lettsguitars

Worn paint won't make for a very nice playing surface. I must stand corrected the by the looks of it. Lots of people with painted fingerboards then. Oh dear.

Painted? With paint? Really? I dont believe you.

I think you are referring to painted fretted boards. As for Jaco and the like, they are all epoxy not paint. 'Paint' on a fretless WILL NOT WORK!!!!!

You do know it will be useless afterwards right? All I will say is make sure you remove any old finish and prime it.

Rather old looking Pacifica in Menphys hinckley road leicester. £35.

There is actually a very good reason for metal topnuts. When you fret a note on a fretted guitar the point of contact is a metal fret. Metal sounds different to wood or bone. Therefore when you play a string open you would ideally want it to have the same tone as anywhere else on the neck. Metal frets, metal bridge, metal nut. Steel would be ideal but a bitch to manufacture and impossible for the average Jo to setup.

No Ross. It is designed to make otherwise unuseable rotten wood useable, for accepting screws and such. Rosewood certainly would not get any harder after application of hardener not to mention the stink it creates which will permeate through the whole guitar. Not nice. Rosewood should actually be acceptable for fretless. I have sold fretless basses with rosewood boards, requested by the customer I may add, with no problems. There will be a little wear and tear which may need attention, re-levelling etc in a few years and the only thing that will permanently address the issue is epoxy (west systems from axeminster tools). Jon.

Lou returned the bass after noticing some twisting in the neck (a lot of twisting in the neck). I must say it is the only neck I ever had trouble with. Anyhoo, mad him a new neck, nice one, the bass played great and I had alot of compliments from friends etc. I, however had a bee in my bonnet about the carve. The bass was made before my stuff really took shape and I finally fell into my neck-through groove and found a decent level of continuity of carve and contour. It kept me awake one night too many and found it's way into the wood burner like a good few of my early guitars and anything else that I dont think is right. Lou is still waiting for his replacement and is very dubious about leaving any of his 'early models' with me nowadays. I have 2 of his sitting here waiting to be picked up after a few updates. Jeez,it's cold tonight! I feel a burn comin!

I have a penchant for arson.

Mahogany is great for body and neck. A solid Bubinga neck is a bit much. Better laminated with a lighter wood. M'ogany all the way!

If it was mine I would cut the finish off with a router and router sled! The rest with a scraper and clean up with a little sandin. Look like a decent ash body under there.

Obviously if you want a professional finish you would have to strip the lot and finish from scratch as poly doesn't spot fix very well (I never use it so I'm no expert though so it may work). Some finishes don't need/like sanding. Enamels and maybe poly too, go on very flat and just require buffing, initially with wire wool to remove any peaks. You would need to fill the hole first though fo sho.

Or you coul just toffee hammer the whole lot off!

Nail polish is nitrocellulose laquer. It would work but it's much easier and probably cheaper to get some rattle can black from manchester guitar tech, northwest guitars or behlen. Car filler, wet and dry (400,600,800,1000,1200), t-cut/swirl remover and microfibre cloths from halfords. Other sandpaper (120,240,320 and sanding block) from b&q and get to it. You're looking at 40-50 quid for materials. Theres millions of information and videos around the net. Try 'Sully's guitar garage'. He has loads of videos about painting and sanding/buffing. Dont use a drill for buffing though! Do it by hand!

[quote name='nugget' timestamp='1352203580' post='1859945'] I personally love making jigs and stealing the ideas from TDPRI, it's a great site for hobby builders on a budget Here's my take on a budget (Free) version of the stu mac's fret slot jig Very quick to use and cuts slots dead parallel and vertical. [/quote]Good for retro-fretting neck through fretless?

I'll re-wind it for £20

Your best option would be to treat it like auto body work. Car filler and nitro. Like da man said, stripping is out of the question so a touch up, which would be invisible is the most sensible option. Nitro will go over just about anything.

A modern computer and budget interface is more than they had in the sixties. They are still deemed radio worthy recordings. I must admit we use a midi drumkit which helps to get a cleaner finish.

Is any bass worth 1500?

[quote name='51m0n' timestamp='1355096904' post='1894111'] £500 from scratch?? You are going to really really struggle if you dont really really know what you are doing. I would say that moving faders with a mouse is a lot cheaper than a great DAW controller, and whilst the Zoom devices are good as budget tracking devices, dont rely on them as DAW controllers, and about the least PITA seperate tracking devices as it gets, and as far as I can see you haven't budgeted for mics, or cables. Oh the Zoom stuff is crap as a straight ahead interface IME too. A decent cheap large diaphragm condensor (for vocals) is close to £500 (AT4045), a pair of good small diaphragm condensors (CM3s or Little Blondies) are going to cost you £200 at least. You could get a drum micing kit (Red5Audio's one is about the best bang for the buck at about £200) Leads will cost £20 ea, If you are trying to track live and you know your beans you can just about get away with 8 inputs, in a great room, with a great sounding drum kit played brilliantly. Of course to keep the sound of a laptop and recording interface down it needs to be a fair way away, so you'll need a couple of stage boxes with say 8m multicores, £150ea. DAW software to mix on $60 for Reaper. The best cheap 8 input interface is a Steinberg ur824, and thats going to blow your budget without any mics so dont go that way (yet). DO that once you have outgrown the Z16 (in a year or two). My advice? Dont record 'live', consider the Z16 a tracking device and mix on a laptop. Free VSTs and Reaper will get you as far as anything else mixwise, its all about your skill. truthfully it will take you several years to learn to mix minimum. Try and find a great space to record in, bigger spaces tend to have less acoustic issues in them with nasty early reflections - great for drums - scout huts and church halls are well worth making inquiries about IME. Smaller deader spaces for the rest. Get the Red5Audio drum mics and use them for the drums, DI the bass, get a Sennheiser e835 for guitar. Get an e845 for vocals. Second hand is OK for the Sennheisers, watch out for fakes though. Get down drums bass and guitar with a guide vocal, try and get the vocal out of the way. Overdub the rest. Always mic guitar amps. Never DI anything but ultra clean guitar. Small diaphragm condensors on acoustics. You have a very very very steep learning curve ahead of you, enjoy it, consider everything you buy an investment. [/quote]Way ott imo. I've used an old laptop a coupple of cheap mics (se) and an alesis i/04 with absolutely more than acceptable results for a demo. 500 is more than enough if you already have a computer and a couple of mic leads! You would NEVER in a million years hear the hum of the laptop over a live band.

I wrote a christmas song once. I cant imagine party hatted discoers singing along with "Where's Jesus this Christmas?" though.

I would just get a in/out box with 8 inputs and a laptop and cubase le (free with a lot of in/outs) if it's just for live recording and mixing. Forget zoom stuff or anything else that is aimed at recording 'on the fly' as they tend to complicate matters in my experience. You'll need a couple of large diaphram condensor mics. One for a drum overhead and one as a room mic. All other mics can be sure sm57 style or small condensors for guitars. DI the keys and bass. Overdub vocals. There are a million and one ways to do it but I'd stick to one mic for the drums. Of course you can just record everything live with 3 or 4 condensor mics placed strategically around the room. You'll have to do a little research into mic placements etc to get the best out of your equipment.

All depends what sound you're after, doesn't it? If you're looking for an emg sound then the emg's will make a big difference!

Swell.

Get a proper job!