3below

Agree on small passes, deeper template and shorter cutting length next time which will assist this in the initial stages. Checking bit depth, own goal on my part. It has always worked before Much more attention will be paid with the neck pocket.

Ron Kirn describes using a top bearing trimmer bit with a template. Take the first cut with template. Lower the bit and then use the newly cut body as the template for second lower cut. Seems plausible to me. Could take quite small passes e.g. 1/2 inch at a time. Am I missing something obvious.

Thomann supply Warwick tuners (made in Germany so I have my suspicions). The quality is super and they are cheaper than Schallers. They even have a W for Westone on then

Which red stain are you using? Apologies if mentioned earlier.

Nothing going in the overcut area, the only 'control' will be the jack socket . I share your concern about edge routing the body, it would be b* to get a tearout at this stage. I have either 2" cut 1/2" shank template bit i.e. all in one go or 1" cut 1/4" shank i.e. two successive passes. Andy, what tactic do you use? Apart from the hardness of the oak (it just ignores 80 grit paper) hand tools are tempting. First guitar built aged 13, from elm coffin boards and coffin making scraps (aka free), all done with hand tools, seems a lifetime ago.

Some progress, however the moral of the story must be do not do stuff that requires thought when you are ill. Have been wiped out with some stomach thing since Saturday. On mend slowly. Mistake number one, body timber jointed. I had faced one edge and had planned to flip one piece over to maintain the grain direction. Grain runs same way on the jointed slab. An unintentional chamfer was the result since I forgot to flip the piece over. Fixed by a quick pass through the Wadkin 24" planer in a local joinery shop (free, would not even accept beer tokens). Second mistake results from this. Pleased that I now have the back flat and true I forgot to ask for the front to go through the planer. Needless to say it was domed. Rediscovered the pleasure of using a jack plane which quickly sorted it. I would like a planer that takes 20" timber, not cheap though. Mistake number three emerged, slight glue starvation. I think I will enlarge the groove with tenon saw and infill with a sliver of the same mahogany. Should be invisible. Body jig sawn to shape, I am using my toy jig saw (I have an industrial Italian machine awaiting commissioning aka swmbo ceases using workshop as storage). 40mm mahogany cuts like butter, 9mm 30 year old oak is a different matter. I think of one of my favourite Dr Feelgood songs - I'm a hog for you baby. Mistakes four and five next. Bad day with the router despite template. Depth stop slipped and the body has got a little thin (6-7mm) in the upper bout. Also managed to get two 'runaway' cuts in same place, I think this is tied up with router height locking slipping.. Plan is to glue some 3mm veneer in the thin section. To make matters worse the collets worked loose during routing which did not help. Next time, smaller router cut length, double collet locks and 12mm or even 15mm template. I also need to investigate the depth locks on my router, I think they are slipping. The divot in the lower bout is not my doing, the ex snooker table planks have a locking mechanism (like flat pack furniture). Weird dried resin inside the plank. You would be miffed if you planed your timber down and this appeared on an external surface. Luckily the worst blunders are internal, I just know I they are there. No progress on neck at all, I decided do 'simple' stuff since I would certainly fubar anything that needs precision at the moment. The large 'lands' are intentional. If I decide piezo pickup is not for me, the lands are positioned and sized for jazz bass pickups. Oak top just visible in background. Body with top about 4lb at moment.

Low tension flatwounds TI JF344 (they appear on bc s/h on a regular basis at good prices, I have one set running at 8 years, no issues s/h), D'Addario Chromes 45-100 or 40-95. I am sure others will be along shortly with round wound and other flatwound suggestions.

Wilkinson - chrome with brass saddles. The only issue you may find is holes not aligning. At best you will have to drill new pilt holes, at worst plug the old holes and then new pilot holes.

