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What's On Your Workbench?
- Thread starter HaMMerHeD
- Start date
- Apr 18, 2008
- 16,007
- 1
- 31,705
- Disclosures
- I'm highly opinionated and extremely self-assured
That's the plan. Not bad for a 200€ beat up bass.An Ibanez on the outside, a Wal on the inside. Stealthy!
Typical of the stellar work you produce... the bass and the PUs look great. 
I have 2 ancient Roadstar II 5 string basses, and am debating doing this (the plate, not the PUs... yet, anyway
).
Can you say why you did these mods, what you were hoping to achieve, and, do you feel that you did?
Thanks.
I have 2 ancient Roadstar II 5 string basses, and am debating doing this (the plate, not the PUs... yet, anyway
).Can you say why you did these mods, what you were hoping to achieve, and, do you feel that you did?
Thanks.
Truss rod swap was because of s-curved neck, single action truss rod and my previous experiences with Bruce's excellent rod design (and hope for getting rid of the weak spot on 5th fret via change in the resonance of the neck). I wanted a solid, resonant, easily adjustable and straight neck. That was achieved.
Brucebars are becauseI wanted a tight neck to body joint. That was easy to do while the fretboard was off.
Bridge plate is because I wanted a solid mounting for the bridge on a softish basswood body.
All this solidity has effect on the acoustic sound in my ears. More clarity, no weak spot on the 5th fret, the whole bass resonates more, it's like more alive.
Pickups are because I find the stock pickups a bit too dark and muddy. And of course because I wanted to try and learn 3d- printing, I need to know how to teach it at work. Passinwind preamp is something I've wanted to make for a long time and now I have a suitable bass for it.
I wanted to try some new to me- techniques (jigs, routing off the fretboard, truss rod slot filling, 3d- printing) and all of those worked great. Would I do these mods for someone elses bass? No. Would it be worth the time? Maybe not. Was it worth for me? Absolutely, partswise I've spent under 100€ so far. Timewise quite a lot of hours but hey, it's not a hobby at all if it doesn't take all your free time!
Brucebars are becauseI wanted a tight neck to body joint. That was easy to do while the fretboard was off.
Bridge plate is because I wanted a solid mounting for the bridge on a softish basswood body.
All this solidity has effect on the acoustic sound in my ears. More clarity, no weak spot on the 5th fret, the whole bass resonates more, it's like more alive.
Pickups are because I find the stock pickups a bit too dark and muddy. And of course because I wanted to try and learn 3d- printing, I need to know how to teach it at work. Passinwind preamp is something I've wanted to make for a long time and now I have a suitable bass for it.
I wanted to try some new to me- techniques (jigs, routing off the fretboard, truss rod slot filling, 3d- printing) and all of those worked great. Would I do these mods for someone elses bass? No. Would it be worth the time? Maybe not. Was it worth for me? Absolutely, partswise I've spent under 100€ so far. Timewise quite a lot of hours but hey, it's not a hobby at all if it doesn't take all your free time!
- Jun 30, 2010
- 49,589
- 221,973
- Disclosures
- musician/artist/owner - Gildaxe
P90s are odd pickups, in that both the very cheapest and most expensive options hold water. On the Les Paul forums guys will sing the praises of the GFS/Artec pickup set in the same breath as Lollar pickups, which never usually happens!
Part of it might be down to the construction of P90s. As long as you get the coil geometry, number of turns and magnet type right then there is little else to worry about. They are primitive pickups, though the temptation seems to always be there to overwind them and make them 'hot' (which results in a totally different pickup).
View from my workbench today is... well my workbench is my dining table today so that I can use natural light. My Epi Wildkat had this weird tear-out down by the nut:
That is now gone!
Superglue and some rosewood dust from my 'dust library'.
Those pitted frets have been addressed, but firstly I had to clean up the fretboard.
I also had this ugly little dent on the back:
Which is now away:
The problem with sanding and leveling this lacquer is that it is tinted, so I now have the paler spot around the dent! Quite annoying, but nobody can see the back of the guitar and the chip is gone. I'm not down to the wood, or anywhere near.
