Jabba_the_gut

@jebroadExcellent and thanks again for arranging the bash!

That’ll be me!

On my way - see you later!

Make sure you buy the wood in 8’ lengths. That way when you’ve finished making the table you’ll stand back and say ‘Well would you look at that? I have two pieces of wood left , each the size of a blank for a bass body….’

Frank Blank - Spirit Of The Bash, bike park Rich - Westone Thunder 1A (tarted about a bit), Tanglewood acoustic 4 - both basses strung with nickels, D'Adds on the Thunder and Elixirs on the ABG. Zoom 509 as a h'phone amp (still can't find the Pandora, I think Mrs.Rich has "tidied it away") and trusty Sennheiser cans wrinkleygit - Jabba’s Semi Hollow Fretless, 112 cab with a lightweight head, possible new addition to the family. Bass strung with Labella flats scrumpymike - FOR SALE: Eden WT550 Traveler; Fender Rumble 800. 'Keepers': my no. 1 gig bass 'Rascal Mervyn-Lyte; 'Rascal Lyte Mkll; Sandberg Cali lV s-s; Mesa Subway TT-800; HandBox R-400; a pair of BF SC3 cabs; a Gillett Contour or two (or maybe even 3) - one of which will prolly be FS. Pea Turgh - My Frankenstein Jazzguarman(!) strung with D’Addario XL Chrome flats. My black bitsa (same strings). Probably my Peterson combo which I’ll flit between selling and not selling (still). Stevie - Ibanex SR1200-VNF, Ashdown RM500, BCbass 112, plus some other bass cab developments (probably) yorks5stringer - Warwick Star Bass Proline (4 string), Status GP Artist (again 4 string), Marcus Miller Micro 101, 1972 Telecaster Bass (poss.), Shuker Course 5 String (poss.) Andyjr1515 - Not yet sure what I will be bringing except my athletic physique and chiselled good looks (and if you believe that.... ) stewblack - Trace Elliot Rig of Death. Ric inspired 'tributes' various amps and basses for sale unless they shift here first. A hernia (probably). basstone - For Sale refurbished Marshall DBS200 combo fitted with beyma 12" speaker. BC v3 cab with G&K MB500 amp. '78 Fender fretless jazz bass with rotosound nylon coated strings. Probably plus one other bass TBD Woodinblack - Ibanez EHB1505, Shuker Uberhorn, Chapman Stick, PositiveGrid Spark amp. Chienmortbb - BC112 speaker, Bugera Mosfet amp, Fender Aerodyne and/or Greg Bennett semi acoustic bass ( might sell if the offers are right). I may even bring my homebrew 500 watt amp designed in conjunction with Passinwind if finished. Cuzzie - tbc MoJoke - whatever demo gear is left over from the month before (Manchester Bass Show), so will definitely have my Casa rig, probably the new Vintage D2 head (which I am thinking of selling the Casa to buy... it’s that good!), and I'll try and bring Markbass instruments and some packs of the new Markbass strings to give away olipaulo - Fender Elite Jazz, Status Empathy 5 and PRS SE Kestrel. Markbass CMD 151P, SWR LA15, GK MB112-ii and GK MB212-ii (the last three are for sale so they may be missing from the bash). Helix LT & IEMs sbrag -- some or all of: Yamaha bb1100s, G&L JB Tribute (Tuned d std), Shergold Marathon, MTD CRB with tone styler preamp (Tuned D std), Tobias Toby Pro, Hohner B2A, Encore Fretless P with Roto tapewounds, Tanglewood Elf, Bugera Veyron T, Barefaced Super Twin T, Various pedals Triumph_Rock - Rickenbacker 4003S5, Sterling Stingray Sub4 HH, Ashdown Little Stubby Amp, Ashdown 15" Cab. Richard Jinman - tbc Stub Mandrel - Fender Performer, Deathburger (sublime to the ridiculous) maybe another bass, GR AT212 slim and Bass Terror. Norm - I'll bring my '98 Stingray 4 (could be for sale/trade), Squier VM Jazz 5, Squier VM Precision 5, Trace Elliot v4 head & Barefaced Vintage 2x15, Roland Microbass & headphones, earplugs & my wallet, looking at what peeps are bringing with FS tags on!!!! BreadBin - not sure what I'll be bringing, maybe my Taurus 4x10 plus rackmount Pre/Power setup. Jimrs2k2 - all the normal stuff, some of which maybe for sale. PhilStarr - BC 112 Mk1, BC110T, BC Easybuild 12, maybe some other self build designs. Peavey MiniMax, Burny Thunderbird (Japanese Matsumoku copy JabbaTheGut - 27" short scale basses, short scale telebass, probably something else, TC amp and cab(s)

Get used to it, those parcels will get more frequent as you start thinking 'Ooh that will look nice next time'........!!

I've used some thin (0.5mm) magnets on the control cover and something like 4mm magnets in the body. Plenty string enough and easy to install!! Just have to make sure you get the poles the right way round......

Absolutely! Stuff going wrong is always an opportunity to learn.

