rwillett

I ended up with this below. Silent, easy to use as I'm an idiot and compact. This is me trying to get the pots set on the stepper motor drivers for my guitar winder.

I'd come down to Nottingham for that as I have family in Chesterfield. I used to know Nottingham quite well. Rob

Women in Rock in Morecambe. In fact I'm here now. Anybody else here?

I have all the bits for a headless but let's get the body sorted and using a decent Fender neck and see if it all works then move to headless. Not going to use a Fender nwck for headless..I have some standards, they may be low but at least I have some.

Headless is v3.

You've clearly never experienced the unbridled wrath of Zoe have you... I'd need the kitchen door open, a very fast car and a one way plane ticket to a plece without an extradition treaty if she caught me melting lead in the kitchen. To be honest, to be really sure, I'd need two major knee ops in advance to make sure I could get to the fast car before she caught me. Hell hath no fury doesn't even come close to what would happen to me.

I like the idea of wheel balancing weights. My local garage probably has loads when they change and balance wheels. The advantage of a 3d printed body is that I can hide the weights, but if the garage has loads spare that might be easier. never thought of those. I'm also contemplating t;other half coming home to me melting lead on the kitchen cooker. Mmmm..... not sure thats a good idea Rob

I think you are right. However I have some lead flashing left over from a new roof, but have sold all my dive gear as my ears had issues, too many dives and far too many ear infections So I don't have any lead balls (where is Finbarr when you want him?) If I plan for 1.5Kg but only need 750g, that's fine. Here's the size of the pocket for 1.5Kg, it's not that large an area so I can fit it around the control panel (when I design it).

@Richard R Lead has a density of approx 7800Kh/M^3 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead which is 11.34g/cm^3 Wood has a density around 800Kg^m3 - This varies depending on the wood, but no wood approaches lead in density. See previous link. Now if I need to make the body circa 1 -> 1.5Kg heavier (thats a guess and probably too much), I need to probably put 1Kg as far back on the body away from neck as I can, and as low down as I can. If I need 1.5Kg of lead. not shot, but sheet (is that what its called), then I need 1.5Kg at most, which is 1500/11.34 = 132 cm^3. As the guitar is 44mm deep and lets put 5mm each side to cover, that leaves a depth of circa 3.4cm. 132/3.4 = 38square cm, so a area of approx 6cm x 7cm x 3.4cm deep is enough for 1.5Kg of lead, which I think is possibly too much. I need to design in a pocket size of 6cm x 7cm to add enough lead. That shouldn't be too difficult as I'll put it around the electrics bit so it's low down. Thanks for the ideas Rob

@Richard R If only that was the case, you missed out annoying git, pedant, bore and person who nobody wants to talk to at a party.... ...and incompetent bass player and poor guitar player.

@Richard R Already thought about exactly that. Great minds think alike. I used to teach scuba diving and had a lead shot weight belt. It also came up in an astronomy forum for making counterweights. The back of the guitar adjacent to the strap button is likely to be a potent shot locker. Rob

Didn't mean to come across as rude, sorry. If oak is more dense than plywood, I will look. Now checking to see if its substantially different https://endurancelasers.com/density-of-various-kinds-of-wood-and-plywood/

@Aidan63 Simply because I have some very nice 15mm plywood and I don't have anything else. Wouldn't recognise what oak or any other hardwood even looks like. My woodworking skills are slightly less than a new born baby squirrel, I suppose I could bite it to get it to shape. One option might be to fill some of the voids with a hard wood, but that requires me to make something to fit. See above. If it's on a computer, great, if it requires manual dexterity, I'm dead in the water. Rob

If I was tasteless and loved bling, I could do that, yes.

