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I've been off the forum for 4 years, but I just started a new project with some solid players and this part of my current build is fun and weird so I thought I'd share it. I'm doing a headless from scratch, and I was not happy with commercial tuner/bridge options. I got these 40:1 worm gears...

I coated a body with shellac a month or so ago pending lengthy tests of clear coats, and I'm ready to take the next step (which, very much to my surprise, will be epoxy). This body hasn't seen a ton of handling, but more than zero, so there are no doubt some fingerprints here and there. I want...

Has anyone ever made a bridge or neck plate out of acrylic or polycarbonate? I have in mind a Tune-O-Matic style bridge from acrylic and a neck plate in 1/4” polycarbonate. I can do destructive tests to assess feasibility, but if anyone had tried it that might save time.

The lockdown is getting to me, so... ...I decided to try mixing my own shellac and spraying it.

Back in October 2018 I asked about how to get a thick, tough water-clear finish (comparable to factory poly), and got some helpful replies, but nothing conclusive, basically "try some different stuff out." Then last fall I asked about SprayMax rattle-can 2K automotive clear, and nobody seemed...

My workmanship is...adequate at best, but my cheerfulness level is is way up.

I’m working on 2 5ers that I plan on affixing ABM headless bridges to. I am planning on securing strings at the headstock with 10-32 set screws. my question is, what should I make the headpiece out of? I have handy some pre-hardened 4142 chromoly, some unhardened H2 steel, and finally some...

All my kids play instruments, and one of the larger “school projects” they’re involved in asked me to record some upright bass tracks to go with their various squeaky instruments. Due to weird virus-y circumstances I only had a fretless Jazz available, so I went with that. Hoooboy do I need...

I have been dogged by a problem since I started on fretless several years ago: I can hear that a note is out of tune, but not if it is sharp or flat. I got Tunerval to work on my ear training, and it has confirmed this weird problem. I can tell in-tune from out, but I think I’m doing worse...

For intonation’s sake! I actually have many complaints about the StewMac miter box, but #1 is that it can’t fit this neck past the 12th fret, and I’m going to have to stick it on the mill to make it work.

This has been a week of some serious lutherie fails for me, including a carbon-fiber upper-horn reinforcement that got stuck halfway and had to be drilled out, some dumb but small damage to an ebony fingerboard, and this attempt at cutting a fingerboard contour with an apparently dull flush trim...

I rarely get out to see live music, mostly because my wife doesn’t care for most rock and we like to spend weekends together given the chaos of work and kids. Last night she had a co-worker invite her to see his Stevie Nicks tribute band. Now the truth is I would switch away from almost any...

I’m building a couple of 5ers with fairly thin necks. I thought putting some carbon fiber in the necks might be a good idea to help stiffen them up given their thinness. I got rods that are nominally .125” x .325”, but measuring, they are actually .005” larger in both dimensions. It’s easy...

This will get poly eventually, but IMO the extra step makes it pop.

Has anyone tried the 2K rattle can from Spraymax? I'm looking for a hard, polish-able topcoat for a build, but not planning on a major tool purchase soon. [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

For the funkmeisters of TB, a question. I bought the sheet music for Get Down Tonight, because yes, I buy sheet music for funk (my ear is not all that it could be). There are a bunch of sections that look like the picture below, with an A marked with a descending slide. I have struggled...

Maybe a year ago I conceived an idea for a 5-string P-bass with a 36” scale and an unconventional body design. I have finally managed to get some work done on earnest, and here is the first picture. (Specifically cleared with the mods for TB-appropriateness). Some discussion of techniques and...

For one reason and another, I have barely been able to use my basement workshop this last year. But I got 4 hours today and got to try my new (to me) router. MUCH better than the old one. It will eventually be a 36” 5-string P.

Because I am a nutjob, I've decided to make my first bass build from scratch. Also my second, which is going on simultaneously, and will be fretless. With large-scale laser-cut veneer images! And shell inlay! And headless! 5-String! 36.02" scale! Probably with homemade headless hardware...

I am working on a 5-string P-Bass, and I was down at the hardwood lumber yard asking for cut-offs. They had some beautifully glued and sanded maple slabs about 15" x 24" for $10. Of course I grabbed one. But measuring it, it's about 1 1/4", so quite a bit thinner than the average body. How...

I have my grandmother’s late-70’s Sony Hi-Fi (all solid state). The sound is great, better than I have heard from lower-end new stuff. I mostly use it by plugging my phone into the RCA Aux/TV input. The problem is that there are two states to operation. One is just normal operation. The other...

