Andyjr1515

Ooooh - it's nice to see those again, @fleabag I'm afraid I'm a bit busied out at the moment, @ambient There are some decent commercial ones around, though. Personally, I actually like the tigerwood ones that @Chiliwailer linked to, and also the plainer ones next to them too

The kerfing is now fitted on the back and the top faces of the sides and the back has been cut to outline. This is with the back slightly dampened - this will be close to the final colour once the finish has been applied: Next job will be carving the back braces and gluing those onto the back in the 15' radius dish when I get a moment

This build is a bit of a background job. Just finished @TheGreek 's Nanyo save and just about to start some interesting stuff for @wwcringe but, while we are verifying the spec and ordering parts, etc, I've done a couple of small jobs on this. The head and tail blocks have been cut, the top kerfing has been glued and the back kerfing is in progress: The kerfing and blocks are set just proud of the sides so that they can be sanded at an angle to make the appropriate contact with the dished back and top when they get glued. My blank for the tailstock was a little short and so I will cap that with a piece of mahogany sheet to raise it a few mm to the correct height. I have 'tidied' my 25' radius dish and my Go-bar rig somewhere so will have to find those soon. In the meantime, Matt - the pro player I mentioned before - has agreed to my deal, that is, if this sounds as good as the one of mine he's been using on his videos (getting close to being uploaded), then I'll give him this one as a thanks for featuring my builds. And if it turns out that the one he's been using sounds better, then I'll reshape the neck to his preference and he can keep that one

^ This, @Happy Jack Not entirely sure why the cavities were different - especially as it was the one with the pre-amp and battery (and, typically, the cover) that was the shorter one. The two bodies may have been from different years (the donor is a 1991 model but there's no way of knowing what year the other body is) so maybe just a random design change as it evolved. Happily, the neck pocket and bolt holes were smack on so no adjustment was needed there at all (the neck also came from the scrap body)

The irony is that the one with the battery compartment incorporated - which was the one that had the hatch - was the shorter one! Yes...quite...

Thanks folks for your very kind remarks. Credit also to the concept - which is entirely @TheGreek 's And talking of @TheGreek, I'll add this here because otherwise I am bound to forget to tell him! The hatch is fixed with magnets: Shamelessly stealing from, I think, @Jabba_the_gut , there is a slight dip cut in the rebate. So to open, just press here and it will pop up the other side: Saves getting the kitchen knife out... Just waiting the replacement barrel jack socket and this will be shipped back to Mick

That's coming on very nicely indeed! Great work.

That's beautiful. It has so many things I like about it... Bravo!

Just something that happens sometimes. When you fret strings at the dusty end , you are basically bending them to the equivalent of the action height. Think what the pitch of a bass string does if you bend it 2 or 3 mm So all the intonation drop back distance of each of the saddles from scale length is doing, is compensating for them sharpening as you fret down. The amount each string sharpens depends on the action height, the string tension, string material and no doubt other stuff. Usually, the G sharpens the least and so the saddle usually ends up not much more than a mm past the scale length. The thicker strings usually sharpen more so tend to have to drop the saddles back more. But if, eg, you have a particularly high tension G and a low tension D, then that may end up the other way round. So it just depends. Just looked at the Nanyo save I've just finished for @TheGreek - and that's just like that... the D is forward from the G and the E is forward from the A

The first full scratch-build is a very special moment. You've done it well

Well - other than I'm going to recommend to @TheGreek that I order a replacement barrel jack for it (it works - but it crackles when you really start rocking!), it's finished. Hatch fitted and magnets installed; frets polished; fretboard cleaned and oiled; bridge fitted; bass set up; sound check completed Here it is:

By the way, I've used this type of decal recently. They are fantastic and much better than the traditional waterslide decal...but it can be a bit of a shock how gossamer thin they are. Do R&F send a spare? The guys I bought off do and if so, it's worth trying it out first - I tried my spare one out on the kitchen worktop to the evident delight of MrsAndyjr1515. I found that the technique was subtly different to the normal 'airfix' type. With 'airfix' I got into the habit of sliding the decal off the backing paper. This does not work with these newer type. With these it's more about sliding the paper off the decal. I found the easiest was to lightly hold the one end in position, then smoothly pull the backing from the other side, continuing to hold the other end in place and so keeping the decal under tension. Same with straightening wrinkles - gently pulling the wrinkle out from the edges, again keeping the decal under tension. That said, I was delighted with the results and would certainly favour this type over the older type for future projects.

