rwillett

@ossyrocks Mission Control says "yes". I'll bring my printed bass in case yours breaks. Rob

I do have a number of full fat web servers that I could use here, but I really don't want anybody, including myself, to spend too much time here. The above idea sounds like each time the thread is read, it goes out and pulls whatever is at the end of the URL link in the signature, It would be easy to randomise a series of images on an external webserver to do that. Thats no different to what I am trying to do here. I can see that if I embed a basschat link, that is quite often expanded out, hinting that the functionality is there. However if it was up to me, I would pull out all this type of functionality from the board as the potential for abuse is simply too much. Whilst me adding in a countdown timer to a fairly sensible website is OK in principle, whats to stop me linking to a very dodgy website dealing up all sorts of undesirable and extreme images and videos. I could for instance hide https://www.conservatives.com inside a nice family friendly LGBQT+ site for instance. Having young children exposed to Rishi Sunak or Michael Gove at such an early age could stunt their development and could lead the site to accusations of storing extremist materials and supporting terrorism. I think we close this thread off now Thanks Rob

That might be the only solution

Thats a good idea, wonder if I can automate that image each day?

@BigRedX @ped Don't worry. The code button is for formatting code as far as I can see. As an example here's the iframe code wrapped in the <> button <iframe width="300" height="154" src="https://w2.countingdownto.com/5498838" frameborder="0"></iframe> I can see that on the bottom right of the popup is a list of different styles to apply and Perl is one of them My second favourite language after C #!/usr/bin/perl # INSERT INTO "main".sqlite_sequence (name, seq) VALUES ("Category", '558'); while (<>) { chomp; if (/^INSERT INTO \"([^\"]+)".sqlite_sequence \(name, seq\) VALUES \(\"([^\"]+)\", '.+'\);$/) { print "INSERT INTO \"$1\".sqlite_sequence (name, seq) VALUES (\"$2\" , '0');\n"; } else { print "$_\n"; } } All I was trying to do was put a countdown time to the North West and Scotland Bass Bash, it's not worth the time and effort TBH beyond 2-3 mins Rob

No need to apologise. This is all good stuff. If it moves off building stuff, then we may ask to create a new thread, but carry on. Its interesting. Rob

Still like to come though

Ah, good job I asked. Still need to ask Zoe, but shes in York for the day. Will love to come though. Thanks Rob

Hi I'm trying to embed a countdown timer to the NW and Scotland Bass Bash 2024 into my signature. Two questions please: Am I allowed to? If so, how do you do it? https://countingdownto.com/?c=549883 is the web page. The website has generated an iframe and I thought that putting it in the signature would automatically call it as I see other people having links to websites. I suspect the ones I have seen are basschat links and not 'external' sites and so what I am trying to do is not possible. Thanks Rob

Let me have a chat with Mission Control. Would love to come. Is this at the old railway station on the sea front? Rob

30 days.....

Ah, now I see what you mean. Not planning that. I just wanted the pickguard to have a subtle line around it. I'd love to print some decent patterns but at the moment my focus is getting the bass body finished, pained and shiny. The new pickguard is the first step. I assume from your comment that some people put fake bindings around guitars? Rob

@Richard R Not sure what faking bindings are? Can you explain please. These are the two pieces joined. I've filled and sanded and am down to (upto?) to 240 with the wet and dry. The surface is dulled, the join between the two pieces looks OK, there is a thin line of filler, and other bits of filler. These are going to be spray painted so I'm not at all worried about how they look at the momen, though I have to say my ability to take photos that look bad is wonderful A primer/filler coat will get rid of most of the ridges, but my intention is to spent another hour with more wet and dry to get this as smooth as possible. The back shows where I joined the two pieces. Played about with different papers on the back before the front. Just about all of this will be covered with copper tape, so not concerned about the looks.

