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What's On Your Workbench?

#6,881
Not a bass, but I'm trying to wrap up this guitar build for for an elementray teacher of mine (from 40 some years ago).
It's a mahogany neck-thru with maple stringers and a simple pair of P-90 pups. Today I dressed the frets, gave the tung oil finish a good buff and a coat of wax and seasoned the fretboard. I love the look of rosewood when the lemon oil soaks in for the first time.
20250721_160609.jpg

The best part is this is my first build in the new workshop since we moved last year. So much room!
 
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#6,883
In my home state of Alaska we have an interesting critter that goes by the name of "Big Skate" and who is often encountered while fishing for halibut. Aside from the lack of poisonous barbs on it's tail, it bears an uncanny resemblance to its southern cousin the stingray. I reckon "The Skate" is a good name that gives a wink and a nod toward its inspiration. At any rate, the Skate has grown a neck.

The walnut and ash beastie in the foreground, some of you may recognize from SBO '22. It was originally envisioned as a Bass VI but has changed directions and will be a 34" 4 string for my Dad who has been fighting cancer for the last 8 years but who still faithfully plays almost every weekend at his church.

Best regards,
John

PXL_20250729_034754841.PORTRAIT.jpg
 
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#6,884
AK4570 said:
In my home state of Alaska we have an interesting critter that goes by the name of "Big Skate" and who is often encountered while fishing for halibut. Aside from the lack of poisonous barbs on it's tail, it bears an uncanny resemblance to its southern cousin the stingray. I reckon "The Skate" is a good name that gives a wink and a nod toward its inspiration. At any rate, the Skate has grown a neck.

The walnut and ash beastie in the foreground, some of you may recognize from SBO '22. It was originally envisioned as a Bass VI but has changed directions and will be a 34" 4 string for my Dad who has been fighting cancer for the last 8 years but who still faithfully plays almost every weekend at his church.

Best regards,
John

View attachment 7286547
Click to expand...
Goodness ! Looks like we gonna have a hell of a matched blue headstock here ! :woot::drool:
 
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#6,889
I have these lightweight poles with threaded ends, from a crummy kids storage shelf.

I don’t know why, but it feels like there’s some useful application I am waiting for an epiphany about, but maybe I’m just a hoarder

Anything come to mind before I throw these out?

Almost feels like I could get a crappy doghole peg out of them, but that doesn’t quite have the dazzling promise I’m looking for lol

~3/4” thick, 18” long (friction fit mates with a second pole to double span, one threaded hole per individual pole)
 

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#6,890
eddododo said:
I have these lightweight poles with threaded ends, from a crummy kids storage shelf.

I don’t know why, but it feels like there’s some useful application I am waiting for an epiphany about, but maybe I’m just a hoarder

Anything come to mind before I throw these out?

Almost feels like I could get a crappy doghole peg out of them, but that doesn’t quite have the dazzling promise I’m looking for lol

~3/4” thick, 18” long (friction fit mates with a second pole to double span, one threaded hole per individual pole)
Click to expand...
I'd make a small table out of them, to hold either my IEM transmitter or small pedalboard.
 
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#6,892
If you had asked me this morning if I owned sanding drums for my drill press I would have said yes. I would have sworn emphatically that I had a cheap set of sanding drums - and maybe I do and just don’t know where I put them - but not knowing where one’s sanding drums are is functionally the same as not owning any. And, this afternoon, I had a task for the sanding drums it turns out I didn’t own. Bother…

To the metal scrap for a chunk of threaded rod:
IMG_8666.jpeg

To the wood scrap to take a hole saw to a chunk of poplar:
IMG_8665.jpeg

Use the same hole saw on a piece of scrap ply and off to the races:
IMG_8664.jpeg

It’s not great to side load the spindle of a drill press - especially one that’s about 70 years old - so I need to take it nice and easy with this drum (or any drum) but it got the job done that I needed done and took less than a half-hour to make.

One of these days I’ll treat myself to an oscillating spindle/belt sander. In the meantime, where the heck did I put those sanding drums?!?

EDIT: After some consideration, I may never have owned the cheap set of sanding drums. It was my father’s (who only ever bought cheap tools). When my sister and I divvied up his tools it’s very possible I let her take them for her drill press, thinking that I would hold out for a better set with a bottom bearing. It seems very likely.
 
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#6,895
Lo-E said:
If you had asked me this morning if I owned sanding drums for my drill press I would have said yes. I would have sworn emphatically that I had a cheap set of sanding drums - and maybe I do and just don’t know where I put them - but not knowing where one’s sanding drums are is functionally the same as not owning any. And, this afternoon, I had a task for the sanding drums it turns out I didn’t own. Bother…
Click to expand...
Been there and done that. Often if I buy another one and then store it away, the first one is already there. :banghead:
Lo-E said:
To the wood scrap to take a hole saw to a chunk of poplar:
Click to expand...
What sort of sandpaper, and how did you secure it to the drum?
 
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#6,899
The output jack on my Epi Thunderbird 60's had become a little loose, so I opened up the backplate to tighten the jack (and put a little threadlocker on it for good measure). That was easy enough and no trouble.

But what odd thing did I discover while I was doing this? The screws for the backplate aren't all the same length! Now why on earth would that be? Oh wait...it's because one of the screws shares space with the channel for the bridge pickup wire, so that screw has to be longer, in order to reach the bottom of the channel. Seems like it would have simplified inventory and construction a bit if they had simply not made the screw and wire share space, like they did for the neck pickup, but maybe the genius engineers at Epiphone know something I don't...
:P


PXL_20250820_165438694.jpgPXL_20250820_165519215.jpg
 
#6,900
Currently, the only thing on the bench is a Squier Affinity 20th Anniversary Precision Bass that belongs to my keyboard player. It belongs to his son, technically, but his son doesn't use it or want it anymore, so he brought it to me to be worked over. He told me it has been sitting in the back of a closet somewhere for the last 15 years or so. The nut was trashed, the frets were nasty, the fretboard covered in grime, the pickguard was busted up pretty bad and the worst part was the severe forward bow in the neck. We're talking strings being a good 3/8" off the fretboard at the 12th. :thumbsdown:

Ordered a new pickguard (hard to find a single-ply white pickguard for a Precision...at least a lot harder than I expected it to be), ordered a new bone nut. Got the fretboard cleaned up and frets polished. Shaped the new nut to fit (had a VERY small overhang on either side). Cleaned up the body, especially the bridge, which was VERY dirty. Then got to work on the bow in the neck. Fortunately, the truss rod was completely loosened, but it took a LOT of tweaking over a couple of days to get the neck anywhere near playable. Going to need to shim it, still, though. Then I can look into doing a proper setup with some new strings.

Sounds pretty good, though. So at least the electronics didn't need any work.
 
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