Inspired by the work of others ('standing on the shoulders of giants', I blame Andyjr1515 in particular) the hewing of wood has started. The bass is inspired by Rob Allen basses, an Aria PE Les Paul type bass and my trusty Gibson SG bass. Body: Chambered mahogany - the 43mm x 7" x 40" plank is air dried 30yrs plus, ex snooker table £5 - I bought more Body top slab: oak. 9 - 12mm undecided on thickness yet. Neck : white oak and mahogany stringers. Gibson SG bass profile plus a few mm depth, this will be a 'baseball bat'. Two per side small tuners, headstock string angle same as Fender type headstock h. (The oak was from a floor I removed about 25 years ago and the mahogany was also some salvage from years ago). Fingerboard: Ebony, fretless. This has planed down to 10mm. Bridge: Ebony, acoustic bass type, Acetal (aka Delrin) saddle. Pickup:: initially piezo underbridge (£6 I think). I intend to design the body chambering so that later retro fit of J tyope pickups is a possibilty if the piezo route is not to my taste. Pre-amp: I thought of design and build my own (I have a Physics / Engineering background) but then had the obvious inspiration. I have some pre-amps. I could also dis-assemble a Behringer acoustic-amp and fit it internally if so desired. To be explored. Watching the [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/289254-jack-bruce-ish-eb3-sg-bass/page__fromsearch__1"][b]Andyjr1515 EB3 build[/b][/url] develop I appreciate the advantages of a through neck, my next build will go down that route. This current one will be bolt on. The aim is to have a 30.5" scale bass, bridge as far back as possible, making the bass as compact as possible. My diagrams / plans /templates suggest I will get the equivalent of a 17 fret neck. This should prevent neck dive. The compactness suits me fine as I am somewhat vertically challenged. Body slab and neck stringers: Body outline and neck - the end of the truss rod is where the fingerboard will end, headstock to be as compact as possible. It is not a left hander, I just took the picture that way, no idea why Thoughts and advice most welcome, particularly slot routing 3mm channel for bridge saddle. So far my attempts (with jig) on scarp have been less than 100%.

Seymour Duncan neck humbucker for the unmentionable R bass will fit directly in the bridge position. It will sound ok, but no great improvement over the Gibson humbucker fitted to my SG bass. Artec also manufacture a suitable sized bridge pickup.

Looking at the pictures, the 8 ohm brass device will be the tweeter level control, the L-pad, not the actual tweeter. Good luck with the further investigations.

[quote name='taunton-hobbit' timestamp='1471465163' post='3113302'] IF it were mine, I'd connect the 8ohm brass unit (which is your tweeter, btw) to known working amp at almost nil volume....you need to get to where the problem lies (I'm not convinced it's with the 'new' amp, btw, but you might need a co-operative amp tech any second now). [/quote] Good advice, again you could test the 8 ohm brass unit (aka tweeter) with a multimeter. Measure its dc resistance, 0 or infinty (flashing 1 on many meters) is not good. The 250V black cylindrical thingy is a capacitor, unlikely to have gone u/s. If Chorley was somewhat closer to Mid-Wales I would offer to 'take a look'. On the plus side, the TE is 'old' technology and is thus repairable at sensible money (depending what your outcome with seller is). Worst case is the power transistors have failed, equally well it might be something as simple as a failed solder joint on one of the smoothing capacitors - hence the hum. Peavey Firebass 700 once in my possession had an intermittent on / off no sound issue. Turned out to be poor solder joint on the thermal overload thermistor, an easy diy fix.

[quote name='Andyjr1515' timestamp='1471462782' post='3113277'] Personally, I find this much simpler than a bolt on or glued in neck. This particular one needs no neck angle so the notch is parallel. All of the others I've done have needed an angle but all you do is block up the tail end of the neck in the router jig by the appropriate amount. [/quote] Like it, very simple solution

With your 'one piece' necks, do you 'cut' in neck angle, angle the body wings or have a parallel body-neck alignment? From your builds I am starting to see some advantages of through neck construction, it seems much simpler than tenon joint or routing for bolt on neck. Am I missing something?

