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5 string Stingray Bass Build


Jimothey
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Do you need to protect the vinyl after the hair dryer treatment? (Where's Sir Alex when you need him?)

Also, how do you finish off the edges of the wrap at the back of the bass? I've had a sudden urge to do a bass in pink or purple paisley. The bass has very curvy sides.

Edited by MoonBassAlpha
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18 minutes ago, MoonBassAlpha said:

Do you need to protect the vinyl after the hair dryer treatment? (Where's Sir Alex when you need him?)

Also, how do you finish off the edges of the wrap at the back of the bass? I've had a sudden urge to do a bass in pink or purple paisley. The bass has very curvy sides.

No once it cools down it stays sticky but keeps it shape

If you do it right when you stretch the vinyl round the sides and you cut it back it leaves a nice edge but I think @kodiakblair is the best person to point you in the right direction when it comes to paisley vinyl do's and don'ts 😀

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2 hours ago, Jimothey said:

No once it cools down it stays sticky but keeps it shape

If you do it right when you stretch the vinyl round the sides and you cut it back it leaves a nice edge but I think @kodiakblair is the best person to point you in the right direction when it comes to paisley vinyl do's and don'ts 😀

How far over the edge did you get ? My attempt to get to the back edge met with disaster 😁Vinyl was too tight between upper horn and bout,had the same trouble between the horns and the neck pocket. Icing on the cake came when I trimmed off the excess vinyl,heat from the hair dryer had slackened the grip of the spray lacquer.

 

It peeled off with the vinyl 🤬😭🤬 That wont happen with a pro poly finish 👍

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19 minutes ago, kodiakblair said:

How far over the edge did you get ? My attempt to get to the back edge met with disaster 😁Vinyl was too tight between upper horn and bout,had the same trouble between the horns and the neck pocket. Icing on the cake came when I trimmed off the excess vinyl,heat from the hair dryer had slackened the grip of the spray lacquer.

 

It peeled off with the vinyl 🤬😭🤬 That wont happen with a pro poly finish 👍

I got about 10mm before it started bunching a bit on the horns but I was lucky I used self adhesive vinyl so when it cooled it was still sticky 😀

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38 minutes ago, SpondonBassed said:

Puckering is a major problem with vinyl.  Have you considered a zip-up solution?

  Hide contents

image.png.6c96cead9ce0af70a9e32b3a4143d614.png

 

Where did you get that photo of me from my missus said she had deleted it!! 

But don't you hate it when you put your trousers on the wrong way!?! 😳

Hang on I've just thought of a million dollar idea changeable zip up guitar covers (patent pending) 

Edited by Jimothey
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10 minutes ago, SpondonBassed said:

It looks cold on this P and warm with the orange on the other P.  If you managed to get the tonal characteristics to do the same it'd be a trick.

I think your right it does look better on the other one

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  • 2 weeks later...

Because of needing to do some work on my 5 string I thought I'd take the opportunity to swap the strings over onto this bass 

_20180813_021446.thumb.JPG.101911498d6fa78c07398253bd5a3518.JPG

So here's what I found out........ Due to the extra tension the neck had too much relief so the action was way too high! I tried lowering the saddles but to get them to a nice playing height it caused a massive amount of fret buzz if I went anywhere near the 12th fret! so to overcome this I loosened the strings off adjusted the truss rod by giving the neck less relief then when I tuned up the neck is now virtually straight problem solved I thought!?! Every other string now is nice and low with no feet buzz but I have fret buzz only on the 10th fret of the A string (go higher or lower up or down the fretboard and it stops)

Any ideas anyone what the problem is and how to sort it out???? 

Other than that I really like the string spacing I find it nice and easy to get around the fretboard if anything it has speeded up my playing so if I can sort out the A string problem I'm really happy with the conversion and would definitely do it to my Jazz bass aswell!! 😀

Edited by Jimothey
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4 hours ago, Woodinblack said:

Isn't that almost certainly as that fret is high, but you didn't notice before because of the angle of the neck?

^ I would have thought.  

Use the edge of a credit card or similar as a rocker to bridge across the 9th 10th and 11th frets and check if it 'see-saws' on a high 10th on the A string.  If so just use a fine flat needle file in that area to take the high spot off (until it doesn't rock - don't overdo it) and polish it up with very fine wet & dry or micro-web to polish out any scratches.  For a single high spot you can do this with the strings still on.

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33 minutes ago, Jimothey said:

@Andyjr1515 I just tried a credit card from the 9-12th fret and there was no high spots it didn't rock but the 10th fret is lower than the others, would a low fret cause fret buzz as well? 

_20180813_191621.thumb.JPG.4c98220f9a85e112b6bdf6c9bceb4e7f.JPG

Do the rock test only covering three frets at a time.  If the credit card is too long can you use something else ( or cut an old card / store card etc)?   

If you can do that, then try 8 9 10 then 9 10 11 then 10 11 12 to see if you can work out where the issue is

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Just had a look at the photo and can see that you are just covering three - sorry, misread your post.

Yes - a low fret creates a high fret next to it, if that makes any sense.

Do the rock test three at a time from the 1st fret to the end of the fretboard and jot down which frets rock.  It may be that the fretboard needs levelling if they're all over the place.

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Ahh - that is the worst, the low fret, I have a slightly low fret on my fireman, but I couldn't be bothered to redo all my frets as it was the 19th fret on the B string, which wasn't somewhere that I normally played, shoddy I know!

Are you sure the 9th is low, if you go from the 8th to the 10th is one not high? It is unusual for one to be lower, unless it is worn.

Not much you can do about making a low fret high, you have to make all the other frets as low. 

 

I have a nice little rocker thing I got from crimson guitars, one of the only thing I knew about bass work was the course I went on through basschat to crimson guitars to set up bass necks, so that I can actually do! Funnily enough I was looking at something like that today https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/283014972468

Edited by Woodinblack
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1 hour ago, Woodinblack said:

Ahh - that is the worst, the low fret, I have a slightly low fret on my fireman, but I couldn't be bothered to redo all my frets as it was the 19th fret on the B string, which wasn't somewhere that I normally played, shoddy I know!

Are you sure the 9th is low, if you go from the 8th to the 10th is one not high? It is unusual for one to be lower, unless it is worn.

Not much you can do about making a low fret high, you have to make all the other frets as low. 

 

I have a nice little rocker thing I got from crimson guitars, one of the only thing I knew about bass work was the course I went on through basschat to crimson guitars to set up bass necks, so that I can actually do! Funnily enough I was looking at something like that today https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/283014972468

Yeah the 10th is definitely low because it rocks if I go from the 8 9 10 or 10 11 12 but not if 10 is in the middle but as @Andyjr1515 has said I'll check them all and will probably have to level all the frets which that part I'm fine with, its the crowning and polishing that I'm a bit concerned about doing but I'm sure there's some YouTube vids to help me on my way 

The main bit that's concerning me is that because I had to give the neck a bit of a back bow, am I right in thinking I will have to adjust the truss rod again to make the neck straight then do the work on the frets then adjust it back again before I string it back up?? 

The neck was brand new and I had only played on it for a couple of days before I did the conversion so I think it is probably not very good workmanship the kit was very cheap so I guess you get what you pay for

But I still can't understand that the fret looks low the whole width of the fretboard but it's only the A string affected?? 🤯

Edited by Jimothey
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