I have a body I built and finished with the guitar version of that neck. I like it.
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What's On Your Workbench?
- Thread starter HaMMerHeD
- Start date
I have a body I built and finished with the guitar version of that neck. I like it.
My bench is totally empty right now, nothing at all on it. I cleaned up my shop after adding that leg vise to the bench and then I just kind of went on hold for a bit. I've got a work conference in Orlando hat I have to fly to this coming weekend, then spend all next week at before flying home the following weekend. I need to order some inlay router bits from somewhere, but funding is a bit low right now. The StewMac cart reads $75 after shipping...for 2 bits. I'm reluctant to pull the trigger just because I know I'm leaving for a week and due to the funding situation. For now, the bench sits idle. I haven't even had the desire to get on the lathe either. 
Finally gave this little sucker the setup it deserves two nights ago. I bought it probably over ten years ago and it played alright so I left it alone but I recently noticed that the nut was cut way too high and the relief wasn’t great, either. I don’t play it that often so it just kinda kept getting pushed to the bottom of the list.
Now it’s playing great and will probably get a lot more attention.
To be totally honest, I mostly just used it as an excuse to clean the clutter off of my workbench but it came with the bonus of getting a good bass a lot more playable. I feel a little bit guilty letting it languish for so long.
Now it’s playing great and will probably get a lot more attention.
To be totally honest, I mostly just used it as an excuse to clean the clutter off of my workbench but it came with the bonus of getting a good bass a lot more playable. I feel a little bit guilty letting it languish for so long.
Follow-up OR "polishing the turd"...
Wore a respirator on this one as some debris component may have been brake dust. Re-cap: this thing has hung on the wall for as long as I can remember so I'm guessing 20+ years. I'm figuring some lunkhead will eventually say "hey...we need a P bass on this" so I'm covered.
*Machine head buttons wouldn't tension. No spare washers so I just lopped-off a couple mm's from each screw.
*Polished the frets. Could require a leveling but beyond my scope.
*Knocked down the back-of-neck with 2k sandpaper and the oil component in Howard's Wax 'n Feed (Weed 'n Feed?). Didn't have any mineral oil in the house.
*Nut slots were severely under-cut / high. I followed my own advice and stacked feeler gauges on the leading edge...results bordered on perfection and it doesn't mar or injure the gauges. As you've already guessed, it's a molded plastic nut.
*Drilled-out threaded screw holes in the heel. If you don't have a drill press, you can prep each hole with a tapered / conical sanding wheel (Dremel) prior to introducing the drill bit. It prevents tear-out.
*Sidenote: plywood / multi-lam body or this particular tree had some super-symmetrical ring growth.
*Rubbed-out the finish with 3M Finesse-It...highly recommended!
*String-thru-body only with those gawd awful saddle blocks which were badly tarnished & pitted. Hit 'em with a Dremel rag wheel and the 3M. Not perfect but certainly better.
*Strings: no junk sets on-hand so I asked Susan for a cast-off set from her studio...she uses them to make wreathes. Lo & behold, she produces (3) sets of unopened Dunlop SS SuperBrights which I had surrendered 8-10 years ago. For those who don't recall, Dunlop had a QC issue and were distributing sets which were utter crap. Well, it's not my bass so I don't care. As expected, intonation was a total nightmare, especially the G. I had to actually lift the saddle block out of the base plate guide grooves and move it a mm or so forward. The results are passable.
*Added strap locks and a final rub-out with Zymol...results below:
Great refresh! As a P bass, it'll fit the bill when called upon. Well done! 
I came across this 70s El Degas bass. Needed a fret level and recrowning, a new bridge (old one rusted) and a new pickguard (tort of course to replace broken black original) but otherwise in nice shape. I have been marveling at the nice solid ash body on this. It's three piece but well matched.
Although this old vise is very heavy, it can still move around during work. To stop this, I bolted it to a board. The board can be clamped to one end of my workbench.
Then I made these inserts from plywood offcuts, because those metal jaws will sometimes damage a clamped surface. The inserts are not fastened, they just sit snugly on the jaws.
Then I made these inserts from plywood offcuts, because those metal jaws will sometimes damage a clamped surface. The inserts are not fastened, they just sit snugly on the jaws.
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Yessir. Vices always work better bolted down. Wood jaws are a good thing. I’ve drilled and countersunk and used the screws that were in the metal jaws to attach wood jaws.
Not good weather for lacquer today, maybe tomorrow.
