d-basser

Gorgeous, pointy basses and gold hardware don't normally float my boat but that's lovely

Jobs a good un Firstly, you do not get a lot of Luminlay for your buck I would also caution that its hard to cut without pinging it across the room, risking what little you get so take care. I cut it by scoring round with a Stanley then snapping with pliers. Drilling out the side dots wasn't as bad as I expected. I drilled a central guide with a narrow gauge PCB bit in a pin vice, then worked up to a 3mm brad point to leave a flat-ish bottom hole. I glued in the small cut sections (~4-5mm long) using epoxy with a black pigment to match the black outer on the material. Once set I trimmed them back with snips and a file, I would again caution anyone doing the same, using snips can cause them to chip, I wouldn't recommend trying to cut completely flush as you'd risk it chipping below the surface. Once close to the surface I used a small chisel and a Stanley blade to cut/scrape flush Once flush I sanded up to 2500 grit, then polished the whole neck back with T-Cut to blend out the work. Pretty chuffed with the results. As an aside, I was surprised to find a small shim in the neck pocket when doing the work. Not sure if I am more surprised that a new and presumably CNC cut bass needed a shim, or that a budget company went to the effort of shimming it.

I don't have any pre cut but I could probably look at laser cutting something at work. Does it have to be foam? I wonder if black acrylic would look better?

Happy to join the Lollipop fanclub with my Sire build (detailed in its own thread). Very happy with my choice

Ooh, I didn't realise that the Jive is just a SHO with clipping, adding that to my project list!

But what if the side dots glowed.... Luminlay rod ordered! We play in some harsh lighting conditions, mostly because I control the lights and have a taste for heavy strobes and sudden black outs. Luminlays are life savers

Nice, I have considered similar. With this bass there was a reasonable 'divot' in the finish where the wire had previously been compressed so I wasn't too concerned leaving it proud of the hole

Cheers. Hole isn't filled, just masked over during construction to allow me to draw on centre lines etc. Bridge is grounded, I used my standard approach which is to run a wire as per the norm and then splay the end out and tape it down with copper tape (making sure it has conductive adhesive). This has 2 benefits, in my mind at least: it holds the wire in place prior to bridge installation, it gives a larger contact point for the bridge ground.

Just after I've set up an ML5, typical

Cheers They are chrome yeah. Nickel is a slightly warmer colour and slightly less blue than chrome. Similar but if you put them both next to each other you can spot the difference. I have done builds with them both mixed when I had to but if you have the choice and all things are equal stick to one or other

And she truly lives! Pretty damn happy with the results. Plays nicely, pretty light, nice punchy sound (once I'd sorted the pickups being out of phase).

Gemini weren't much help. Suggested I tried a few things I already had (swapping live and ground, checking I hadn't wired the jack backwards) Got on to talking about how removing the braid connection fixed it, and suggested it could be a ground loop issue and he bowed out. I do think that could have been the issue though. I half remember an conversation at work regarding this when we were working with shielded coax and grounded sensors. Quick Google backs up the hypothesis Thanks again @PaulThePlug

As per my panicked thread in the repairs section. Looks like the hum has gone by removing the soldered ground for the pickup casings at the pot cases. The pickup cases are still showing as grounded so I wonder if grounding them at the pots was creating some sort of strange ground loop? Who knows, electronics is witchcraft

Seems to have gone after removing the outer braid from the ground, which is counter intuitive. Wonder if it's a grounding loop issue, if the casings are grounded via the braid and contact with the copper shielding 🤔

You might be onto something Paul

Not the amp, cable or room as I tried another bass. Other bass is also fitted with chrome thunderbird pickups so a good like for like. I'll double check removing the ground braid but surely that just going to give crazy hum due to all the ungrounded metal. Sent a message to Gemini so we'll see

And no, it isn't my playing. Cross posting from my build diary since this has graduated to technical support. Just fitted a pair of Gemini chrome thunderbird pickups into a modified Sire bass I've been working on. I hooked them up and plugged into an amp before stringing the bass, since any fixes would require removing the scratchplate and therefore strings. I am glad I did. I am getting this horrible cycling hum. I am trying to debug it but it seems to be the pickups themselves. PXL_20250207_220446922.mp4 That is both pickups, in a fully shielded cavity, routed through a passive jazz style VVT loom. I have confirmed ground continuity for the shielding, bridge and pickup cases. I get the same noise off either pickup, with one or both soldered up. I even get it with one of them soldered straight to a mono 1/4" socket so it isn't the loom wiring. Pickups are connected with the white live wire to the live leg of the pots (or jack in the later case) and both the black wire and outer shielding braid (which connects to the chrome casing) routed to ground. I've check the same amp and cable, in the same room, with another bass with similar pickups and there is no issue, so it isn't that. Are there any suggestions of what may be wrong, or of what I could do further to diagnose it? I am a bit gutted tbh as I've spent the last three nights working on this bass. The whole project was centred around these pickups, and I haven't really pinched pennies so I really want to sort it.

That is both pickups in a shielded cavity. Wired same as a jazz bass (VVT), with both the pickup earth and cover earth grounded. Get the same hum scratch plate on or off and with one or both pickups connected. Even tried routing one of the pickups straight to the jack but had the same issue. Tried the same amp and cable with another bass, all fine. Can only assume it's the pickups.

Hit the first big snag. All wired up and getting crazy hum off the pickups 😭 PXL_20250207_220446922.mp4

Couple of quick pics of the makeshift tool for finishing the bevel

This evening has been one of fettling and fine adjustments. First off, the tuner holes were 'nearly' 18mm, this makes the new Ultralites a tight fit. Used this rather terrifying looking auger bit to widen them a little. Obviously didn't use a power drill as I wanted to still have a headstock afterwards, so clamped it and turned by hand. Once done the tuners fit nicely with the 18mm adapters I purchased. Really happy with the decision to go for lollipop keys. rt Then to test fit the bridge. Turns out the Fender fit Style A does line up reasonably well with the through body stringing holes from the original, but doesn't cover the mounting screw holes at the front. I decided to move it a mm or two towards the neck since I'm drilling new mounting holes for it any way. To ensure it still lined up ok with the through body holes I reamed them out at the top end with a stepped bit. This brought the top portion of the hole out to 8mm with a bit of a chamfer, giving me wiggle room for placement. Took a lot of time on bridge placement. Not convinced by the accuracy of the spacing of the previous drill holes so I took reference measures from the the last fret at each end. Overall it's coming together nicely, spent a fair bit of time fettling the scratchplate. I cut it by hand and bevelled it with a Stanley blade so it isn't perfect, but I made a simple tooling jig to hold the blade at 45deg so I'm pretty happy with it for now. Tomorrow evening should be wiring and set up, then if all goes to plan I can try it in anger at band practice on Saturday

Very true, will be making sure there are one or more contact points from shielding to ground, between cavities and to the scratch plate.

I would need to check, I mostly learned on the job. Most of what I have access to though is going to be specific to ultrasound transducer design