henry norton

[quote name='cycrowave' post='1285542' date='Jun 28 2011, 07:01 PM']I removed all the hardware this afternoon, and something suddenly dawned on me..... The harrier neck is about 1cm longer than the mightymite. Does this just mean I'll need to adjust the bridge postion? Below you can see the mightymite neck on the body, luckily its a very good fit.[/quote] Yes that's because the Harrier neck is a 21 fret neck whereas the Mighty Mite is a 20. You will probably have to move the bridge - it's best to move it anyway as you won't have the full adjustability for intonation otherwise. I would measure the original neck from the nut to the end of the neck, do the same to the new neck, work out the difference and hey presto, that's how far you move the bridge back!

Maybe the bass has just 'that' sound because you've had it years, you're used to it, you like it and consequently any other bass will always fall short in comparison. Have you thought of replacing your heavy old workhorse with something custom made? You could probably finance a complete build just selling the hardware and pickups from your bass

[quote name='steve-bbb' post='1273483' date='Jun 18 2011, 09:34 AM']WOW that looks amazing - would look stunning on my elm jazz body when i finally get it all cut! [/quote] Thanks! Actually the first bass I made was a maple fretless jazz with a light coloured wood body and a tort guard. It was the coolest looking bass ever

[quote name='eude' post='1263642' date='Jun 10 2011, 10:49 AM']Maybe check out these pickups too... [url="http://thunderbuckerranch.com/"]http://thunderbuckerranch.com/[/url][/quote] Blimey, that's a good hundred dollars less than the Lull pickups [i]each!!![/i] I'm getting me a pair of those. He's giving away all his trade secrets too - I've been puzzling for a while how to make silver TBird covers

[quote name='cocco' post='1263613' date='Jun 10 2011, 10:13 AM']Dark stars are out of the question, apparently you just can't get hold of them these days. Budget wise I want to keep it cheap ish, £1500 or there abouts would be enough. I did consider going down the moddinng route, but I don't really want a p or a j and I don't want a mahogany T-bird either.[/quote] Yeah Fred was never the quickest when it came to answering questions about his pickups but he does seem to have slipped right off the radar recently. You could get yourself a Warmoth Precision neck but with the optional slim profile to give it a more MM feel then get someone on the forum to sort out an alder, ash or maple explorer body for you. If you want to keep it really authentic you could get a pair of Mike Lull Explorer pickups installed. They cost even more than Darkstars but if you're saving money having an off the shelf neck it could still come in under your budget - especially as you're not going for any fancy active electronics.

[quote name='JimBobTTD' post='1263522' date='Jun 10 2011, 05:48 AM']I'll gladly take you up on the offer, though![/quote] OK, PM me with your details - your address and what it is you're defretting - and I'll sort some out. I can't let a fellow South Londoner down can I

Do you have a budget in mind? Something like a pair of DarkStars will add a good few hundred to the final price, but there's nothing quite like them for cool factor. That asides, what about a Precision with a humbucker (MM or double J) in the bridge position? You could probably put something like that together without going anywhere near a luthier My god! What am I saying????

[quote name='scojack' post='1261223' date='Jun 8 2011, 03:19 PM']Looks fantastic, excellent job [/quote] Thanks! I like your EUB too

[quote name='Max Normal' post='1261061' date='Jun 8 2011, 01:20 PM']Sure, I'll be more than glad to, I was going to post some pics when it's done anyway, probably be a couple of weeks as I couldn't find a 250k/250k concentric pot anywhere, so had to backorder one from Allparts. I went and ordered a 250k pot for the Model one volume, but I was wondering if it needed a 500k to brighten it up. I guess I'll have to wait and see what it sounds like when I do it, can always swap it out for a 500. I'll PM you when I post them, would you like me to post my original "donor" wiring diagrams?[/quote] No worries about the diagrams but I'll definitely be interested in the look and sound of the finished bass Max.

I s'pose a nice ebony board feels a bit more inviting and tactile. Maple boards, especially the polyester coated Fenders tend to be quite hard and shiny feeling in comparison but all in all it doesn't make that much difference. The main thing about a maple board is how fekkin' cool it looks. People think you're more of a pro with a maple fretless

I'd have to go with general opinion and say get some work, save some extra cash and go for the proper Ray. Every bass player should own a Stingray at some time during their life. (EB, Pre EB, 4 or 5, doesn't matter). It's a rite of passage we should all take

Looks a monster setup. A 250k will do although I think 500k is more normal for humbuckers, especially powerful ones stuck right at the neck end. A 250 should work though. So far as losing treble, plenty of guitars and basses have 4 or more pots so I can't see it being a problem, especially considering how dark the quarter pounder and Model 1 are - you won't have that much treble in the first place! I'm looking for a Fender Tele pickup to complement my PJ setup and will probably wire it the same way. I'm looking forward to seeing the finished bass, maybe you could post some sound samples once it's all sorted?

