neepheid

I just received some Hipshot Licensed Ultralite tuners from Pete. Guy's a legend - I was a bit brassed at the end of last month because the car's MOT was a bit of a sair one. Pete very kindly agreed to keep a set of tuners back for me for a week or so until pay day. Deal done, tuners arrived (eventually - courier snafu, not Pete's fault) and I can crack on with my project. Thanks Pete!

Hah, you old farts! See you in 10 years and 4 months

Well damn, I've just plugged the holes in a neck with ordinary dowels. I've clearly screwed it up then. 🙄

Bruce Millers in Aberdeen - where I bought my first bass. Closed 2011.

So I found a nicer piece of pine to practice on than that scabby old thing I found. It went... OK. A few wobbles (including setting the depth of my cutter a tad low at the beginning. But lessons learned, and praise be, the pickup fits (using the 1/4" cutter in the corners). I thought about having another test run, but I thought "F it" and decided to proceed directly to the real thing... First off, remove the bulk of the hole with the drill and forstner bit. Then deep breath and get out my most hated power tool, the router. Took my time this time, double checked everything. Did the main shape with the 1/2" cutter, then swapped to the 1/4" cutter for the corners. Howzat? The wee deeper holes in the corner are because I had to poke the 1/4" cutter down sufficiently so that enough plain shaft was below the baseplate so it would not cut the template. IT FITS, YAS! I am very pleased with my afternoon's work. This is the first pickup route I've ever routed in my life. Glad it went well, but won't be sorry if I don't ever do it again, lol. It most certainly has not "given me the bug" - it was stressful and horrible work, but I am very pleased with the results. Next job - figuring out how to make a dirty long hole from the control cavity to the pickup route without ballsing the entire operation up. I might need a bit of professional help with that so I might pay the Engineering Workshop at work a visit on Monday and see if I can cadge a disgustingly long drill bit at the very least. Or they might take pity on me and do a "give it here" - I won't complain!

K&M Memphis Pro stand. Top neck grab, legs fold in and it's telescopic so compacts down pretty small. From this to this: Set up, collapse down in seconds.

Found an old plank in the shed to practice on. Also found a potential solution for the corners - got a 1/4" cutter, if I poke it far enough out of the collet then there will hopefully be enough shaft (stop sniggering at the back, you!) poking down below the baseplate of the router then it should not cut into the template but follow it as if it had a bearing. Dunno if the radius will be small enough, but it'll be closer than the 1/2" cutter I'll be using for the initial routing. That's tomorrow's fun though - got a band rehearsal now.

I think I've redeemed myself. Start again then... Made a better jig which actually works the correct way round... First cuts... And then changed the jig to do the short sides, et voilà That's more like it! Crappy first attempt above for comparison. Then I guess when you write on it with a Sharpie, it becomes official... The only thing I have to consider is that my top bearing router bit is a bit fat for the corners of the pickup (it's OK for the mounting lugs), had to cut them out after the fact on the template, so going to have to figure out how to solve that. But progress is progress, and I'm much happier with this second attempt at the template. One final piece of paranoia - I checked that the neck fits when the pickup is mounted - it has a 21st fret overhang... Phew! That is approximately where the neck pickup of a Peavey T-40 goes with regard to scale length.

Reading your message, I just realised my mistake - I was operating the wrong way round. I should have had my rails/fences/guides on the opposite side, so if I wandered, I wandered into the material I was removing anyway, not the stuff I wanted to keep. FFS! What a moron. I really am living up to my username.

That's very kind of you to offer, thank you. I think I'll give it another go myself and see if I've learned anything from my first go. If it's another mess then I'll be in touch.

Did it ever sell? You never know...

Didn't notice that either. Double d'oh!

Buy this used Ray24? for the same price as a new Ray4? https://thebassgallery.com/products/sterling-by-music-man-stingray-sunburst Damn it, forgot about the maple board, sorry. Close but no cigar!

