What bass project are you working on?
I'm assembling a parts fretless. Woop! Been without a fretless for a little while.
I'm assembling a parts fretless. Woop! Been without a fretless for a little while.
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Your current project
- Thread starter Figjam
- Start date
I'm thinking of doing a de-fret too. It's the execution that's up in the air. I could
a. File down the frets to keep the metal in the grooves, thus preserving the strength of the neck. Then a little neck sanding and some coats of tung or teak oil.
but that would be boring compared to
b. Remove the entire frets, but instead of filling the grooves with veneer, I have something a tad more "experimental" in mind. Specifically, mixing a little bit of slow-set epoxy with acrylic paint and filling the slots. This would be much, MUCH stronger than wood filler with the added bonus of choosing what color I want the new fret lines to be.
I want the color of the lines to visibly stand out on the fretboard, but also compliment the overall color of the bass (rosewood board + sunburst body). So far, metallic copper color looks very nice. I've done some test runs on slats of wood I've grooved to simulate fret slots and the results are encouraging.
Once I'm satisfied with my test-runs, I'll buy an inexpensive neck or two (hello, eBay!) and work up a prototype. I will, of course, document the progress and post it for all to cheer and jeer.
a. File down the frets to keep the metal in the grooves, thus preserving the strength of the neck. Then a little neck sanding and some coats of tung or teak oil.
but that would be boring compared to
b. Remove the entire frets, but instead of filling the grooves with veneer, I have something a tad more "experimental" in mind. Specifically, mixing a little bit of slow-set epoxy with acrylic paint and filling the slots. This would be much, MUCH stronger than wood filler with the added bonus of choosing what color I want the new fret lines to be.
I want the color of the lines to visibly stand out on the fretboard, but also compliment the overall color of the bass (rosewood board + sunburst body). So far, metallic copper color looks very nice. I've done some test runs on slats of wood I've grooved to simulate fret slots and the results are encouraging.
Once I'm satisfied with my test-runs, I'll buy an inexpensive neck or two (hello, eBay!) and work up a prototype. I will, of course, document the progress and post it for all to cheer and jeer.
Engine207
Losing faith in humanity...one call at a time.
My current custom build is the Hosedragger IV.
It's an alder body with mahogany/koa top four-string, shaped like a cross between a Wal MkII and a Lākland 44-01. It has a Fender P-Bass neck, Schaller M4S keywinds, Babicz FCH bridge, and Seymour Duncan SPB-2/SJB-2 pickups.
We started with just the bare wood, planed down, laminated, and shaped. My dad-in-law has a full woodshop, and we've been working on it forever. It's kinda been stalled since my wife hi-jacked him to work on new cabinets for the kitchen and pantry. I'd like to get it started again in the coming weeks.
It's an alder body with mahogany/koa top four-string, shaped like a cross between a Wal MkII and a Lākland 44-01. It has a Fender P-Bass neck, Schaller M4S keywinds, Babicz FCH bridge, and Seymour Duncan SPB-2/SJB-2 pickups.
We started with just the bare wood, planed down, laminated, and shaped. My dad-in-law has a full woodshop, and we've been working on it forever. It's kinda been stalled since my wife hi-jacked him to work on new cabinets for the kitchen and pantry. I'd like to get it started again in the coming weeks.
Im working on a 1980 Aria Pro II Tri-sound bass 550. I had the pickup sent off to Kent Armstrong to have it rewound. Can't wait to hear what she sounds like.
Trying my hand at a passive onboard overdrive, the diode thingy (instead of replacing the tone control I'll add a simple switch for the diodes). Will try it on my squier first to see if and how it works before I may or may not put it in my Fender P.
If by "working on" you mean paying for, I'm having an Aria SB R80 (or is it an Elite II) that had both pickups failing wired up with a set of replacement SB1000 pickups and preamp. I would've preferred the passive K Armstrong setup but the other stuff came up cheap, fast and easy. We'll see what the tech comes up with.
Not much of a build. But just a fun little project. Have a big shamrock decal that im gonna put on my black Ibanez. Gonna take the pickups out then place the decal and cut out for the pickups. Then string it with black tapewounds. Just a simple cosmetic touch that should look good. I love the tone of this bass but it looks so boring.
Working on an Indo standard Squier P-5 (going to put some actual P-bass pickups in there) and a "SQ" Bullet(also going to get some P-bass pickups).
I forgot to mention another project in the works.
I recently bought a 2001 Squier P-Bass Special in sunburst with a white pickguard. I prefer a black pickguard with sunburst colors, but getting a replacement is not going to be easy. Back in the day, Squier made this model's guard with four holes on the top edge, not three. I certainly don't want to start drilling holes nor a pickguard that costs a quarter to a third of the price of the bass, and might not even fit in the first place. That'd just be silly!
However, I have a friend who's an engineer and hobby builder. Among designing and building lots of robots (he was involved with what later became Robot Wars) he's built himself a 3D printer that can fabricate objects up to 9" square. After talking with him about it, showing him my pickguard and pdf specs, he's pretty sure we can build a pickguard in three or four pieces which can be assembled with a little epoxy between overlapping edges.
To add a further bit of artsy-ness (former illustrator here) I'm going with an embossed fingerprint design. The whorls will not only be dipping in a bit into the surface, but will also be used to delineate between the three/four individual pieces of the pickguard. It will most assuredly be a textured piece, not glossy, since it's fabricated with tiny filaments of extruded plastic.
Even if the final product isn't very pretty, it should still be both interesting and functional. Here's a mock-up I quickly cobbled together in photoshop;
The "white" is just a representation of the whorls, which would not be colored. It would just embossed into the top surface. It would all be of the same black plastic material.
Now if I can combine it with my aforementioned de-fretting project, that'd make for a very interesting bass.
I recently bought a 2001 Squier P-Bass Special in sunburst with a white pickguard. I prefer a black pickguard with sunburst colors, but getting a replacement is not going to be easy. Back in the day, Squier made this model's guard with four holes on the top edge, not three. I certainly don't want to start drilling holes nor a pickguard that costs a quarter to a third of the price of the bass, and might not even fit in the first place. That'd just be silly!
However, I have a friend who's an engineer and hobby builder. Among designing and building lots of robots (he was involved with what later became Robot Wars) he's built himself a 3D printer that can fabricate objects up to 9" square. After talking with him about it, showing him my pickguard and pdf specs, he's pretty sure we can build a pickguard in three or four pieces which can be assembled with a little epoxy between overlapping edges.
To add a further bit of artsy-ness (former illustrator here) I'm going with an embossed fingerprint design. The whorls will not only be dipping in a bit into the surface, but will also be used to delineate between the three/four individual pieces of the pickguard. It will most assuredly be a textured piece, not glossy, since it's fabricated with tiny filaments of extruded plastic.
Even if the final product isn't very pretty, it should still be both interesting and functional. Here's a mock-up I quickly cobbled together in photoshop;
The "white" is just a representation of the whorls, which would not be colored. It would just embossed into the top surface. It would all be of the same black plastic material.
Now if I can combine it with my aforementioned de-fretting project, that'd make for a very interesting bass.
I love watching these threads: I wish some of the bigger bass builders would, too. Some of the stuff I see modded and built on TB is just amazing, from the dual Darkstar G&L in the classifieds now to that restored Rivoli that went off to Tennessee and pretty much every bass Mellow has ever modded and sold..
Mine's a perpetual work-in-progress between my two Guild JS-IIs: one got defretted and epoxied and sports a nice custom brass bridge courtesy of the previous owner, Chromium, as well as a rather G&L inspired electronic re-wiring for singles, and series/parallel modes with a mini-toggle... and every bass I pick up gets two automatic mods: Tonestylers dropped in and an N-Tune on board tuner (no room on the board for a tuner!).. But the next one is getting me excited: adding a buffered piezo pickup on the wooden saddles on my '70 JS.. I'm expecting lovely things with that mixed with either the Bisonic or the Hagstrom bridge humbucker!
Two currently:
1)replica of Michael Anthony's famous Jack Daniels bottle bass, for a friend;
2)working on plans for my next build for me, a slab body 51 replica, reversed headstock (yup, like the Dusty Hill), but with some modern touches, like fiber optics.
1)replica of Michael Anthony's famous Jack Daniels bottle bass, for a friend;
2)working on plans for my next build for me, a slab body 51 replica, reversed headstock (yup, like the Dusty Hill), but with some modern touches, like fiber optics.
I'm making a 5 string p with an sx 5string jazz neck (maple on maple) and an sx pbass alder body. String through body bridge and a Bill Lawrence p-46 pickup
Engine207
Losing faith in humanity...one call at a time.
This thread got my donkey in gear to start the Hosedragger IV up again. Today, we routed the cavities, neck pocket and the rough body shape. Here's where we were at quitting time...
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The back control cavity is set up for my usual volume/blend/treble passive electronics, but it's routed large enough to accommodate active controls if I choose to upgrade later. I don't like flimsy covers, so this one's routed to accomodate a 3/16" piece of koa to match the center wood.
Link Removed
My next project will be hanging my guitars on my walls. Gotta save up a bit, then order slatwall rails and a bunch of Swing String hangers.
I'm not posting my bass room pic until I finish this project.
I'm not posting my bass room pic until I finish this project.
I'm currently job shadowing a bass luthier. He gave me the bobbins, magnets and pole pieces to make some wal replica pickups (I know it's about the preamp, I've researched a lot on wals). He was also enthusiastic when I said a wal replica/real one would be my "dream" bass. After a few days of helping out around his shop, he brought me upstairs and we started using fretfind and photoshop to design a wal replica. I'll be using an ACG EQ01 (or dmf, not sure yet) as the preamp, my goal for woods are a shedua top with a mahogany core. It will be a 4 string and will model a mk2
