What's On Your Workbench?

[saved]

That’s a cool idea - never seen carbon used like that before. Don’t breathe it in when you shape the necks!

I allways trying to work outdoor

 

[Axstar]

My Wildkat is finished!

Complete with brass nut, cut shaped and polished.

Now my buddy wants his Casino Coupe cleaned up and a Bigsby installed. Like my Wildkat has, this has a snotty blocked-nose tone plugged in and unplugged. It also has a poorly cut but and pitted frets, so time to see what I can do!

 

[Dadagoboi]

Iced Ash with a '57 Esquire neck. Toner on Thursday, clear on Friday, play on Saturday. Just like Leo intended.

 

[Axstar]

Now with Bigsby!

 

[Axstar]

Starfire surgery.

I partially pulled the wiring harness on my Starfire, to do a little modification. Basically I like the tone of my Starfire with both pickups turned up, but they don't blend very well with one or the other rolled off. Both volume controls have a nice long sweep on them but, for whatever reason, the magic only happens when both are on 10.

I wired a 4.7 nF capacitor over the volume pot for the bridge control. I wired it as you see treble bleed schematics online. I went with a bigger cap value (same as the bass cut cap in old Rickenbacker basses) and didn't bother with a fixed resistor in parallel with the cap. This means that as I turn down the volume the signal is preferentially passed through the cap, albeit with the bass frequencies blocked. This means I can keep the neck on 10, roll back the bridge pickup to 8 and get an interesting new tone (a bit like a Rickenbacker 4005 maybe).

I did the same thing to my Rickenbacker. I replaced the vintage/modern push-pull switch with a normal tone pot, and wired the 'vintage' capacitor over the bridge volume pot. Roll back the bridge volume to 8 and you get the vintage tone. Roll it up to 10 and you get modern tone. A more graceful way of executing a fairly basic bit of circuitry.

While the bass was in a state of undress I gave it a polish as well with a wool pad on my car polisher.

Like my avatar, but cleaner.

This bass is getting a brass nut next, partly for that Grateful Dead vibe and partly because the stock nut is pretty soft plastic.

 

[ctmullins]

So much candy here lately - Teles, Bigsbys, and BiSonics! *swoon*

 

[Axstar]

So much candy here lately - Teles, Bigsbys, and BiSonics! *swoon*

Teles, Bigsbys, Bisonics Oh My!

 

[Means2nEnd]

This is the same bass that is in my avatar. It came back from CA for new pickups, rewired preamp, and to take her from satin to gloss. I am lefty and I am trying not to call the artist telling him it's no longer available...

 

[Axstar]

A brass nut for my Starfire. These have fallen way out of fashion, but I find brass an amazing medium to work with. I buy clunky cheap plated brass nuts off EBay and shape them and polish them back to raw brass. A pre-cut nut is never a drop-in replacement by any stretch.

I find bone smells like burning hair, triggers my asthma and one stroke too far ruins the nut slots. Synthetic graphitey nuts are also not that fun to work with.

 

[wraub]

I, also, prefer working with brass over bone.
It's both more forgiving, and more compelling imo.

If that even makes sense.

Nice looking work.

A brass nut for my Starfire. These have fallen way out of fashion, but I find brass an amazing medium to work with. I buy clunky cheap plated brass nuts off EBay and shape them and polish them back to raw brass. A pre-cut nut is never a drop-in replacement by any stretch.

I find bone smells like burning hair, triggers my asthma and one stroke too far ruins the nut slots. Synthetic graphitey nuts are also not that fun to work with.

 

[JIO]

A brass nut for my Starfire. These have fallen way out of fashion, but I find brass an amazing medium to work with. I buy clunky cheap plated brass nuts off EBay and shape them and polish them back to raw brass. A pre-cut nut is never a drop-in replacement by any stretch.

I find bone smells like burning hair, triggers my asthma and one stroke too far ruins the nut slots. Synthetic graphitey nuts are also not that fun to work with.

I like brass also but have found that it can work with a basses tone or work against it - it really depends on the bass. I've made a number of hybrid brass/ebony, brass/rockwood, and brass/bone nuts that can be a way to shape a basses sound.

this is a rockwood/brass hybrid

 

[Axstar]

I like brass also but have found that it can work with a basses tone or work against it - it really depends on the bass. I've made a number of hybrid brass/ebony, brass/rockwood, and brass/bone nuts that can be a way to shape a basses sound.

this is a rockwood/brass hybrid
View attachment 3483872

You're playing 3D Chess there! Amazing idea and tidy looking work. I'm a tinkerer over here.

I'm tempted to brass up a few more basses to see what works. I had a brass nut on a Jazz a few years ago but don't really remember it. The trauma of cleaning up bad factory nut slots is enough.

My Starfire has better sustain on the open strings. The stock nut was soft plastic with deep slots, so was choking the strings a bit.

The D'Addario tapewound G started unraveling right after I took these photos. Grrr.

 

[JIO]

So much candy here lately - Teles, Bigsbys, and BiSonics! *swoon*

Bi-Sonics are the bomb!

