spacecowboy

That red stain has come out lovely! Great work!

Quick Tuesday update; Good things; Wired up my Bartolini quads to an Aguilar OBP3 without too much fuss, only took two attempts my understanding of wiring and preamps has improved ten fold however! Everything fits nicely in the cavity although I'd love to design it again and shift the batteries to their own cavity and have a little space for the OBP3 to sit, but everything works just like it should. Got the tuners on, they're USA hipshot ultralights and again they work just as they should and look really good. Strung the bass and had a quick noodle, strings feel brilliant, they're Newtone Customs and fit the bass perfectly. Bad things; Upon having said noodle the bridge has proven that it won't work as intended, I was able to fully intonate the strings, but, after 10 mins of playing, my G string was ringing an F# at the 24th fret, and while other strings managed to not pull the saddles away too much (C string was the champ here, only moved 6 cents sharp) the concept in general has failed and will ultimately be replaced, I have ordered some metal saddles with angled grub screws that bite in to the bridge sidewalls and these will work better, so a little redesign and remaking will be needed. The nut will need replacing as there is too much space underneath it when it has been adjusted to the right height, so that needs redoing I will just beef up the height to fit the slot better and reduce the need for too much adjustment. I seem to have put a few dents and light scratches in the finish already so another light round of finishing to do this weekend! I had to lop 15mm off the height of the pickup cover as it was too tall, now it sits way better and feels great under the fingers. Great things; No fret buzz when I had the action nice and low The flat fretboard is LOVELY to play The B string is very well defined 30" scale is so so comfortable So not much to do now until its there; Sort the bridge New Nut Re-apply some finish Knobs x 5! These will be a nice Ash / wenge / Ash laminate with wenge dot Setup Polish Make a video!

Done!

I'll make you a deal, I'll send it if you promise to send it back

It does look lovely when on the bass, I just hope to god it works out ok!

Pickups installed in the pickup cover... Foam blocks placed under the pickups to help raise and lower the cover when compressed with the bolts This is the bridge, the best saddle I could make for this bass actually turned out to be small sections of fret wire and a grub screw, I've strung the bass up to ensure things fit as they're supposed to and once It's getting it's setup I'll notch the saddles You can see them a little better here

But came out lovely, thankfully...

So I've done quite a bit since my last update so I'll hopefully remember it all! First up cavities have been painted with shielding paint, I love the look but it was a bit of a hassle to get nice and the bloody graphite gets everywhere, so next time maybe just copper shielding tape. The exciting news is I've lacquered the bass, I've been wanting to do this for ages, the weather has been absolutely perfect for it so perfect chance to get this done. The white spots all over the shielding paint is resin polish, it'll wipe off later. Love the look of the bass with this lacquer, grain has come alive. This bit could have gone either way, instead of a transfer or sticker I decided to spray paint my surname on the bass... could have been awful...

So getting the garden done with the only access through my bass manufacturing workshop (...garage) means I haven't been able to get in and work on the bass for weeks now, but the job is almost done and with their being no more need for wheelbarrows and muddy boots to be traipsing back and forth means the workshop can finally open again (...garage door can be closed and all my tools can put back on the shelves) There were a couple of jobs I was putting off so I started on those first, biggest one being the sanding of all machine marks and getting the bass and parts up to 400 grit ready for finishing. I'm just continually wiping this down with white spirit to see where more sanding is needed... The grain is coming up lovely and the ash really shows off the curves, you can probably see the dent in the bottom curve here 😣 looks much worse on the pics but will need to be filled at some point probably with a couple of slurry coats... really wish it wasn't there though! Lower horn with it's final sanding complete On the back all the cut aways are complete, the groove for thumbs and fingers to remove the access cover is done, maybe a little bit too big but at least it's obvious I have the magnets installed in the cover cavity and on the cover itself and it sits nice and makes a very satisfying clunk when installed, my efforts to try and line up the grain hasn't been too terrible. Next is getting the bridge sorted out I've made about 4 so far but none of them have been good enough, so got a gut feeling the next one is the one. The disappointing bit is after waiting 2 weeks for my new Newtone strings I got an email to say they're self isolating and won't be opening again until the 12th... so no idea where my order is in their list but they'll get here eventually, just means I can't work on the bridge and nut saddles just yet but all in good time! Thanks for looking guys, hopefully we're not too far away from it being done.

Lovely job!!

Thank you! I'll have updates soon, just getting some work done at the house and waiting for strings so it's not moving at the moment

Brilliant! 🍻

Brilliant work mate

So if we took the company I work for, which designs and manufacturers products and sells them through direct to consumer channels and 3rd party retailers; The product cost you - £390 The retailer takes 50% of product value so it cost them - £195 to purchase from the manufacturer The manufacturer takes 50% of product value so it cost them - £97.50 to make £97.50 generally covers parts, labour, overheads, and you'd do the same cycle for all the parts that make up the guitar, i.e pickups, someone makes the pickups, sells to a retailer, bought by your guitar maker. £97.50 isn't going to get you too much especially in the QC department. The consumer in every market is always shafted by the final RRP, we pay the upward cost for everything, which is why I'm always skeptical about 10% off sales, that's 10% off RRP which was inflated by 50% by the retailer in the first place, so imagine a product at £390 reduced by 10% now costs you £351, bargain right? well no not really, the guitar is still only £97.50 to make, the retailer still pays £195.00 for the product, They sell it with a 10% discount for £351, the retailer is taking the hurt, but they're still turning profit, that 10% might have attracted a 25% uplift in sales negating the 10% drop hurt anyway. This is a very loose general overview and every retailer / manufacturer has different margins, we have some products that retail to consumers for £5.00 that cost us 0.01p to make so work out the value uplift on that if you can stomach it! There's very little real value anywhere.

Today was pickup cover day, glad this is done and out the way! Routed the cavities for the Bart's... Lovely snug fit... So snug intact they don't come out and need to be teased out with tools!! I'll sand the inside edges a tad. Router also decided to go awry on my bridge so I've had to remake that and it's currently gluing up... Of course it's the last bit of routing I needed to do and the first time I've messed up routing on this whole build! Grr!

More importantly look at this trooper!! You'd be quids in if you took the bet!

It's back! Racing stripe is a go! And now I see it I might agree it looks better this way! I made these tiny guys too, I need to round the ash off to circular profiles but I've basically just sandwiched wenge between the ash and put a 45 degree angle on one side, at some point I'll file in the groove for the string and hopefully these will work better than the last design... If they're anything they're bloody cute Started taking meat out of the pickup cover too ready for routing! Need to get the strings ordered soon but I think it'll be the most complex Newton's order I've ever done... We'll see!

Let's give the people what they want, I've re made the pickup cover and bridge so the grains match up, it's a small thing but I really think it's worth the effort. Tomorrow I'll be able to cut them down to size and the bass will have its "go faster stripe" once again! My missus agrees with you all by the way so she'll be happy too! Also let's place bets on this guy lasting the night... 6-1 odds on it not dripping off!

Wow! That looks killer

I have some brass bar that I could cut instead of the wood...

Very interesting!! Wonder how I can avoid that then? He makes it sound fantastic but it's not what I'm after! Do I need to just have a sharp break angle for the string to bend over?