This is my 3rd music <ahem> related project. I've done a six string which is now professionally setup. The chap in the shop loved it, plugged into a large Marshall stack and proceeded to beat the hell out of the guitar. Big smiles all round and an awful lot of laughs. A few people came in and wanted to try it out. All had fun which is just how it should be. Sadly nobody offered my £5K for it The bass guitar will be based on the lessons learnt from the six string. Current aims are: Use a Fender MIM Jazz bass neck. A kind bass chatter let me have one for virtually nothing. I also got an Aria Pro neck from him as well. Use a similar type of construction to the six string. When I started the six string I used hexagons as the design pattern as I bolted pieces together as I didn't want to glue stuff. That was a mistake as the glue is easier and stronger. Now I will use the Voronoi patterns for the body of the guitar. Very organic, very fluid, quite Gaudi like. I'll try and use pickups that I make myself from the guitar pickup winder I'm making. It will not be headless. I have all the pieces for a headless bass but I am not chopping the head of a decent MIM Fender Jazz. I have an Ibanez neck for that, but thats for later in the year. Worries or things for me to think about Neck dive. The average MIM Jazz body appears to be circa 2.4Kg with no hardware. I have designed a prototype body based around a jazz design but using A Voronoi infill as opposed to hexagons. According to my slicer, if I printed this even at 40% infill which is waaaay too much it only weighs 1.5Kg. Now I need to add in the middle bits, including a plywood backbone so that will add more weight, but I'm going to struggle to get another 1Kg on this to get it balanced and avoid neck dive. I could fill one or two of the pockets with epxoy resin to make it a feature OR I could try and get some really lightweight tuners. Its a big thing to print. I may have to do it in 9 (?) sections as it's nearly 500mm wide and 300mm tall. I need to do the electrics. Less concerned about that, but it needs to be designed in. Not sure if I should use a preamp or not, probably not at the moment. Putting a switch top right on the six string created a lot of routing problems so this time all the electrics will be on the bottom section. I supposed if I concentrates them bottom left, then that will help balance things out. I want to put some body cuts in it to make it easier to play, that will reduce the weight even more Apart from that, its similar to the six string, I need to put brackets for straps, design a pick guard, make it all work, but learnt a lot from the last two I made. Rob

@Frank Blank - Jabba short scales, fretted and fretless, Ibanez SRC6, QSC K12.2, Grace Design preamp. @rwillett - Ibanez short scale, Fender Jazz bass, Fender Mustang bass, Telecaster, Westone six string, 3d printed guitar, small practise bass amp, small practise guitar amp, Mod Dwarf, various guitar/USB interfaces and quite a lot of software and a fair few laptops as required. I live next door Probably cake as well. @ossyrocks- '73 P bass, '73 J bass, '78 P bass, '87 MIJ P Bass, Fender Bassman 50 (rebuilt from the ground up by Gartone), Bergantino Forte D, TE Elf, Barefaced Super Compact and One10, Fender Rumble 100. @sifi2112 Vigier Excess 4, Mas26 (x2) sfx D3 preamp Koch ATR4502 poweramp @neepheid - Some and hopefully all of Epiphone Jack Casady, G&L L-1000, Epiphone Les Paul Standard, G&L Tribute LB-100, Sire D5, Reverend Triad, Yamaha BB1200, Harley Benton HB-50, Soloking MJ-1, Epiphone Explorer, Markbass Mini CMD 121P IV, Markbass NY 121 cab @ead - ACG SLG 32" 4-string; "Lee Sklar bass"; Ibanez Grooveline GS104; Yamaha Attitude Special; SBMM Pete Wentz Stingray sig bass; practice amp (with headphones)

That Voroni generator isn't that easy to use, it puts sketches at a higher level in the component tree and some of the areas just didn't work. However I have managed to get something out, it does look really nice and organic. This might for the basis for a Jazz body with a nice Fender Jazz neck I've got. This bass won't be headless as I can't cut the head off a Fender, well I can but I won't.

@ead don't worry. Il fix it in a new post

Thats sensible. @Frank Blank - Jabba short scales, fretted and fretless, Ibanez SRC6, QSC K12.2, Grace Design preamp. @rwillett - Ibanez short scale, Fender Jazz bass, Fender Mustang bass, Telecaster, Westone six string, 3d printed guitar, small practise bass amp, small practise guitar amp, Mod Dwarf, various guitar/USB interfaces and quite a lot of software and a fair few laptops as required. I live next door Probably cake as well.

Since this is my first one, that sounds like a good idea. I've put the people who have expressed an interest and have said yes on the first post of this thread. Do people normally use the same thread for this or a new thread? Rob

Thanks, sorry about that. Rob

A true star with excellent shaming skills. I approve. There's still a room or two available if you want it. Rob

Can I do a quick roll call and see who is coming, or might be, please? I've held the hall and if there's a sensible number, there's no problem, but for 2-3 people, we could have it in my front room. Thanks Rob

Does that mean you might leave with more than one? That happens to me sometimes, I pop into a shop to have them look at a guitar that needs setup and I somehow end up with two on the way out. As they are both in black gig bags, somebody might not realise it's another one. Rob

Some people vote for Jacob Ress-Mogg as well, no accounting for taste...