I have a Titan planer thicknesser from Screwfix which is about as cheap as new ones come. I'd be inclined to avoid something like this and buy a better second hand unit. The Titan is VERY noisy, so much so that I am quite conscious as to when I use it which is limiting. I have had to replace a drive belt and a bearing on it (complete pain to do) on a unit that is three years old and pretty lightly used. I replaced it with an Axminster Craft AC250 but that is a massive leap in size and expense!! The Axminster is really quiet, not used it much so far but pleased with it for what I have done. I used a small bandsaw I got off eBay for £20 for quite a few builds and that was fine (I still use it for smaller tasks). Main thing is to get some decent blades - I've bought quite a few from TuffSaws and been very pleased with them. I mainly use a Record BS250 bandsaw now which I'm pretty pleased with. Again, decent blades make the difference. For a drill press I have used a normal drill in a stand for years (already had the drill, got the stand off FreeCycle!). That has worked well enough but I bought a small Clarke drill press off Facebook marketplace last week for £25 which is really good. Tools are one of those things you can spend any sum on (never get an Axminster catalogue as you'll end up skint!!). Whatever you choose, always spend a bit extra on things like decent router cutters, decent bandsaw blades, decent Forstner bits and drills - in my experience they are well worth the extra. Look forward to seeing your builds!! Cheers

Yeah, fair enough!! I do quite like MarkBass gear - I also like having both a power switch and mute switch on the front panel. Be interested to try one of these whenever they are around.

Stumbled across this the other day - they do look pretty!! MARKBASS | Products | LITTLE MARK IV

Brilliant!

Slotted both necks for the carbon rods and the truss rods. I used a couple of equal sized spacers on the router guide to give me the three different distanced from the neck edge - just adding or taking out spacers makes it easy and repeatable to cut the slots. The spacers are just two equal thickness pieces of ply. Quite pleased how these have gone so far. I've not got any basses with carbon neck rods and I've never built one with them so I'll be interested to see if I notice any difference in the end. Next job is to drill the hole for the truss rod adjuster.

This is how the extended fretboard/thumb rest will sit on the final build

Hi Ped, Someone posted on my thread that I had the embedding banners [img] on the BBcode which is why it didn't work. I removed these and the picture posted correctly. Not sure why the code picked up the [img] from Imgur - not sure if a setting has changed on my PC or if it was something to do with the update and just a coincidence it happened at the same time!! I'll let you know if I find anything out. Cheers again for everything!

Thanks for that! I did nothing different to what I've done before so I'm not sure why it picked up the banners - I guess that PCs for you!! Some setting changed somewhere...I'll have a dig. Cheers

Hi, I added a post to a build diaries thread with a picture using the BBcode from Imgur but the picture doesn't show. All the previous pictures in the thread posted the same way still display. Cheers

I've made both the new neck templates for this from MDF using the old template as a starting point. It's great when you have a bunch of templates from previous builds that you can use as a starting point. The router cutter for the graphite rods has also arrived so I'll be doing a bit of experimenting to see how best to do this. I made a simple neck jig recently for slotting truss rods so I should be able to use this for the graphite rods too.

Best thing today was putting a fan in the workshop - made it nice and comfortable to get on with a few things. First up was cutting the truss rod slot - took a little longer than I planned as I made a new jig for holding the neck. After that, cut the neck to size and trimmed the edges with the router. All went well, no issues so that puts me back to where I was a couple of weeks ago but this time I have a neck without a hole in it!!

So a bit backward compared to normal build threads but here's a couple of pictures of the finished bass that I'm going to dismantle!! And the neck removed I've measured everything up and will need to make a new neck template as the new one will have a zero fret and a scarf joint on the headstock so the dimensions from my previous template are slightly different. I will also need to make a second neck template for the fretboard as this will extended to include the thumb rest. I've also ordered a router bit for cutting the slots for the graphite neck rods (not something I've used before but we'll give them a go on these builds) as that is one of the next jobs.

Joking apart though, the great thing with making mistakes is learning. With the 5 string neck I made a hole in, I had an opportunity to try a couple of different techniques to rectify the fault which is something I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to do. So I learnt something useful from it. The neck might be okay with the fix but I decided to make a new one anyway. What I will probably do is make two necks (fretted and fretless) for the bass- I haven’t tried a 27” fretless so another opportunity!!

Ok, just for you... I stuck the router bit through the neck of my 5 string short scale build so I've got to build a new neck. On this one, I took a little bit too much off the body thickness so had to buy a new body blank (it was about 1.5mm thinner than the body I have already made but I want it to be the same). And I manage to remove a couple of mm of finger nail and a little bit of skin with a scalpel when I was cutting veneers. Surely that's enough!!!

Lots and lots of sanding , a few blisters and an understanding of why they call it 'hardwood', I have sanded the veneers to about 0.9mm. I then glued these to the front and rear of the headstock and clamped in place. Once set, a quick sand of the lip and marked up the centre line ready to cut the truss rod channel.

I have a small pile of veneers that my dad gave me a while ago and in it was a couple of pieces of walnut that look a very similar colour to the walnut tops. A right stroke of luck I say!! After a little bit of carving on the back of the neck, the veneers could be glued on. The curve just makes a nice little volute when the neck is carved. I glued the front veneers first as they are flat, then once the glue was set enough so they wouldn't slide at all, I glued on the rear ones and clamped it all together. And as said before in this forum, you can't have enough clamps. I forgot to take a picture but I probably used 10 G clamps to hold on a headstock veneer. Overkill? Maybe, but it'll be flat and it won't move!!! To get the veneer to sit tightly onto the curve at the back of the neck I use a flat block with a curve at one end to match. On this I have some foam rubber about 4mm thick so when clamped to the neck it pushes the veneer nicely onto the curve. Sanded the front lip flat and marked the centre lines ready for routing the truss rod channel and carbon rod channels. Right, off to sand some coving to earn some brownie points. Cheers