fret (a pair of silver mudflap girls).

I remember him talking about a procedure that Keith Richards had done where they take all your blood out and replace it with clean blood. Apparently, after tests, the doctor said he couldn't do it for Lemmy, he said that if he tried to replace his blood it would kill him and if they tried to put his blood into a normal human it would kill them! Was it 2005 when he was told he had diabetes? No one is indestructible, not even the mighty Lemmy. He was a major influence in me taking up the Bass and I've been buying his albums since 1987, it would be weird to not be able to anymore.

There was a brilliant local band in Coventry back in the early 90s called Dirtbox. I had their demo tape and it was ace, but some bastard nicked it.

[quote name='Clarky' timestamp='1372749377' post='2129342'] My first band would also have qualified had we made it (some chance). Pretensious bunch of 17/18 year olds (post-Joy Division floppy fringes wearing 32-pleat Bowie trousers, electric blue chelsea boots and cavalry shirts - this was 1980) decide to follow William Burroughs 'cut up' methodology and randomly pick words from a book. The (perpetually cringe-inducing) result: sensation = grey/blue [/quote] The first band I put together was called Sagitta. I got it from a huge star map poster on my wall. It's a constellation with 4 stars in it and there were 4 of us... But it's a bit wet sounding for a band that desperately wanted to be Motörhead. One band name I chose using the dictionary method (made easier because I wanted the band's name to start with an M, for some reason) I got Mandragora, which I still like. I believe there's a band called Mandragora Scream.

If only Bum f***ers From Hell had made it big, we could have made that list! 66Crush was probably the worst name of any band I was in. John Doe was incredibly boring. When it was suggested I thought we were going to use it as a placeholder, but it bloomin' stuck and I hated it. Fantastic band, though, gawd I miss 'em.

For some reason I was unaware of Cradle of Filth's latest album, which came out last year. It is utterly, utterly brilliant. Certainly up there with Thronography, Cruelty and Midian. Cradle of Filth - The Manticore and Other Horrors

For linking the control cavity with the pickup cavities I used the braid shielding from Gibson wire. Just removed it from its original wire and fed the wires going from cavity to cavity through it, splayed the ends and stuck them down with the aluminium tape I used to shield the cavities. This stuff.

I had a plan to make a new nut and bridge saddles from stainless steel (303), to match the frets on my Warlock. It isn't working out so well. The problem is that I have no way of tapping screw threads into the holes on the saddles. I am able to tap the aluminium (6082) I have, though. Having experimented I know that I can make the nut from the steel, so I am going to stick to that, but I am going to have to make the saddles from the aluminium. The saddle blocks will only be 4x5x11mm. I am wondering how difficult it might be to glue the steel to the aluminium if I were to make the saddle blocks 1.5mm shorter and make steel verneers 1.5mm thick with holes drilled to allow access to the threaded holes in the aluminium beneath. Would this be feasible? More to the point, is there any point in going to the bother? Would the aluminium be good enough anyway? It buffs up to a high shine like steel and, to be honest, this was mostly about aesthetics anyway. I am tired as I have been awake all night, so this is just a thought that popped into my head as I settled down to read my book before going to sleep. So try not to extract too much Michael when answering, please. I have a few days to think about it and may well come up with other daft ideas in the mean time.

My first cab was a 60s Marshall 4x12. It weighed an absolute ton! I got rid of it because my 13 year old self could only lift it 6 inches off the ground by my self. Which was at least something, the warehouse trolley I, erm, acquired, was only that high. So I'd have to drag the thing from my bedroom to the top of the stairs, roll it very, very carefully down the stairs, drag it into the back yard through the kitchen and lift it onto the trolley. Then I just had to push it the 100 yards to the rehearsal rooms with the wheels of the trolley squealing like a pig being murdered. And then doing it all again, backwards. Every week. I swapped if for a crappy 1x15, which I still have the cab of. I like this trend of people going for 12s, it enabled me to finally buy a 4x10 (for £40) and will hopefully mean I will be able to get a nice 2x15, my dream rig! Even if I never get to use it in anger...

I had a go when I was about 15 and seemed to take to it naturally. I would love to be able to play one again. I once saw an absolutely gorgeous piano white Cort Curbow fretless and fell in love with it. I have been unable to even find a picture of it since, but if one were to come up I'd be bloomin' tempted.

[quote name='gary mac' timestamp='1372228185' post='2123021'] I seem to recall someone saying that the slug tape variety doesn't work for shielding, something about the adhesive. Not tested the theory myself. [/quote] I use aluminium tape which has quite good conductive adhesive, but to make sure I run a strip across the base layer with the edges turned under.