The top polished out well, even if it looks and feels a bit plasticky.
My next problem is all the wire in this guitar:
That is way too much wire. The wiring runs are all excessively long, and the wiring doubles back on itself needlessly.
The stock wiring harness is: Pickups to volume pots. Volume pots to 3-way switch. 3-way switch to tone control down by output jack. Tone control to master volume on horn of guitar. Master volume to output jack.
The master volume - output jack wire was a foot too long just by itself. The pickups were also on long wires (not pictured).
That is way too much wire.
That is an ABSURD amount of wire! I don't think I've used that much wire in 20 years of working on instruments... in total!
There's got to be a noticeable change in signal level and sound difference with all of that gone. This could be one of those "Improve your guitar and don't spend any money" kind of things.
You should make something with all of the excess wire... like, crochet a blanket or something with it
That is an insane amount of wiring.
How can they possibly justify that?
Maybe it’s anti neck dive ballast
How can they possibly justify that?
Maybe it’s anti neck dive ballast
Maybe it's anti-feedback wire. Mostly for filling the chambers but also doubles as a some kind of electric circuit.
The guitar is a weird mix of Gibson and Gretsch elements, so I think they were trying to combine knowledge of two very different wiring schemes into this ugly setup. Longer cables with lots of slack means that less can go wrong. If a pot or switch works loose then it can spin around a bit without damaging any of the wires.
Epiphone fitted hot pickups to this guitar, maybe to compensate for the miles of wiring? The wire itself is cheap and, apparently, has a high capacitance. This makes the guitar sound like it is yelling under a blanket. The pickups were also egregiously microphonic and the guitar was very prone to interference.
I'm going to rewire the whole thing using braided coax, with shorter wiring runs where possible. I want to make it so that you don't see any wire in the F-hole, for a cleaner look. I might also replace the pickup wire with coax. I have done it before on others!
The frets and fretboard are now done:
Before, the fretboard was quite dry, but with a good dose of dirt and finger oil tracked into the popular positions!
I also put some shine back into the Bigsby:
The wiring is interesting. Must have been “by plan”? For cost reasons alone nobody would do that by accident. Curious.
P90s are odd pickups, in that both the very cheapest and most expensive options hold water. On the Les Paul forums guys will sing the praises of the GFS/Artec pickup set in the same breath as Lollar pickups, which never usually happens!
Part of it might be down to the construction of P90s. As long as you get the coil geometry, number of turns and magnet type right then there is little else to worry about. They are primitive pickups, though the temptation seems to always be there to overwind them and make them 'hot' (which results in a totally different pickup).
View from my workbench today is... well my workbench is my dining table today so that I can use natural light. My Epi Wildkat had this weird tear-out down by the nut:
That is now gone!
Superglue and some rosewood dust from my 'dust library'.
Those pitted frets have been addressed, but firstly I had to clean up the fretboard.
I also had this ugly little dent on the back:
Which is now away:
The problem with sanding and leveling this lacquer is that it is tinted, so I now have the paler spot around the dent! Quite annoying, but nobody can see the back of the guitar and the chip is gone. I'm not down to the wood, or anywhere near.
The top polished out well, even if it looks and feels a bit plasticky.
My next problem is all the wire in this guitar:
That is way too much wire. The wiring runs are all excessively long, and the wiring doubles back on itself needlessly.
The stock wiring harness is: Pickups to volume pots. Volume pots to 3-way switch. 3-way switch to tone control down by output jack. Tone control to master volume on horn of guitar. Master volume to output jack.
The master volume - output jack wire was a foot too long just by itself. The pickups were also on long wires (not pictured).
The guy who initially wired it is a gastroenterologist, in his spare time.
No excuse, either way!
This is with the pickups switched by in. The pots and switch give a sense of scale.
This is with the pickups switched by in. The pots and switch give a sense of scale.