<Sigh>

The filler experiment continues, it does appear that a wood filler works best at the moment. I don't need a lot but PETG is quite difficult to sand down, it's pretty tough. Did a lot of filling yesterday, let it dry overnight and if I find an hour today, I'll have another go. It turns out that PETG fills the sanding disks very quikcly, even though not a lot comes off. Its a funny material. Also been experimenting for the first time with multi colour printing. As my printer is limited to 220 by 200mm (or so), I assumed I would have a pickguard made. The pickguard I wanted is below Currently I have to print this in two pieces, but I wondered if I could print it in two pieces, join it together with a backing plate and sand it down. I then wondered about putting a layer of white in the black. I've never bothered with multicolour printing, but set it up in PrusaSlicer, put a roll of white PETG and ended up with this. Quite pleased as the white line is subtle. It's a sandwich of 1mm black, 1mm white and 1mm black. There's a chamfer around the edge as well. I'm not too concerned about the top as I'll sand that down, spray paint it and then either lacquer it or epoxy resin it. The finish is still to be decided. I'll print the other half of the pickguard during the day and glue them together. A tiny amount of filler along the seam and I suspect that it will be invisible. If this works, then larger multi colour pickguards are an option. Rob

The bass is sitting in a corner of my office. It plays well though still has the tug boat cables for strings. Not set the strings at all. Focus for the last week has been, filling, sanding, priming and learning about PETG with a sander. PETG is the material I have chosen for the body of the guitar, it's stronger than PLA, significantly more rigid, glues/welds well and is fairly inert. It also handles heat well, though at the moment, it needs to handle water well as the weather in North Yorkshire is wet, wet and then even more wet. However PETG isn't as good as taking paint, I also have no idea about filler on it. So I'm trying various fillers, various sandpapers and various primers to see what works and what doesn't. I'm also experimenting with joining stuff together to make a single pickguard as opposed to two separate ones. So lots of wet and dry papers, lots of head scratching and not much progress The aim is to have the bass finished for May 17th, painted, lookimng good and ready for the NW and Scottish Bash. Rob

Or you can have my Jet Black one (thought it is home made). In another 40 years it will be vintage

@Reggaebass feel free to contact me if you ever want to sell one of your basses at a big loss. Always happy to help Rob

That's interesting. I will look closer into this. Suspect it won't be this year though.

@SpondonBassed I earlier contacted a specialised carbon fibre manufacturer and asked them about replacing the aluminium backbone with a slimmer and lighter CF backbone. They were really quick and helpful, I paraphrase their response below. CF is about as strong as aluminium (a little stiffer) but its approx 30% lighter. The current thickness of 15mm will probably need to stay but the replacement would be lighter. The CF piece could be made stronger by going to Unidirectional fibres, but multiple test pieces would need to be made. Structural calculations may help. So thats not an option here. The CF rods will be less stiff than the plate (unless they are bigger), so need to put the thinking cap on again. I include one of their futher comments as its very helpful and really explains it. As I don't have permisison to use their name, I'll hold it back, but they were very good. "A lot of people hear comments about “carbon being stronger than Steel” and although not untrue, its very specific - eg in reality “weight for weight” carbon IS stronger than steel but the volume or dimensions of a carbon part replacing steel would be bigger but the low density means it is still much lighter overall. Certainly we have seen people use carbon rods etc in instrument necks but to replace what you have, you are likely going to need to bond a lot of pieces together which is not so practical." Thanks Rob

Useful

Who is Daisy? She sounds like a good person to know

I had a large CNC machine that I built, it would do 800mmx600mm, theoretically I could have made a bass body with it. A neck would be a challenge as it would too long. Also just looking at every guitar neck I have and all of them would be tricky on a CNC machine. There are 3D objects and whilst the heal would be easy, the head would be non-trivial (as far as I can work out). As I've never made a neck and have no idea where to even start, I could be talking complete tosh and will certainly bow to other peoples greater experience in neck making. I'd be happy to tackle a body, certainly a slab body wouldn't be that difficult, but I reckon using a hand router and a set of carefully designed templates, I'd make a reasonable stab (probably bad choice of words) at it. Then again, I couldn't easily do the lovely Veroni shapes with a hand router easily. For one offs I suspect printed templates, a careful eye and a hand router would do a good job. Wouldn't want to make a hundred of them like that. Might be an interesting project for a group to take on and make 4-5 guitars at the same time. Rob