I started over again with knobs. I decided to go with wenge and padauk. I think these will look a lot better than the walnut, they will tie into the pickup covers. I need to go buy some set screws, my stock is low.
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Carl Factor 6 Fretless
- Thread starter Jisch
- Start date
For those, I put a wood shim in the split. Probably a good idea anytime you use a set screw on a split shaft.
In the past I made sure the set screw was hitting the split, but it's probably worth putting a shim in as well, good idea.
I sanded, post slurry coat, it looks great. I'll do another three or four coats, sand, then move on to final coats.
We had invaders this weekend, so I didn't get a lot of time in the shop after Friday. I did get down there to put additional coats on. I always lose track, but I'm somewhere around 10-15 coats I think. It's at the point I want it to be. I've got a trip to NYC today, so no progress until tomorrow, but it's looking super nice.
That seems like a really nice level of finish. What kind of finish is that? Some kind of rub on oil?
I started mounting hardware this morning. I started with the headpiece, it fits perfectly.
I clamped a couple pieces of string in the outside positions on the block, measured for the bridge and marked the holes.
As I was marking it out I noticed a small drip on the side of the body, which led me on a "is this finish good enough" journey. In the end I decided, that it was close, but it was not good enough. I got out the 600 grit and sanded back and will put down a few more coats. I already feel much better about it.
I clamped a couple pieces of string in the outside positions on the block, measured for the bridge and marked the holes.
As I was marking it out I noticed a small drip on the side of the body, which led me on a "is this finish good enough" journey. In the end I decided, that it was close, but it was not good enough. I got out the 600 grit and sanded back and will put down a few more coats. I already feel much better about it.
Rôckhewer
Commercial User
- Feb 28, 2015
- 2,922
- 9,028
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- Owner/Builder- RockHewer Custom Guitars LLC
My day job has kicked my a$$ this week, limiting my time in the shop, I got the electronics set in the cavity, a little ship in the bottle stuff, but not too bad. I stretched the bottom of the body out a bit after making the wings, so I had to extend the cavity a bit outward to fit the pots in. No pics.
On the build off bass one of the screws pulled through the top of the pickup cover. I recessed the screw so there is hardly any wood underneath it. Learning from that, I glued some support into the covers for this bass. I'll get the pickups mounted after work.
On the build off bass one of the screws pulled through the top of the pickup cover. I recessed the screw so there is hardly any wood underneath it. Learning from that, I glued some support into the covers for this bass. I'll get the pickups mounted after work.
You should've seen my attempts to fish the preamp into that fretless bass I just finished.... I ended up maneuvering it in place with a chopstick through the soundhole and another one through the endpin jack hole!
I got everything mounted, then decided I needed to do one more coat. The finish on this one has been a case study in OCD. I just wanted one more.
As an example where I recessed the screws for the pickups you could see a tiny line of unfinished wenge. Little stuff like that was bugging me. I think it's all good now. Final assembly later this afternoon.
As an example where I recessed the screws for the pickups you could see a tiny line of unfinished wenge. Little stuff like that was bugging me. I think it's all good now. Final assembly later this afternoon.
That last coat was such a good idea, it looks really nice. I got everything mounted up before deciding I was getting tired, no need to mess things up now! Everything fit into the control cavity without any trouble, well almost no trouble.
Tomorrow I'll sand off the sharp corners on the fingerboard, it was rounded off nicely before I put the CA on, the CA dries square, if that makes sense. Then strings and making a nut.
I'm feeling pretty good about this thing and it will be tough to hand it off!
Tomorrow I'll sand off the sharp corners on the fingerboard, it was rounded off nicely before I put the CA on, the CA dries square, if that makes sense. Then strings and making a nut.
I'm feeling pretty good about this thing and it will be tough to hand it off!
Whoa, this thing sounds amazing. Still needs to be set up, but it's close right off the bench.
I put in a ground wire to the bridge this morning. It turns out with these Nova bridges there's a bit of work to make them conductive from base plate to string saddle. The coating is applied after the machining is done and it's not conductive. I had to file away a bit of the coating (incredibly tough stuff whatever it is) on the bottom of the tubes and in the trough where they mount. Still a very nice headless system, but this step really should be done at the factory (I've sent that as a suggestion to Nova). I'll have to go back to my build-off bass I'm quite sure the strings are not grounded. I play mostly through a very noisy pedal chain, so I wouldn't necessarily notice that as a problem.
I noticed something similar with the blacked out hardware I used on my build-off bass; I put copper tape from where the strings anchored to the ground connection
That's what I tried at first, but I didn't like how you could see the copper, it also didn't address the lack of continuity between string saddle and tube (on some strings). It really wasn't that hard, but I would expect bridge makers to realize you need continuity to properly ground strings.
