Oh dear... it appears that all this time I've been installing frets incorrectly... lol
Great thread...
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Great thread...
Final Assembly
Look how the wires fit with no room to spare just like I planned. Okay, okay I got lucky. There was extra wire that needed to be stashed under the pickup. That wasn’t easy either … is anything?
I installed the strap bar. I filed a bit around the neck farrols to get a little more of an angle on the bar.
This next picture show installing the hardware. There are a couple of things to note here. On the left you see the L bar that holds the intonation screws. That bar is installed backwards. It was installed backwards on my first trial with the strings too. It wasn’t until 3 days after having everything together that I realized it was on backwards … Duh! So I had to take it off and flip it around.
Earlier I mentioned a design flaw. When you tune the strings the barrels that the strings attach to want to turn and twist the string. I thought of that when I made the design but I incorrectly thought that since they were next to each other, that would counteract the rotation. It didn’t. The bar with the 3 screws was put there so the barrels would rest on it and stop the rotation. That was almost enough to fix the problem but not quite enough. The holes in the body are tapped and accept screws for an upper bar. With just a little pressure on the upper bar (in conjunction with the lower bar,), the twisting during tuning completely stopped. Problem solved … or so I thought. Turns out that the lower bar made some strings too high. I removed the bar and either need a thinner (and tapered) one or another way of solving the problem. In the meantime, I left the top bar (not shown) in place, but it only helps a little by itself.
It was time for the final step, putting on the strings. During the initial string test I had problems with the thinner strings pulling through the collars at the headstock. Here is why. In this picture starting on the left you see 2 collars. Next to them is the set screw. This is very short and works great for a shaft that is as large as the collar center, but doesn’t work for thin strings. So I bought longer set screws.
Zooming into the two on the right you can see the problem is that the screw doesn’t go down all the way in order to pinch (hold) a thin string. So the one on the far right is one I filed down so the screw would go all the way in. This took forever. Between the high cost of these parts and the time it took to sand the centers down, I would never use this solution again.
All Done … Except For the Parts That Aren’t
Here is the finished instrument front and back. The color in the picture is too light, but you can get the idea. The picture on the guitar stand is more correct with regards to color.
If the guitar stand neck opening is big enough, it even fits on a stand.
As of this writing I have about as good a solution to the string twist issue as I am going to get with this design. I put a bar underneath the top bar. By being in that position it doesn’t raise the string up like my initial bottom bar.
The tuners are still turned with a hex key. I haven’t found the correct size thumb screws yet and even if I did I am not sure that I could turn them with my fingers. I can live with one of these problems, but not both. Ideally I’d like them both solved.
There is so much I like about this instrument. To me it feels, plays and sounds good. I still don’t know how it came out as well as it did. I REALLY got lucky! Although it functions, I don’t like the tuning system at all. I am racking my brain to find a way to make that better. On the other hand, once it is tuned and I am playing it, I don’t give the tuning system a second thought.
I plan to post a video here in a few days of a short song to demo the instrument.
Look how the wires fit with no room to spare just like I planned. Okay, okay I got lucky. There was extra wire that needed to be stashed under the pickup. That wasn’t easy either … is anything?
I installed the strap bar. I filed a bit around the neck farrols to get a little more of an angle on the bar.
This next picture show installing the hardware. There are a couple of things to note here. On the left you see the L bar that holds the intonation screws. That bar is installed backwards. It was installed backwards on my first trial with the strings too. It wasn’t until 3 days after having everything together that I realized it was on backwards … Duh! So I had to take it off and flip it around.
Earlier I mentioned a design flaw. When you tune the strings the barrels that the strings attach to want to turn and twist the string. I thought of that when I made the design but I incorrectly thought that since they were next to each other, that would counteract the rotation. It didn’t. The bar with the 3 screws was put there so the barrels would rest on it and stop the rotation. That was almost enough to fix the problem but not quite enough. The holes in the body are tapped and accept screws for an upper bar. With just a little pressure on the upper bar (in conjunction with the lower bar,), the twisting during tuning completely stopped. Problem solved … or so I thought. Turns out that the lower bar made some strings too high. I removed the bar and either need a thinner (and tapered) one or another way of solving the problem. In the meantime, I left the top bar (not shown) in place, but it only helps a little by itself.
It was time for the final step, putting on the strings. During the initial string test I had problems with the thinner strings pulling through the collars at the headstock. Here is why. In this picture starting on the left you see 2 collars. Next to them is the set screw. This is very short and works great for a shaft that is as large as the collar center, but doesn’t work for thin strings. So I bought longer set screws.
Zooming into the two on the right you can see the problem is that the screw doesn’t go down all the way in order to pinch (hold) a thin string. So the one on the far right is one I filed down so the screw would go all the way in. This took forever. Between the high cost of these parts and the time it took to sand the centers down, I would never use this solution again.
All Done … Except For the Parts That Aren’t
Here is the finished instrument front and back. The color in the picture is too light, but you can get the idea. The picture on the guitar stand is more correct with regards to color.
If the guitar stand neck opening is big enough, it even fits on a stand.
As of this writing I have about as good a solution to the string twist issue as I am going to get with this design. I put a bar underneath the top bar. By being in that position it doesn’t raise the string up like my initial bottom bar.
The tuners are still turned with a hex key. I haven’t found the correct size thumb screws yet and even if I did I am not sure that I could turn them with my fingers. I can live with one of these problems, but not both. Ideally I’d like them both solved.
There is so much I like about this instrument. To me it feels, plays and sounds good. I still don’t know how it came out as well as it did. I REALLY got lucky! Although it functions, I don’t like the tuning system at all. I am racking my brain to find a way to make that better. On the other hand, once it is tuned and I am playing it, I don’t give the tuning system a second thought.
I plan to post a video here in a few days of a short song to demo the instrument.
buldog5151bass
Kibble, milkbones, and P Basses. And redheads.
Here is a quick video demo of the instrument.
Forgot to mention that the title of the song has nothing to do with the instrument. I've been wanting to do this song for a while now ... so no jokes
Forgot to mention that the title of the song has nothing to do with the instrument. I've been wanting to do this song for a while now ... so no jokes
I feel like this is one of those situations where the instrument fits perfectly with the player. Congrats!
I have also thought a lot about building something similar in the past. I'm a big fan of Tony Levin's work with Liquid Tension Experiment and Levin/Minnemann/Rudess would love to try one but im not going to fork out serious $$$ for a chapman stick
This thread has inspired me to finally go and do it, Thanks!!
I ordered a set of Megatar strings off ebay before Christmas with the aim of building an instrument around them I'll start a new thread for the build soon...
This thread has inspired me to finally go and do it, Thanks!!
I ordered a set of Megatar strings off ebay before Christmas with the aim of building an instrument around them
I'll start a new thread for the build soon...
fataltragedy, looking forward to your build. As far as strings, I use Kalium Strings (Link Removed) Just mentioning that as they are a very good option with many choices.