I push my preamp gain until the clip light briefly comes on when hitting strings the hardest. Then use the master volume as appropriate for the situation.

Wish I had known about this before embarrassing myself with my backwoods, attacked with an axe effort! The MDF option is very reasonably priced! I've fired them off a message to see if they do custom orders...

So today I had a wee go at making a routing template for the T-40 pickup. First time I've ever done such a thing and all I can say is "Rome wasn't built in a day"... But for all that, you can't see the rattiness of it once the pickup is in... Not sure whether to try to finesse this template a bit, or junk it, learn from it and start again. I drew around the pickup ring to see how much room for manoeuvre I've got...

Had a busy day today, on both projects I have got on the go right now. Here's what happened on the shed bass. First of all, I offered the neck up and used some string to see how the alignment was. Not too shabby, as it happens, with the neck almost along the top edge of the neck pocket, just needs a slight angle away which I will hopefully be able to create with a bit of veneer. And scale length looks good with the neck pocket the depth into the body it currently is. Next wee job was to drill out and fill the old neck screw holes. I checked them a while back and they were a little jaunty and I wasn't happy to use them again, so they need to be filled. Now, because the neck pocket had to be routed out to clean it up of all the glue and unevenness caused by the removal of that infernal glued in neck, the result was that the neck pocket was too deep - the 21 fret overhang of the neck was sitting on the top of the body, but the bottom of the heel wasn't making contact with the bottom of the neck pocket. So I used some 2mm thick maple veneer (intended for headstock fronts) and got to work shaping it to fit the neck pocket. Then it was glued in and clamped down. So, toddling along nicely, more neck pocket fettling to be done then it'll be time to fit the neck...

An important piece of the puzzle hath arrived... Existing screw holes lined up and the screws went in good and tight - like I never sold the previous bridge in the first place... Now I can see about setting the neck the appropriate amount into the body - I suspect it'll need to go back towards the bridge a few mm. Might as well do it now whilst the neck pocket is comically oversized anyway...

Agreed, it's personal abstinence, only stuff for you and you alone counts.

I have the Entwistle split P pickup and unfortunately they're for show by the looks of things - I did try turning mine but they wouldn't budge and I eventually chickened out. They may be cheap, but I'm still not ruining one finding out if the pole pieces are adjustable

Not a single close up of the bass player - criminal! I think Ovation Magnum is on the money - and I smell an endorsement deal of some kind, because Jeff Lynne looks like he's playing an Ovation also - perhaps a Deacon 12 string?

As long as you're making a new pickguard (and doing any routing underneath required, then you could do worse than this: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/394653160508 £22 - and Artec is a known brand who make decent pickups. I'd use a bridge strat pickup, higher DC resistance than a middle or neck one. Even if you're putting it in the neck position. I did this many years ago with a Squier Bronco - sounded pretty good as I recall - although it was a different brand - GFS (Guitar Fetish) which I probably imported from the States because the pound was strong then. The only downside to these kind of pickups are the rounded ends - pretty tricky to perch your thumb on. If you're willing to spend a bit more (£60), I have also used these: https://www.armstrongmusic.co.uk/collections/kent-armstrong-split-tube-guitar-pickups These are Jazz bass pickup sized and crucially they have flat ends, so using them as a thumbrest is much easier. I put these in my Burny LSB-70 thus: Hope that helps!

Done a mockup of the pickup template in Inkscape - printed it out and it works - on paper. The hole's big enough to accept the pickup and not so big that it shows past the pickup ring. (snapshot - not to scale) Seeing as it's simply the union of two rectangles, I'll probably just draw it directly onto a piece of MDF then cut it out.

And so it shall be written, and so it shall be done... Now it has a kill switch and a producer/DFA switch. Right, top work everyone, let's get it back together and have a cup of tea... Only kidding, now I can't put off routing any longer...

No, wait. I can procrastinate a little longer, I could move the existing pickup's wiring to go through the selector switch and the switch output to the volume pot. Needs doing anyway...