Do you have a known functional amp ? If so wire the speaker (EBS 10) directly to a speakon or jack socket. Try the 10" with this direct configuration. Hopefully all will be ok, the battery - cone movement test is encouraging. If you do not have a spare amp, do you have a multimeter. If you do, disconnect the 10" speaker from crossover etc and measure the dc resistance. 6 - 8 ohms is good, 0 ohms or infinity is not good. Suitable multimeters for this purpose are cheap if you do not have one.

Planer-thicknesser is one of the best tools I have ever purchased, should have done it years ago. I have just re-discovered planer 'snipe' with 4' x 8" x 2" mahogany I am starting with. Roller in and out feed has helped but it is time I cut it into the two slabs for jointing.

Another vote for DiMarzio J bass pickup here. No hum, plenty of output. See what turns up on *bay used.

The John Birch short scale 'EB3' I had many years ago had the strap button on the back of the upper horn, lower chamfer. It was serious a 'neck diver' even with mini Schallers. My current SG bass (short scale) is a slight neck diver. I rather like the angle the heel strap button sets the bass at, seems easier on my left wrist. Even with the strategies adopted in design I would still be very tempted to knock up a [b]very rough[/b] pine (or something cheap) body and neck to further investigate the neck dive potential. I am inspired by BC builds, I have the mahogany but am currently awaiting new planer thicknesser drive belt and have to set up some new blades. Tomorrow I hope.

The figured timber is stunning. Will it have the 666 model number engraved on the truss rod cover?

My Corvette has got 'horn' envy, it feels very inadequate.

[quote name='bassman7755' timestamp='1470166270' post='3103822'] .... I disagree, yes light has a frequency but thats an irrelevant innate property of the transmission mechanism and there is no overt combination/splitting of a signal ergo the claim that its not AM is fair and reasonable IMO. [/quote] If there is no overt combination of the signal, how is the guitar signal amplitude (electrical) being converted to light intensity (amplitude)? As I see it, light is propagating (travelling) along the optical fibre. It is carrying the information (amplitude of guitar signal) through the intensity (amplitude). This is simply amplitude modulation by any other name. We can of course look at the patent disclosures and establish the circuits used, they may be novel and a 'new' form of non-modulated signal transmission has been developed. If this is the case they will have 'big players' in the communications technology sphere chasing them. Guitar cables will be small beer.

I am with 4stringslow on the AM modulation, not that being a Physicist has any bearing on this. Being an older git, luckydog makes the connection, what is wrong with my old cable. Yes, if I gigged rather more I would probably go wireless , then again virgin unicorns have been seen in this part of Mid Wales, so who knows. I do know I will not be forking out for the Analogue Optical Guitar Cable.

[quote name='ColinB' timestamp='1469690013' post='3100270'] There's something seriously wrong with your mains electricity for the trip to go off just by plugging in the USB lead. I'd be far more worried about that than the toneprint tbh. It might be more than a killer tone that you'll end up with! [/quote] +1 there is something seriously wrong somewhere. Try the amp - usb connection in another location (that has a circuit breaker). If it works correctly I would get your home electricity and pc checked. You can get mains testing plugs which will give you some indication (however they do not detect neutral - earth reverse).

[quote name='Pow_22' timestamp='1469602375' post='3099584'] The Mk3 Sound City's are close, the Mk4s are sh*te tho [/quote] If you get a good mk4 they are pretty decent. If you get a 'bad un' then noise is your friend . I got lucky with a 'bedroom' condition mk4 at a knockdown price. It was broke, aka needed a new pre amp tube. Bought cheap enough they make a good donor for Hiwatt conversion.

Warwick Rockbass 5er that I owned had a substantial 3 piece maple neck. I had no doubts about the stability and the build quality was also flawless. I would take a long hard look at used Warwick prices, they are a great value for buyers and depressing for sellers. A German Corvette is on here for £350 at the moment, what a used rockbass would fetch is anyone's guess.