Jabba_the_gut

Time for the next build! I'm going to make a semi hollow bass this time with a piezo pickup. I've got a piece of sapele for the body and spalted beech for the top. These are the same woods I used on a short scale bass build recently with which I was really pleased with the result. I haven't decided if it will be four of five string, 32 or 34" scale of if it will be fretted or not!! I am leaning towards 32" fretted. .. we'll see! I have a Shadow SH064 pickup for this and an East MPM-01 preamp. Cheers Jez

Be nice to see you again Mike. cheers

Cheers for the comment. I hadn't thought to try that but I have a few offcuts so I'll explore that a bit and see what it does!

One of the new 1x10 combos would be good 😉

After seeing Ped's Wingbass at a bass bash last year which I really liked, Bastav's Wingnut and Jebroad's 20" scale bass I'm thinking of building something very short scale too. I work away a lot for work and it would be nice to have something to play in the evening when I'm stopping at hotels but it would need to take up only a little space in the car boot. I've got one of the cheapy headless bridges in my box of stuff and a spare MM style pickup so I've made the following scribble. The bass would be 23" scale so that should be good for BEAD tuning or EADG using the bottom 4 strings of a 5 string set. No idea about woods or finish yet, this is just an idea at the moment.

Gutting. Did I mention how nice the food is?......

https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/333486-the-big-fat-south-west-bass-bash-2019-sun-7-april/?page=1

Cheers! The full details for the SW Bass Bash are in the 'Events' section - well worth a visit just for the lovely food!! It's on Sunday 7th April at The Memorial Hall TA2 8JY just outside Cheddon Fitzpaine village (I would paste the link to the events page but I'm not sure how to do it!!) I've been for the past two years and have really enjoyed it. Lots of nice people and a variety of different gear. Cheers Jez

Very nice neck - that would definitely make a happy birthday!! All the best Jez

One more little job sorted - the positioning of the control knobs and jack socket. There will be just a volume and tone on this one, I'm not going to fit a preamp this time. The finish needs to be left a little longer before I can cut and polish it.

Had a busy weekend getting guitar and bass bits done. I finished putting a Telecaster together for a friend of mine that uses many really nice quality components including solid brass bridge, Sperzel tuners and Lollar pickups. Needs a little set-up and fettling but sounds lovely - those Lollars really are top quality pickups. I got some work done on the other shortie bass and got round to sanding back and spraying the final coat on the original neck on this project. I did take the bass to the SE Bass Bash last year but it wasn't finished - the neck still needed the finishing coat of nitro and the frets need levelling and polishing. I'll start on the levelling bit this week. The neck is birdseye maple which is lovely wood to work with and has a really interesting finish in my eyes, it's one of those woods that looks different from whichever angle you view it at. Fretboard masked for spraying: Birdseye maple - lovely stuff! Still loads to do on the rest of the bass...….

My pre-amp looks a little different to yours but here's the pictures anyway: Lett me know if you want any close-ups of any parts of this. Cheers Jez

I'm going to bring along a Phil Jones Cub that I have for sale if anyone is interested. Looking forward to catching up with everyone. Cheers

Look forward to that one!

That is looking really good. I particularly like the body timbers. Looking forward to seeing this complete.

It was Bastav's (very nice) Wingnut bass. The plate was replaced by a wooden cover (not veneered - made from the same wood as the fretboard if I recall) but had to be screwed in place from the top as the original fixings are in the metal cover. For my basses, I don't want any screw heads showing on top and for a cover I would want to use the book matched wood from the top with the grain running the same direction as the body which would make it weak, hence looking at milling and inlaying in the future. Cheers

It isn't the best name anyone could have thought of but I think the bridge looks okay on these. I have dismantled, filed, tidied up and resprayed these bridges and they look and feel much better than standard. You could veneer the cover, though I'm not certain how good the bond would be between the wood and metal in the long term, or you could make an entirely new cover from wood but that would need to be a few mm thicker in my opinion to have reasonable strength. What I plan to do is to mill out the box with the logo in and replace it with an inlay with my logo as there is nowhere else on the bass for one. It won't be done before the upcoming bass bashes but I think that will be the most practical and classy.

I’ve got a Warwick preamp in a box somewhere that I believe came from a Thimb bass ( two stacked pots and one single - one of the pots is also a pull switch). I’ll take a couple of pictures when I get home and post them on here. Cheers Jez

Fitted a pair of black metal knobs to this to finish it off. Got a comment about this bass at the SE Bash last year that the EMG knobs looked cheap and I completely agree - they're not even what I would call quality mouldings especially the stacked knob. Shame really as the rest of their kit is first class in my opinion. The stacked knob looked a little too tall on this small bodied bass so I filed a couple of mm off the top knob and I think it looks quite a bit better. I think that is all the little jobs complete on this one and need to wait a little before I can do any work on the finish of the other shortie so on with the semi hollow basses to get them progressed as far as I can for the SW Bass Bash.

PM'd @BassTool

As it fits just to the front face of the neck it allows a bit of scope for the shaping of the end of the neck as it doesn't go over the end of the neck as such.

Bought quite a few bits and bobs off them - all small hardware parts and found them to be pretty quick and decent. Ordered two nuts from them recently, they only sent one in error. I let them know, they apologised and sent the other very quickly so customer service seems pretty decent to me.

I know what you mean - it's not something you think about with double ball end strings but they only come in 34" scale (double ball end strings are so convenient and quick to change). The Nova headpiece clamp is similar to what I've seen on other headless basses using single ball end strings so should be a tried and tested approach. Here's the two head pieces side by side for reference. The Nova is a nice looking piece of work isn't it?!

+1!! Interesting little project - look forward to seeing what you do with this.

I've picked up the headless parcel and the bridge looks nice. I bought a five string bridge and head piece and also a four string headpiece to try as an alternative to the ones used in these builds. The Nova headpiece has a single large grub screw to retain the strings so would be a lot less faff than these ones with the grub screws and clamp. Not really had anytime to look at it properly but will stick some picture and comments on here when I do!!