Ah - Ok. In which case your original plan is a good one

Lovely job

Hi Personally, I would go simpler, assuming it's a normal decal and that it doesn't specifically exclude tru-oil (which would be very surprising - tru-oil is exceptionally unreactive)... If I was using Tru-oil for the neck, personally I would also use tru-oil for the headstock too. It will take a number of coats to soak into the wood and start to build to a shine, but once that's done, the decal should adhere perfectly well. Once the decal is on and dried, a few new coats of tru-oil, allowed to dry between each coat, will seal the decal perfectly well.

Excellent stuff, @Jabba_the_gut

Have to yet do the final fit, but I reckon mission accomplished, @TheGreek ?

Don't get too excited - the bridge isn't fixed yet and I haven't started on the back cover or the frets tidy-up, but with most of the rest done, thought it was worth a quick mock-up. I know I say this about all of @TheGreek 's builds and saves, but this is one of my favourites :

Something I was aware of was how narrow the headstock is on the Nanyo. So how was that going to work ref string runs? Well, you live and learn... A quick internet search revealed the answer - which I'm sure many of you already knew, but I didn't: Yup - two of the tuners are fitted upside down and strung from the other side. Well, I'm not going to steal THAT idea And the neck headstock screw holes confirmed this. This is how it looks from the back: And - for good measure - from the front: So a couple of side issues occupied my thoughts for a while. First - what to do with the donor body now a big chunk of wood has been taken off to repair the lower horn issue and all the electrics and remaining hardware is now off: Second issue is the replacement control cover. Mick had asked me to try to match the colour of the new body as far as I could rather than going with a contrasting colour. Closest I had in my bits pile was some mahogany sheeting. Close but still a bit dark once the finish is on (eg the dampened patches here): Hmmm....I wonder where I could get some wood of the same species? Altogether now, Pantomime style: "IT'S BEEEEEHIND YOU!!!!! So one of my jobs this morning is seeing if I can take a 3mm hatch-sized slice off the donor body on my modest but reasonably accurate bandsaw

Yes - I agree with @BassBunny Can be interesting to experiment with different pickup heights for the two - you may well find a sweet spot combination of heights that suits your style and rig.

After cleaning a few decades of crud off them, I installed the pickups. Certainly some mojo with that string rub! Then the transfer of the main circuits followed be a tap test to make sure it was still all working: Then remember the template I took before veneering? Well - as it happens, that was only useful for finding the bridge earth hole - the bridge off the donor is a different type...a 5 screw one: So, once the neck and the machine heads are on, I'll recheck the position of the bridge and install from fresh. But knowing where the bridge earth hole is important - and, trust me, you would never find it without the paper template! Nowadays, I solder the earth wire to a piece of sticky-backed copper tape for good electrical contact: So, all being well, neck, tuners and bridge will be fitted tomorrow

Came back from Scotland with a stinker of a cold. Good news is that it gives me the perfect excuse to sit in the spare room tinkering with stuff. The reconditioned body came without screw inserts so I tapped them out of the donor body and cleaned them up with some dampened micro-mesh cloth. In spite of the cold, I could still smell strong nicotine off these tiny bits of metal. Makes you remember what pubs and clubs used to be like! This afternoon I will probably transfer the electrics. Using a tap test, I've checked it all works and it seems OK. There are quite a few wires you have to unsolder and so one of the most essential things is to take a photo and a note of which wires go where. No matter how confident you are of remembering...

The neck is drying after its penultimate light-slurry-and-buff. In the meantime, I have copper shielded the control chamber ahead of transferring the electronics: The electronics and cover are planned to come from the donor body. And there was a little surprise waiting: Pity in a way because this one has the SGC Nanyo stuff on it but, I have a number of wood plates in my bag of bits that I can thickness and cut to shape. I'll consult with Mick what wood he wants - including maybe this nice piece of (I think) cocobolo that would explode with colour depth once it was sanded and buffed up:

Back from a week in the Scottish Highlands. 7 hour drive back but the first thing that I saw, despite being completely kn******d, when I opened the door was @TheGreek 's bass and it made me smile Today, I've been stripping back the test stain and doing the full stain on the neck, followed by a couple of coats of Danish Oil. It'll take a couple more to fully seal the wood and the stain and then I will 'satin' it with a very light slurry-and-buff. Then it should be just a case of transferring the electrics, polishing up the frets and reassemble. The plan was to stain the neck to a similar depth of colour of the unstained wood body with a colour tone different but complimentary to the top and back. In that the final finishing will soften everything a touch and the neck will end up the same satin look as the body, I'm quite chuffed with this. What I'm particularly pleased with is that - certainly in real life - it looks more like a well cared-for original rather than a full blown contemporary makeover. Excepting last minute surprises, ETA is that it should be all sorted before the end of this coming week.

Beautiful job. I have a soft spot for all things Westone Thunder