songofthewind

I found that the black rubbery foam on guitar racks will stick to auto acrylic, and is next to imposible to remove.

I think Sterling Ball has a very unforgiving attitude to copies of Stingrays.

This is looking absolutely first class!

Nice work! I was just wondering what had happened to this build.

I assume you mean polyurethane spray cans. Where did you get your paint supplies from?

Lovely bass.

Well thanks very much for your support, Andy and HazBeen. I appreciate you checking up on me! I’m a bit of a perfectionist in some areas, and I’ve got quite a clear picture in my head of what this bass might look like, and I feel like I’m deviating somewhat from the image. Back when I was a designer, I worked in exhibitions, and everything had to be just so. My BIL, who’s an architect, says I’m a lot more finicky than he is, which is saying something, lemme tell ya. However, I think I’m ready to have at it again when the rain goes away and I can get outside.

I love Boss stuff. This looks interesting.

Nice work. The headstock reshape is a winner!

The rake of the top edge of the Stingray headstock is a few degrees steeper than that of a Fender headstock. The shallower Fender rake makes it harder, to port the Stingray shape over. Plus, the area where the lower single tuner gear goes on the Ray is a bit further aft, towards the nut. I have tried to square this circle on my current build! You can see from the photo below how the shapes fit each other.

Wow! Nice trio!

Shame, but worth a try. I’m also inclined to the view that there are contaminants or oils on the surface of the wood, judging from the pic.

Gravity makes the juice drain down to the bottom bout, and then out through the jack socket.

Oh dear. I imagine the blue based dyes will be very tenacious and therefore hard to sand out fully. Perhaps a solid colour is indeed the heartache free way to go.

In his fascinating book Musicophilia, the neurologist Oliver Sacks mentions that some people discern pitch differently from one ear to the other. Extraordinary.

Yep, sounds like a good plan. I think I will make a base from two layers of 12mm MDF, a sheet of which I have on hand. I now actively loathe the router, and I’m very reluctant to deploy it again, except for the round overs. I may accept long suffering Steve’s offer of his surface sander instead.

I realise quite a lot has happened since i last posted on progress. We've been away in splendid isolation in lovely Dumfries and Galloway. The Cotswolds with coastline. I jointed the top, but discovered the edges did not meet, having bowed up along the centre seam. Since I was intending to thickness it, I ignored this. I made a rig for the router, as before, to thickness the top, and once more things went agley. Amazingly, without my noticing, the guides were not level, so the routed thickness was not constant. Taking more layers off merely compounded this. I decided to build a humungous sled that would not flex or warp in any direction. Once more, old IKEA furniture donated the materials. I flatted the contact surface of the sled for good measure. I was still having problems, and the top is now down to 4mm thickness without being of the required flatness. I am turning my attention back to the rails next, to make damn sure they they will not be the problem. Steve press has offered the use of a surface sander, but that feels like admitting defeat. As I said above, I am thinking of losing the bad cuts of the outline, by making a new, slightly asymmetric shape. A semi Jazz or Sterling, if you will, or a bit Sandberg Marlowe DK. The new cuts should only be varying about 7mm from the original Stingray outline. I have drawn a paper outline to see what this will look like. Also, I am considering two MM style humbuckers, very close together, instead of the proposed Jazz neck pickup. Anyhoo, here are some stills from the disaster movie: