rwillett

Hi Si That would probably scratch the tubes, but not definitely. Rob

That might be how it's done but that would probably also scratch the tubes and I've seen pictures of immaculate guitars. No scratches at all. Its a puzzle and I can't work it out. It might be that the bridge isn't earthed but I'm sure there would be hum. Rob

Yes it could be, but in earlier pictures of the Westone it has different coloured rails. These might be anodised (and probably are), but a piece of copper braid rubbing against the tubes seems a poor way to do it in my book. The tubes will have oil on them from your fingers and would very gently scratch the anodising or the lacquer or whatever. I would have to do something like this if I built it, but it doesn't strike me as an elegant solution. However I might be wrong and this is the way Westone did it. Rob

I don't have any machining capability, though I think you are right, polished titanium would be fabulous. I'll just see what my daughter would fetch on eBay to be able to buy the titanium blocks needed The aluminium backbone works for 'traditional' guitars but wouldn't work for this as it needs to be empty in the middle. The issue at the moment is the shear loading on the parts of the neck and bridge where it connects to the metal tubes. There's circa 160+lbs coming from the bass strings and that will break a 15mm plywood backbone and bend 12mm aluminium. Already tried that, so there a lot of stress in certain areas of the guitar. I need to work out what the "art of the possible" is here. I've a number of ideas to explore. Rob

@Maude From reading various descriptions it's wood. 3D printing on it's own would not be strong enough. You can't make even a six string by just printing it. My six string and my headless both have an aluminium backbone. This works very well and the sustain is excellent. However the two steel rails will add a lot of strength, and will be somewhat of an alternative to alumnium backbone but will move the forces elsewhere. I'm interested in seeing what the shear forces would be if it's just printed. I *think* that it's not going to be strong enough TBH, but I'm happy to experiment. I also have a Plan B Rob

Hi John It is another 3d printing project. If I do it, I'll design an earth for the bridge to the rails. That's the easy bit. It's how a sliding middle earth's (if necessary) thats making me think. I have some simple ideas but am interested if Westone had this issue and how they resolved it. I'll keep thinking it through. The next thing is how strong the bits need to be. The loading of a four string bass between bridge and neck is circa 4x that of a guitar. Previously I have used an aluminum slab as a backbone. That won't be an option here as the load will be taken by the side tubes. However these have to connect to the bridge and neck and that's a lot of stress. Probably the only way to check this is to do it and see 😊 Rob

Hi I'm looking at building something similar to the Westone "The Rail" bass. Not 100% certain yet, but exploring the idea. It won't look quite like this but I wanted to see what the smallest bass I could make. I can see how it fits together and nothing strikes me as too difficult at the moment, famous last words, apart from where things actually earth on the above basses. AFAIK there is normally (always?) an earthing strap/wire/connection from the bridge to the electrics to reduce hum. All the guitars I've built have that and all the ones I've taken apart have that. I can't see how that works on the guitars above. I know the black side pieces are steel tubes so I would assume that they are involved but the pickup in the middle slides up and down, so there's no wires that connects the bridge to the pickup. Does the pickup section use a friction connection to make the earth OR has Westone found a way to get around the hum using something else? Searching for Westone "The Rail" wiring diagram doesn't produce anything very interesting. Anybody have any ideas how it works. The only thing I can think of is a piece of metal that clamps against one of the steel rods when you tighten the pickup in position with the screw. That might scratch the rods though. Thanks Rob

I think somebody ought to make the ultimate sacrifice and buy both. They can then hide them by burying them, a bit like Jumanji. This way we can make sure nobody else ever buys them by mistake. What could possibly go wrong? Rob

What I do is setup the iPad for what I want. I do this on the desk. This gets saved as a user preset. This was designed as an exercise in packaging and something I could easily take away. I don't tend to change too much from the preset, if I want a slight change, I'll create another preset. The M-Vave foot switch simply moves up and down the presets, plus things like a long press, turns the tuner on and off. Its small, compact and battery powered, easily fits into a small case, and is surprisingly versatile. Is it as good as some of the higher end stuff? Probably not I do have a Behringer X Touch Mini controller as well but its a fag to setup. I agree that touch screens are sometimes a pain, my Seat Leon has a touch screen and I hate it for all the reasons you say above. Rob