 

[JIO]

You're playing 3D Chess there! Amazing idea and tidy looking work. I'm a tinkerer over here.

I'm tempted to brass up a few more basses to see what works. I had a brass nut on a Jazz a few years ago but don't really remember it. The trauma of cleaning up bad factory nut slots is enough.

My Starfire has better sustain on the open strings. The stock nut was soft plastic with deep slots, so was choking the strings a bit.

The D'Addario tapewound G started unraveling right after I took these photos. Grrr.

Metal nuts will promote ringing notes. Aluminum is a good material for nuts also. My '68 Coral Deluxe Bass has one and it has a tone like no other. Somebody cut the slots wide along the way, it doesn't effect the tone or articulation but I'll eventually cut a new one for it.

 

[Scoops]

Metal nuts will promote ringing notes. Aluminum is a good material for nuts also. My '68 Coral Deluxe Bass has one and it has a tone like no other. Somebody cut the slots wide along the way, it doesn't effect the tone or articulation but I'll eventually cut a new one for it.

View attachment 3484135

99.5 % of all the notes I play are NOT open strings
So If the tone I'm getting is from where the note is fingered on the finger board, how does the nut affect this tone?

 

[JIO]

99.5 % of all the notes I play are NOT open strings
So If the tone I'm getting is from where the note is fingered on the finger board, how does the nut affect this tone?

I guess the same can be said for a zero nut. How one plays/articulates varies - personally I incorporate open stings as much as possible and so want them to sound consistent with fretted notes. The transition from the nut (stop) to the tuner posts is a dynamic point which will be altered by the material used. Same with the bridge. Why are brass saddles common? Because it is part of the mix of why a bass sounds like it does. There is a expressed difference between a wood bridge and a brass bridge, and so a difference between a bone, brass, aluminum, or synthetic nut in the same way.

 

[the baint]

I guess the same can be said for a zero nut. How one plays/articulates varies - personally I incorporate open stings as much as possible and so want them to sound consistent with fretted notes. The transition from the nut (stop) to the tuner posts is a dynamic point which will be altered by the material used. Same with the bridge. Why are brass saddles common? Because it is part of the mix of why a bass sounds like it does. There is a expressed difference between a wood bridge and a brass bridge, and so a difference between a bone, brass, aluminum, or synthetic nut in the same way.

But on the bridge/ saddle side, their material is ALWAYS an active part of the equation, whereas the nut and beyond are only really involved on open notes, right? This lack of tonal impact seems even more pronounced on bass due to open chording being used less often than guitar.

 

[Scoops]

I guess the same can be said for a zero nut. How one plays/articulates varies - personally I incorporate open stings as much as possible and so want them to sound consistent with fretted notes. The transition from the nut (stop) to the tuner posts is a dynamic point which will be altered by the material used. Same with the bridge. Why are brass saddles common? Because it is part of the mix of why a bass sounds like it does. There is a expressed difference between a wood bridge and a brass bridge, and so a difference between a bone, brass, aluminum, or synthetic nut in the same way.

I'll buy the bridge part, and am in agreement with what you say.

Say I play a lot of jazz or other sorts of music where I can't drone on E A D or G, what good is a brass nut?

I play alot of music in Ab, F, Bb, Eb. The balance of tone between the open strings and fretted notes just doesn't come into play.

Just my $0.02

 

[JIO]

I'll buy the bridge part, and am in agreement with what you say.

Say I play a lot of jazz or other sorts of music where I can't drone on E A D or G, what good is a brass nut?

I play alot of music in Ab, F, Bb, Eb. The balance of tone between the open strings and fretted notes just doesn't come into play.

Just my $0.02

I'm not in disagreement - but why aren't nuts made of just anything, like pick-guard material? (as some 60's Japanese basses were) Why not rubber? It could be done. There are functional reasons a nut is made of a certain material - for durability and manipulation (cutting/shaping) you will agree. That's it? Any material regardless of what it is fills the same singular function? So why bone?, why brass?, why silicone? A guitarist especially has special needs with strings having the ability to slide over the nut (no so much bass) so I get that. I guess a nut could be made of ivory, or cast in porcelain. I cut a nut from a Woolly Mammoth tusk blank years ago. Can't say it dramatically influenced the basses sound - but it was pretty cool.

Whatever material one chooses will result in a good result or a not so good result. I can only speak from my own dealings with making many nuts for many basses and have experienced the differences. Might as well debate tone-woods as some people don't believe in that either. Or the type of woods used in a neck and how it helps shape the instruments tone/sound. I've seen a vid of an electric guitar made of a concrete block, and it sounds like an electric guitar. Frankly I don't really care at that point as I will never play a concrete bass.

 

[moonshinegtrs]

Various pics of builds in progress...

32" scale, it's getting a set of SD SPB-3 P pickups and will be stealth-ed out in matte black with black hardware...

Spalted maple top/alder back 5 string P bass (neck under construction)...

This is a guitar, flame maple top with routed out (semi hollow) mahogany back/sides.

These are a couple of neck blanks. I have scored on a decent stash of birdseye maple...

Moonshine