Here's the neck done other than the nut slot. It's now winging its' way to Scandinavia. As I had a fair amount of interest in an epoxy coating 'how to' I figured I should do a seperate build thread so as to maximise its' exposure.

0.6mm should be fine for filling your fret slots! If your slots are much wider the frets won't stay in!!!!!! Laminating veneer (or structural veneer) will be far too thick unless you want to open your slots out yourself for a thicker line. I can give you some 0.6mm birch veneer which is what I usually use on dark boards for lined fretless originals and conversions.

[quote name='famstd' post='1257253' date='Jun 5 2011, 01:25 PM']Hi folks. Just wondering if other players with small hands and fingers prefer, and play a long scale bass over a short scale bass. I myself seem to get my fingers a bit tangled up on the fretboard, with the short scale. I found the extra area on the fretboard of the long scale, spreads my fingers about right.[/quote] It just depends on what you're used to. I like playing both and I think you just need a slightly different approach to each instrument - play them each in a different way. My hands aren't huge but I don't have any trouble going from 30.5" to 42". (scale length that is )

If it was bought new in March this year you should get it fixed under warranty. If you fix it yourself and it is just, say, a broken solder joint on the jack socket, if something worse happens to the electronics in the near future, such as a pickup dieing, you might find they're reluctant to fix it as it has been 'tampered with'.

Can't you just keep both and pick either one up when the mood takes you? I know I'm biased as I make them but most players benefit from a bit of variety and it's not like you've got 2 of the same - they're totally different. Most players with a reasonably varied taste in music have and use more than one bass. You change style and colour of clothes, eat different food every day, listen to different music. You should keep both for health reasons

2 reasons. One, they can't guarantee the impedance of another manufacturers cabinets and two, they want you to buy theirs Both these add up to a third, saying they produce fantastically consistent speakers, high quality speakers will perform at their very best only when used in conjunction with one of their very own amplifiers in a perfect combination. Whether you believe any of it is another thing though....

[quote name='Mr. Foxen' post='1254671' date='Jun 2 2011, 10:55 PM'][url="http://www.brandoniguitars.co.uk/"]Brandoni.[/url][/quote] Yeah but asides from the Japanese guitar 'kits' they seem to do everything [i]other than[/i] the type of necks & bodies Warmoth do. What I mean is new, good quality standardised parts with customisable options like binding, inlays, choice of finish etc.

I thought I'd better post this on the Guitars section as it's not a build and it's not particularly technical. Allot of players on here have put together basses using Warmoth necks and/or bodies. The question is, their parts are actually quite expensive when you take finishes, shipping, tax etc. into account and yet so many players will pay the extra over generic far Eastern Allparts/Ebay type parts. Is there really nobody else in the UK or Europe tooled up or willing enough to make decent parts filling the gap between cheap far Eastern sweat shops and expensive Western Luthiers?

Maybe you should go back to him and tell him you'll name and shame him if he doesn't give you a full refund. It's one thing if some work ends up a bit below par for the money, quite another when the tech/luthier is knowingly doing a second rate job. In that sense every potential customer has the right to know, unless he's prepared to do the right thing.

Some makers and players believe it helps keep a neck straighter and some don't think it's worth it, (hundreds of thousands of slab sawn one piece Fender necks can't be totally wrong). If you're going to do it, just try to keep the wood grain symmetrical. That is, the laminates either side of the centre piece should mirror one another down the centre line. I always cut my centre laminates so they're quarter sawn, (so the wood grain runs fairly straight from the fingerboard side to the back where the palm of your hand sits) but that's mainly because I think it looks nicer. If you buy a decent bit of wood dried and stored especially for guitar making, you should do fine no matter where the grain is going.

Allot of orchestral basses these days seem to come in around 7/8 if that doesn't confuse things even more. Can I add that what is thought of as 3/4 and 4/4 can change over time and something like a 7/8 can and is also described as a small 4/4 or a large 3/4. Players tend to go for what's most comfortable, so they'd be looking at the shape of the shoulders, depth at the upper bouts and the general feel and of course, the sound, rather than what category the size comes under. You should try a few out back to back - you'll be astonished at the difference between one 3/4 bass and another.

Yeah if you take the neck off or the pickup out you'll be able to tell if its solid wood or plywood. If it's plywood you will see distinct, evenly spaced layers inside the routes. If it's solid wood then the routes will be relatively smooth and uniform. If it's made from solid wood there's every chance it'll be some obscure, cheap weed wood even Encore themselves wouldn't know the exact name for so don't worry too much about it! Either way, if it cost nothing you've already got a bargain.

[quote name='molan' post='1251863' date='May 31 2011, 07:39 PM']The only person who's really demo'd this for more than a few minutes is Chuck Rainey I think [/quote] HaHa! Fair enough, I suppose that's some sort of value added. Presumably at those kind of prices the basses are essentially boutique, so you could have any neck width and board wood you wanted.