I can't seem to leave things alone. So I wondered how small I could make a pedal with a battery and a audio interface. So it's now down to 12cm x 11cm x 10cm. So that's a significant reduction from 26cm x 9cm, basically half the size. This new version also allows me to see all of the battery indicator lights and to adjust the iRig input and output controls. It does have a smaller battery than before but it should last 6-7 hours which is far longer than I need it for. It is bigger than a Helix Stomp or a Mod Dwarf or a Line 6 but it's portable and stands me at £15 for a new battery as I had all of the other parts lying around. The iPad display does make it very easy to read and the interface is so easy to use. I can use either an older iPad or an older iPhone 11 that sit on an adjustable rod to get the right angle. The iPad is the easier to use as it's so much bigger display. I have a M-Vave four switch pedal unit which works across Bluetooth. That gives me eight options with short and long presses. It sounds very nice with the Yamaha HS-7 speaker. I tend to use BiasFX2 and I'm experimenting with Loopy Pro. Sorry no banana for size. Rob

Agreed but I'm still a moron

This would be a perfect match to my 76 (pre CBS) sand Morris Marina. The Precision and Jazz of the motoring world.

Decisions, decisions, decisions.... Tough call here....

Gosh, what a deal, let me see if I can sell one of the children on. Hate to miss this opportunity... Can I check if it's a refin?

Would this aforesaid Austin Allegro be the ultra-rare light brown or sand colour? If so, I'd double your estimate...

I'm a sodding moron. I'm now going to delete this thread, find the servers it's hosted on and erase them, I'll then track down every person who has read this and erase their device and the edge caches. After this Im going to head to a cave and brick the entrance up and stay in there for a few years until this thread has been wholly forgotten. I glanced at the wrong input and I have the mixer sitting on my desk. Rob

I was looking for a cable to connect my little Yamaha MG06X mixer to a Yamaha reference speaker HS-7. The speaker has 1/4" and female XLR. The mixer has female XLR. So I thought I'd simply buy a male XLR to a male XLR cable and connect the mixer and speaker. However there appears to to gazillions of male to female XLR, male to male is a little rare, I can get a few ones that are 1M long or whatever but it's 1 in a 100 or so This made me think that I'm doing something wrong because I would have thought this would be dead common. But its not, putting an adapter on to convert the cable is something I normally try not to do. So I think I'm doing something wrong here, and should be doing something else. Would welcome feedback and thoughts. Thanks Rob

I brought a TC Tuner. Zero issues, well packed, thanks very much. Rob

The OnlyFans app has taken on a strange new set of people 😊

Fair point. It looks very nice. I'd love to have it but it would be wasted on me. Mind you, it's a cheap work of art

What would it be worth without the finish being stripped? It's beyond my means as it is so wondering how much more I couldn't afford 😊

Love to be there. Sadly got family here Take lots of photos for those of us who couldn't make it

Clever way to reduce the weight of the headstock and reduce neck dive. Is it called 20/20 as anybody with good eye sight would not buy it? It looks as if it was a child of the early 80's to me, it needs a lot of hair and hair spray. Rob

Wonder if I offered £250, they'd take it

The long strap extender looks a good idea. You are basically trying to move the Centre of Gravity away from the mass at the end of the neck closer to your body. That's one way, another way is on the other end. At the end of the day, you canna change the laws of physics, but you can bend them to your way of thinking. 1. Reducing the mass at the end of the long lever (the neck). Light weight tuners, shave the headstock down, try and move the neck further down into the body. 2. increasing the mass at the body end. You're trying to avoid doing this (aka a body-less body), so this makes point 1 even more important. 3. Changing where the CoG is located through a lever. Already suggested and is probably the easiest. 4. Some sort of clip that attaches the body of the bass to your body. I'm told there are devices that do this but never seen them. You are in effect becoming breeze blocks (see I wasn't being facetious :)) Rob