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Current Project: Headless 4

#83
Here's some more pics of the "Prince bass" as the wife calls it. This thing plays very nice. Im very pleased with the bridge/tuners. The neck still lacks a finish I can't decide if I want to use satin or gloss finish on it (It feels nice just the way it is, too bad I cant leave it:hmm: ). The fiber optic setup still needs done, I might do that tonight. The pictured pups and covers are coming out. I will build some new covers to better match the maple top. Also I Im going to wind my own pups because one of these is dead and the other just doesnt do it for me. Its something Ive been wanting to do forever but have been putting it off. I can't complain about the Bassline pups they are used. They sounded good in an older bass of mine but sat in a box for along time before I decided to use them again. Apparantly when you leave pups in a box you should seperate them from one another....:rollno: Oh well you live and learn. Im considering winding a set of thinner humbuckers. Wonder if this is possible, about the size of a soapbar would be great...Any thoughts are greatly appreciated. :D


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#86
Tonight, using my drillpress as a lathe I made some poplar knobs. I started with a square piece 2cm x 2cm x 2cm. I drilled a small pilot hole in the center,screwed in a #8x 3/4" screw about half way in hole, cut the head off said screw then chucked remaining screw in drillpress. After putting on SAFETY GLASSEs, I turned on the drill and shaped knobs with coarse rasp until round, then I smoothed and shaped the sides and tops with a fine file, then finish sanded with 220 grit. Then the pilot holes were drilled bigger to fit the pot post. (These pots have the knurled posts so a firm push seats the knob on the post, solid none the less) Then they were coated in satin poly, not bad wish I would have thought of it sooner......:)

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#89
very sick. Now I know what to do when I find a $20 top for sale :p

As for the pickup covers, why not to ebony, and then put a gloss finish on them? It would match the purple and black scheme you have going on in the top.

heh, I just noticed something, on my bass, the lower horn is quite short like your's, and it is also far back. I noticed that your frets end before the curve up to the body in the lower horn (if that makes any sense...) I'm only pointing this out because I was concerned about my bass with that, but I'm a little reassured now (I'm going to turn the end of the fretboard into a truss cover...so it looks like it was intentional :p )

Again, this bass looks great, and I'm glad you took away the scroll from the bottom horn, 1 scroll is enough for a bass

Greg
 
#92
Suburban said:
This would not only result in a very tiny knob, I doubt there would be vary much left at all after machining...



:p ;)
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Well they are that small, in fact the total size of the bass is well under a foot long.................:eyebrow: :rolleyes: Thanks for catching that, I measure with my dial calipers and they are exactly 20mm or 2cm.......damn metric system does it every time.... :rollno:
 
#96
erikbojerik said:
Man...what ocean are you lookin' at? Must be the one by the nuclear plant...

Very nice finish work on that Scotty. Are you shooting your poly from a spray gun, or rattle cans?

Still loving that poplar on the back. And the knobs.
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Thanks Erik, Its Minwax poly from a rattle can and for what its worth Id rather use House Of Kolor poly and my spray gun. With this minwax It took alot of coats and leveling before I got what I got now. That wouldnt be a big deal if the Minwax didnt take about a week to cure out well enough to wetsand and recoat. Then you have to be really carefull not to break through the top coats to avoid "ghost lines". House of Kolor costs alot but those problems are avoided because it cures in 24hrs, and is as clear as glass when it does.
 
#97
Im getting all my supplies together to build my own pickups. I decided to build a set of single coils. Ive purchased some neodymium magnets which should be make for an interesting sound. There arent very many builders out there breaking the mold of using Alnico, and Ceramic to me doesnt really suite the sound Im after. Its gonna be alot of trial and error to see what kind of windings are required to get the desired tone with such a strong magnet. Im still researching to see if I want to use the standard 42awg wire or larger. Ive also ordered a ton of supplies to start buiding my own onboard preamps. They will be based off a J201 jfet. The preamps will have bass/treble boost via pots and a mid cut via switch. Ive already started on making new covers from quilted maple and poplar for this particular bass. These covers unlike the cocobolo ones will not have exposed pole pieces. Once I have the covers done I will make bobbins for the pups out of maple. Also Ill post pictures of what Ive gotten done soon.
 
#98
I built the bridge pup cover today. It has a mean radius on the top of it. The quilt on it looks darker than on the body best I can figure is it will change a little when the poly fully cures/ambers. So besides that what do you guys think? does it go with the bass better than the cocobolo ones? Once the poly is good and dry it will get wetsanded, then a few more coats then buffed out. In the mean time Im gonna start on the bobbins for this one. FUN! :)

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#99
I like it. To me, it fits alot better than the cocobolo covers. However, I think you should've done an ebony board or something cause the red to me doesn't really fit. However, if you wanted to stain the board black and then sand back, that would be sweet, or just stain it black and keep it like that.

Just my opinions, but this is still a sweet lookin bass.

Greg
 

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