I got some metal polishing and fret leveling done on the old Bullet.
I got some metal polishing and fret leveling done on the old Bullet.
Yes, put soft faces on your vices, but mount them to a solid foundation. There may be something profound in that. Or not.
For my 55th birthday, I asked a clock for the workshop. My children came up with this:
my sister built this dulcimer in the late 1980s with no prior instrument building experience. As an experienced wood carver, the forming of the wood went fine for her but the fretwork and setup were new to her and have always been sub-par. She asked me to give it a good going over and see what I could improve for her.
As mountain dulcimers go, it’s a monstrous thing; it sports a very long 26” scale and it’s very loud.
As mountain dulcimers go, it’s a monstrous thing; it sports a very long 26” scale and it’s very loud.
I got the dulcimer sorted. I hammered in several frets that were creeping up and then cut the string slots deeper to lower the action considerably, trimming off the excess nut and saddle material when I finished. The action was absurdly high. Now it’s very comfortable to play (sorry, no after pics).
One thing I discovered is that she wasn’t very careful when she measured and cut the fret slots. Some of them aren’t square. Some of them aren’t in the right place to begin with. Somehow, though, the intonation doesn’t sound that bad. I told her to play it like this for now and if the intonation bugs her we can discuss filling the old fret slots and cutting properly positioned ones…. or possibly just planing the fret board down a bit and capping it with a new piece of wood that I can cut fresh slots in.
One thing I discovered is that she wasn’t very careful when she measured and cut the fret slots. Some of them aren’t square. Some of them aren’t in the right place to begin with. Somehow, though, the intonation doesn’t sound that bad. I told her to play it like this for now and if the intonation bugs her we can discuss filling the old fret slots and cutting properly positioned ones…. or possibly just planing the fret board down a bit and capping it with a new piece of wood that I can cut fresh slots in.
Moving right along, this little Carvin amp is on my living room floor here but it was on my workbench earlier.
It belongs to a guitarist friend of mine and the volume pot was jumping from zero to full as soon as he started to turn it.
I thought I could just give it a good cleaning but the pots are sealed and the volume pot was pretty shot.
I didn’t have a spare pot of the right value and size but the amp did! That amp has a gate - not a very useful feature on a bass amp if you ask me - and it uses the same pot as the volume so I unsoldered the two pots, swapped them and, voila! One working bass amp.
I’ll put it back in it’s little combo cabinet next time I’m at his house. And the best thing is that by fixing his bass amp I now no longer need to bring one of my bass amps when I go to his house to rehearse! It’s not the best sounding amp I’ve ever heard but it sure sounds great when I don’t have to carry it!
It belongs to a guitarist friend of mine and the volume pot was jumping from zero to full as soon as he started to turn it.
I thought I could just give it a good cleaning but the pots are sealed and the volume pot was pretty shot.
I didn’t have a spare pot of the right value and size but the amp did! That amp has a gate - not a very useful feature on a bass amp if you ask me - and it uses the same pot as the volume so I unsoldered the two pots, swapped them and, voila! One working bass amp.
I’ll put it back in it’s little combo cabinet next time I’m at his house. And the best thing is that by fixing his bass amp I now no longer need to bring one of my bass amps when I go to his house to rehearse! It’s not the best sounding amp I’ve ever heard but it sure sounds great when I don’t have to carry it!
Turn the knob, it opens the gate and the noise comes out. Seriously, a noise gate. You set a level with the knob; all signals below that level are shut off. When you stop playing, the amp is silent. A very useful function when you are playing in noisy environments. Carvin put built-in noise gates in all of their amps back then, and I believe they still do.
I love those little Carvin PB-150 amps. I have two of them, from the late '80's. One is in a single 10" combo cabinet and the other is a separate head. The combo one is my most used amp. I bought it new at the Carvin store around '87, and I've played well over 1000 gigs with it over the years. And up until recently, it was my main test amp here in the Lab. Absolutely reliable, still works just fine. I think I had to clean the volume pot one time.
These little Carvin amps are completely clean; they don't distort or mess with the sound at all. Some players don't like them for that reason. They "don't have a good sound". I like that in an amp, personally. I want to hear the sound of my bass, just louder.
I also have one of the larger Carvin PB-300's. Same thing, but with 300 watts. Clean and reliable.
I used to use a noise gate in a noisy environment. I wish I still had it.
I need something on my work bench/place
I need something on my work bench/place
I need noise gate ear plugs that block out anything that's stupid, or that I don't care about.