Hello DB side, I mostly hang out on the BG side, but today I try something new. About 18 months ago I bought a used Christopher plywood bass (from everyone's favorite bass store, Craigslist) with the ambition of playing in a community orchestra in a few years. It required massive setup work...

I'm working on a couple of guitar stands with fancy veneer as a preparation to tackling a bass build. I want both to have a thick clear finish, and the stands are a good chance to experiment. I have bought a little bit of pour-on bar-top finish, and in early tests on scraps it looks nice and...

My new band is going to put together some covers and my selections include Queen’s contribution to the body-positivity movement. I also want to sing it, and it’s simple enough that i can probably pull it off. But...does anyone know how those sounds were achieved? Is that a bass guitar at all...

A couple years ago I asked the TB brain trust how I could get good enough to play in a band, give that I’m a middle aged dad and thus won’t get the allowances for cluelessness that I might have gotten when I was 15 (and would be competing against guys with 30 years of gigging). I’ve taken...

So I played today with a performance class at Swallow Hill Music association. I have videos of all the songs, but this one was what I spent the most time on: I Want You Back. I'm trying to get a sense of whether I'm ready to head out and start trying to find a band. As you can see from the...

New T-shirt day! I'm taking a "Music of Motown" class and I couldn't resist hitting the custom shirt shop for this: I'm sort of tempted to throw this pic up on eBay and see if anyone else wants it, but then I think I'd be a "commercial user."

My son has been learning to play a 6-string for the last couple of years, and he's getting pretty good. I've gotten him a really nice classical guitar (Cordoba C10) and in 2016 I scored an MIA Strat for $385. I let him play through my tiny 20W Craigslist amp, and my bigger 100W 115 combo if he...

I still need a real band, but until then I have a good time with Swallow Hill Music classes. The last 7 Sundays we’ve been trying to pull together Zep IV for this afternoon’s show. Sadly there are 2 basses, but on the upside I can peek at her left hand when I lose my place. A couple weeks in I...

I have a Bassman 100 15" combo (see picture--lots of amps using this name). I will be using it essentially as a stage monitor next month with most sound coming from the PA from the amp XLR. My question, which the user's manual doesn't address, is whether the built in compressor also...

I had some slack time near GC today, so I thought I'd look at 5ers with an eye toward finding one to experiment with. One of them was a Mitchell, and this is what the fret ends did to my hand: There was no blood but it actually still hurts a little, and I'm sure blood would have resulted in...

I'll be playing in public. It's not a real gig, it's the culmination of a couple months of a performance class at Swallow Hill Music Association. Just old guys having a good time pretending to be rock stars and wondering "Why didn't I do this more when I was young?" Last time I played in...

I was at the Grizzly Rose last night for Thompson Square, and the bass sounded pretty good (by the third song). Openers were better in that respect than the headliners, but no wall-o-kick or undefined sludge. But OMG THE TREBLE! I felt like I was being attacked my a dozen snares and cymbals...

I finally got my oldest to a local guitar shop with his new strat to try out some pedals for fun. He noodled on a Vox Tonelab for a while and got some good sounds. Tried out a multi-function bass pedal with my fretless, too, but wasn't overly thrilled. But there's also a more traditional...

I was at NAMM's Museum of Making Music this morning and saw this cool Ric: From 1935, and with a 1935 bass combo behind it. Retro styling! I'd rock it if I could afford it.

My current ear-training regime involves playing a fretless to the Suzuki Method bass recordings, which are all "arco" (bowed) on a double bass. Naturally this has me trying to fake a bowed tone fingerstyle, because that makes it easier to match the recording. Most of the time that people look...

Since Talkbass convinced me to start looking for some guys to jam with (on the road to, hopefully, paying gigs someday), I figured I should start poking around for an amp that might work for that. For the last year and change I've been working with a headphone amp and a $20 Craigslist off-brand...

I'm an old beginner--set the bass aside for 20 years while life happened. I was never very good as a teenager--couldn't afford lessons, didn't have the internet (just the Hal Leonard books by Dan Dean and my parents' turntable), didn't have a band, only played in public a couple times for...

My wife convinced my oldest he should be a gui**** because "they get to solo." On the one hand, I could point to many talented bass soloists, but on the other hand I don't much like bass solos, so...anyway, he's been doing Suzuki classical guitar and learning to sight read standard notation...

I don't really get GAS for basses; I actually prefer building stuff to buying stuff most of the time, which is how I have a half-completed 36" 5-string in my basement next to a functional travel bass that still needs electronic upgrades to be complete. But my son, who has been taking guitar...