Stub Mandrel

You don't realise how you use them until you can't see them. I do a lot of big skips up and fown the neck. My AVII has clay side dots on the boundary between a brown rosewood fingerboard and an amber finished maple neck. Under stage lights they disappear. I bought dots online but they were ugly huge things. Ms. S. kindly cut several sets of 3/32 dots out of high adhesive vinyl for me using her Silhouette machine. They have lasted a few gigs without peeling so look like a good solution. No impact on value as I can get them off with IPA. No point in saying which is before and which is after!

On Saturday, after one of my more egregious cock-ups I discovered that I'd reacted by sticking my tongue 👅 out for rather too long...

I can't see how through body stringing affects tension to any significant degree. The change in break angle could lead to a need to reduce saddle height, and perhaps a slight change in intonation. Any change in tuning tension would be a fraction of a percent. I will change my P9 but only 'because it's there'.

No-one has mentioned Wishbasses or that eBay guy who tortures basses.

I tought it was a semantic discussion onthevtopic of 'what is a luthier' 😬

What did you think this thread would be about? 🤣

Yes I meant equivalent.

Continental Europe has different standards for defining an engineer (as I mentioned above). The UK and USA don't have the same restriction (a European engineer would be a chartered engineer in the UK). (Incidentally my grandfather was an associate member of both the Institution of British Engineers and the Institution of British Radio Engineers. When he was elected to the latter he was training aircrew at Cranwell).

It's been mentioned that most amp heads are loud enough these days. High power is largely about headroom for the peaks so they don't distort unpleasantly. One reason the little Elf is so giggable while just 150/250W is that it has very usable and fairly transparent inbuilt compression so you can run it nearer to max power without distortion.

By US standards he would be considered an electrical engineer.

The irony is my skills and workshop are far better suited to making the hardware... I do plan to make some necks, I have done a very rough job once many years ago on a tiny electric four string (uke sized). I plan a bass strumstick and if that is successful maybe a bass. I think the big skill is making good acoustic bodies.

Fair point.

Depends on the college. West Dean has a very high reputation for training people in practical crafts, for example.

Luthiery is the art of making and repairing stringed instruments. Hence anyone who does more than the odd bodge is indulging in luthiery. But like a car nechanic, bassists or botanists, there are professionals and amateurs teained and self-taught; qualified and not: highly skilled and less unskilled. In my mind a luthier has made successful instruments from scratch (at least the body and neck). It isn't a 'guitar tech'. But in the UK we are not fussy and allow anyone to self-define as most trades; here anyone can be an engineer in Europe you have to be qualified to get the epithet 'Ing.' after your name. Anyone can be an 'accountant' but you need qualifications and experience to be a 'chartered accountant'. Now what is it that allows you to call yourself a bassist/bass player and who are the gatekeepers of the title? Imagine if you needed to be Grade 8 and registered with the RCM to be able to say you are a bassist?

My mantra.

Old Kay/teisco 'harmonica' pickups are actually really good.

Well not a huge audience last night, about 35, but most of them came to see us and quite a few were local musicians. Had some of our best feedback ever 'the dog's bollocks' was one memorable judgement. We were very relaxed and played pretty loosely, Alex changed a few arrangements on the fly and I was in the mood for a bit of improvising. A bass player said 'I liked your solo on Bright Lights' - it wasn’t a solo, I just couldn't remember the (very simple) bass riff...

Well... I said no gigs this month but I now have three with Bluesfire. One I hadn't got the date for, one in Cardiff both in a fortnight the other side of the guitarist's other band supporting Cardinal Black. The other is tonight at my local club standing in for a band whose singer is poorly (my other band shares a guitarist with them). Just hope word gets about tonight round as people have being asking when we are back there but not booked until September.

When I bought my Trace Elliot 4x10 combo, the lad selling it had brought a friend to help move it. When old fart me picked it up and carried it over to my car and put it in the back, his mate burst out laughing. It's not always strength, sometimes it's just knowing how to lift properly.

I suspect musicians from his band who might say a VM gig was the worst ever...

I have never found the break angle to be an issue.

I think a moderator has nuked the two redundant versions. Did you post it when looking at an earlier page than the last one? Sometimes nothing appears to happen so you click again, and again...

Potentially; it depends on more than just the number of tubes. Guitar World did a shootout. I struggled to find the original but found a summary of the results: Marshall 100 watt 1959 SLP full stack (reissue, 60's spec) Vox AC30 (current, it looked like the fawn colored handwired version) Fender Hot Rod Deluxe with factory standard appointments The readings were from low to high for the three contenders, 119.5 db, 124.1 db and 124.6 db. .

But what do you feel about the Warwick headstock?