New body for Steinberger parts. First sanding sealer coat sprayed. I’m hoping to spray color coats on Tuesday, then clearcoat on Wednesday.
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What's On Your Workbench?
- Thread starter HaMMerHeD
- Start date
More fine work! That body looks strangely.... familiar. 
I forgot to ask, why two electronics cavities? Does the preamp and battery really require all that extra space? Very clean job in the cavity routes, BTW. Does your neck have the heel taper top to bottom? I had a lot of trouble getting that taper right in the neck pocket on my first build. That was an XP neck, not sure it’s the same as Q necks. I had to do some repair work on the neck bolt inserts too.
I forgot to ask, why two electronics cavities? Does the preamp and battery really require all that extra space? Very clean job in the cavity routes, BTW. Does your neck have the heel taper top to bottom? I had a lot of trouble getting that taper right in the neck pocket on my first build. That was an XP neck, not sure it’s the same as Q necks. I had to do some repair work on the neck bolt inserts too.
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Thanks for the help Alex! There’s two cavities because the original has two. I can fir everything in one cavity. I guess weight relief of a heavy maple body was the main reason. This one is made of alder so it should be a lot lighter than the original. That’s my plan anyway.
The neck heel is tapered. I routed the neck pocket to match the bottom of the heel and used a sharp chisel and small sanding blocks to fit the neck. As for routing this time I used a weeks evenings to make the templates and that shows.
Now for the colour; I’m leaning towards solid yellow, like RAL 1021 on the Vespa.
Just shipped this one out to Denver this weekend. This one was hard to let go of. The Zen Blades from Nordstrand sound 10 feet tall.
- Jun 30, 2010
- 49,600
- 222,017
- Disclosures
- musician/artist/owner - Gildaxe
Well no and yes. I’ve used bridge blocks on Warwick and Alembic- style bridges earlier but they were not epoxied solid to the body like Bruce suggests.
Color coat sprayed. I’ll let it dry until Wednesday. There’s a few dust particles I have to sand before clear coats. I also have a Steinberger water transfer that I’m laying under the clear.
I don't remember if you mentioned the plan for the neck, but that yellow would look amazing with black hardware and a black CF neck.
I have Steinberger neck and hardware and black EMG HB’s with black rings.
I cleaned my "workbench". Ready for the next project/adjustments.
My walnut/babinga fretless is done!
My walnut/babinga fretless is done!
Roland FC100. It works with various Roland equipment. In this case a Roland GP-8. An effects processor for my bridge PU.
The footswitch selects one of 128 patches. Also has an EV-5 footpedal(like a wah) that is assignable.
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This was a fun little diversion. One of my children came back home on a trade-in and while its here I'm going to take the opportunity to make some upgrades.
When I built this bass the owner was feeling inspired by the Thumb bass so we put the two pickups (Nordstrand dual coils) close together in the bridge position, opted for a solid zebrawood body and went with a glockenklang preamp for clarity. Well, it turns out there is such a thing as too much clarity.
This bass plays so well but the sound was always thin and a hum issue developed that was probably from my inexperience with wiring at the time.
First thing I pulled all the wiring out completely, keeping only the pickups and the mini switches. I routed the pickup cavern out 1 1/4" closer to the neck and made a 5/8" thick ramp to fill the gap. I replaced all the pots and wired in a Nordstrand 3 band preamp and it's like a totally different bass.
Not knocking the Glock preamp by the way, they make great stuff and the sound is perfectly uncolored but with the dense zebrawood body and pickup placement it just wasn't a good match. The Nordstrand swings a big stick tonally and that suits me better.
When I built this bass the owner was feeling inspired by the Thumb bass so we put the two pickups (Nordstrand dual coils) close together in the bridge position, opted for a solid zebrawood body and went with a glockenklang preamp for clarity. Well, it turns out there is such a thing as too much clarity.
This bass plays so well but the sound was always thin and a hum issue developed that was probably from my inexperience with wiring at the time.First thing I pulled all the wiring out completely, keeping only the pickups and the mini switches. I routed the pickup cavern out 1 1/4" closer to the neck and made a 5/8" thick ramp to fill the gap. I replaced all the pots and wired in a Nordstrand 3 band preamp and it's like a totally different bass.
Not knocking the Glock preamp by the way, they make great stuff and the sound is perfectly uncolored but with the dense zebrawood body and pickup placement it just wasn't a good match. The Nordstrand swings a big stick tonally and that suits me better.
Nice!This was a fun little diversion. One of my children came back home on a trade-in and while its here I'm going to take the opportunity to make some upgrades.
View attachment 4249127
When I built this bass the owner was feeling inspired by the Thumb bass so we put the two pickups (Nordstrand dual coils) close together in the bridge position, opted for a solid zebrawood body and went with a glockenklang preamp for clarity. Well, it turns out there is such a thing as too much clarity.
First thing I pulled all the wiring out completely, keeping only the pickups and the mini switches. I routed the pickup cavern out 1 1/4" closer to the neck and made a 5/8" thick ramp to fill the gap. I replaced all the pots and wired in a Nordstrand 3 band preamp and it's like a totally different bass.
View attachment 4249130
Not knocking the Glock preamp by the way, they make great stuff and the sound is perfectly uncolored but with the dense zebrawood body and pickup placement it just wasn't a good match. The Nordstrand swings a big stick tonally and that suits me better.
Absolutely. I've always thought they are a very striking pickup visually.
That's a beauty. Love the ziricote, and the grain matching on the covers is impressive.
Thanks man. When the material allows I make my bodies a bit thicker than the finished size and then I saw a slice off the back with the bandsaw and use that to make the plates.
