Recent content by pilotjones

That won’t work because the balance center is somewhere btween the two strap pins. Weight added to the headstock ha much more leverage than weight added to either strap pin. So to simulate the weight drop at the headstock, roughly, you could: - measure the distance from the center of the...

Hi folks. Not sure whether this belongs in the Amps forum or the Effects forum, so if a mod wants to relocate it, please do. I'm starting it here since it seems to me more about amplification than about effects. Passive DI recommendation? I'm looking for a DI to be a just-in-case carry in my...

Thanks. I still want that gloss finish on the fretboard. That board runs thru to the tail, pickup covers included, so it would be a shame to have it not be gloss to match. So I’m looking to level the board, (assuming I don’t need to do pore fill) fret it, mask the frets, then spray one or two...

work, work, work On to the material removal, with fingers crossed. I started out using that sanding beam to knock down most of the ridges on either side of the fret slots. That worked fine, since it wasn't that much material to remove. Still not quick, though. This is the result. Note how it...

Sanding beam First, turned one side of a beam level into a more proper straightedge by leveling it with an actual straightedge with sandpaper affixed. Then, turned the level into a sanding beam. The pipe serves both as a handle and to hold a bunch of large files that are there to provide some...

Oh Boy, once again So at this point I have shielded the cavities, fitted the electronics including the extra boring for the battery LED, fitted the pickups, installed the the strap lugs, re-fitted and installed the tuners, and removed all but the electronics and lugs in order to do the final...

Done The level, crown and polish is done. Between it being leveled out, and the fact that I strung it with flats, it is now set up with less relief and lower action than I have ever been able to get in the past, by a significant amount. Low enough that I had to cut down my saddles, because...

Wow, that’s a heavy bass. Kudos to you, and better you than me! My current main bass is 4 kg, and my backup 4.7 kg, and that feels heavy to me. Like you suggest, I was giving a friendly caution to the OP, who seems to be a non-luthier who has a pretty piece of wood they’d like made into a bass...

Are you aware of how heavy such a body will be? You can expect a bubinga body the same size and shape as an alder one to be over twice the weight. One way of expressing densities is by specific gravity. Some values: Alder .41 Swamp ash .49 White ash .60 Bubinga .88 (average...

Sheldon Dingwall Is the first I am aware of using pairs of buttonhead cap screws as string saddles, two or probably three decades ago. I haven’t run into any mention of anything earlier.

Tune-up Fourteen years later (!!!), on the bench for its first fret level and crown. Also my first.

A similar but different idea — OP has already done the string thru. An extension tube, used on the back, would be problematic if you bump into it, since it would act like a whammy bar. But maybe a drill stop collar could be used at the back. It would leave a flexible pigtail of string sticking out.

It’s all in previous pages, but since this is page 41 of the thread it’s barely searchable. And since this build was started around eight years ago, I assume most of the pics are gone unfortunately since I was hosting on photobucket at the time, So to recap the specs: Hardware Tuners: Gotoh...

Thanks. Yes, fairly low profile. I’m going to use those. I’m using short lever toggles (not what’s pictured), so the larger diameter can mean less of fingers having a chance to mar the finish, without adding a larger diameter trim washer. And the bushing of the toggles is a bit short (.300 to...