Andyjr1515

Yes - a dot of paua:

And I remembered another reason when I did the plain topped ones. I thought I'd have a go and found a way of changing the long drill without losing the settings. Glued the three piece sandwich last night and did these this afternoon. The problem is, my cheap diamond pipe cutter generates a lot of heat...and titebond softens with heat. What came out of the pipe cutter were 3 seperate pieces and some soft, molten glue!

Here are the plain knobs - they will lighten a touch when the oil has dried. @SpondonBassed - please note that I SOMETIMES take notice of what you say ref the background The comparison is here: Personally, I prefer the plainer ones on the actual bass - my eye is drawn to the top and not the knobs - but, whatever, Neil will be given both sets

I think I would be rightly accused by @Norris of plagiarism

Yes - that's my thought. When you add the pattern of the knobs, I wonder if you lose just a smidgen of the bookmatch pattern effect of the body. The plain poplar alternative is the same wood but without the pattern and is identical to the headstock - it may counter that effect and also visually tie the headstock to the body. The nice thing is that I can do both and present Neil with a simple ' do you prefer this or that' and give him the spares anyway By the way, all in, this is 6lbs 6oz at the moment. Less a bit of final finish sanding and plus a bit of finish oiling, that will be pretty much the finished weight.

Slurry and buff certainly - but possibly using the Osmo for the slurry and buffing. I've done that once before and it worked well. It works pretty much the same but there is no possibility of a colour difference between the neck-neck colour and the thru-neck colour.

Again, don't be fooled - it's not as near done as it looks! But we are on the home straight. I've said before that I have a slightly unconventional way of going about things. Probably much less efficient than many, but it reduces the risk of me knack****g the functionality for style or vice-versa! The top hasn't been finally shaped yet - it's a bit flat-topped and thicker than final target. But making sure that it is going to be straight and intonate OK and just how much to lower the top where the bridge sits are all guestimates until the actual hardware and strings are in place. So that's generally what I do - I string it up and then I can see exactly what leeway I have, or what tweaks I need to make: The bridge area can drop down up to 3mm safely and the curvature from the centre line to the 'f' hole can increase a touch. The spacing (adjustable on this bridge) will be tweaked a touch to get the G just a little closer to the fretboard edge at the 24th. While it's strung up (these are temporary strings) I will also finish shape and sand the neck - being able to play it and really feel how the curvature of the profile works at all parts of the neck as I fine tune the shape makes a huge difference to judging when it's right. Last this is that I can see whether those knobs enhance or distract - I'm doing a second set to be able to do a live A/B comparison where the tops are the plainer poplar (same as the headstock plate). @Len_derby will have both sets and will be able to swop them around as often as he wants I'm hoping to do that extra sanding over the next few days and start the finishing process at the weekend - Osmo Polyx Satin is on its way as I type

Excellent! Like the decal - LOVE the overall colour scheme

Hi Could do it either way but my press drill is a small Proxxon one and the spindle depth travel is limited. With the central hole being 9.5mm, it is a long drill but the pipe drill is short. The extra thickness of pre assembling would mean I would need to loosen the coarse height adjustment clamps between the twist drill use and pipe drill and then risk losing the concentricity of the OD and spindle.

And they're done, barring another couple of coats of finish:

I agree with @Norris here. In my earlier days, and in total ignorance of there being such things as Forstner bits, I used spade cutters once or twice for this job - highly dodgy to be honest, with lots of potential for unwanted problems

In terms of making the control knobs, I used the same method as my first attempts with Jane's lightweight electric. For the backs, with my press drill locked in position, I drilled a hole for the 6mm grub-screw collet to fit into from some ash offcut with rosewood veneer glued on the back : Then a forstner to create the rebate for the pot nut and washer: Then my panel-hole cutter: Leaving me with a back, with all drill cuts concentric: Then glued the poplar burl tops and cut the assembly to height, ready for insertion of collet, drilling of side grubscrew access hole, installing of position dot and final shaping, which are the next jobs on the list:

Neat routing, b******d bearing or not!

Excellent news

Thanks, Neil and all you others. I was doing so well until the end of the England match when, in the excitement, I went down and cut a few bits of wood: "Oh no - he's not going to try an make his own knobs again, is he???"

Far too many to count. Let's just say that I now fully understand the lyrics of one of the more irritating Beatles songs in their portfolio - and most of the answers posed in said number are, in reality, 'no'.

Nope - for a live interview (NOT an easy thing to do - especially a long one) much better than most. And very interesting indeed. Full marks Andy

As you can see from the bobbly lines, I still have the final sanding of the neck to do and will finish off the volute at the same time - but this is pretty much where I want it to be in general terms: Not quite as butt-ugly as its creator

It reminded me of 'sad monkey'

I'll beat the inevitable responses from our other friends - if it's the former, then it would be truly an image in one's own likeness Happily, it should look nothing like me once it's finished...

Another one off the list - and one of my least favourite ones. Fitting the tuners. And fitting tuners shouldn't be as fiddly as it often seems to be. Also - a bit of a repetitive gripe - hmmm, I do like Schaller but... They make some REALLY nice products Their customer service, in my experience, is FIRST CLASS BUT they often don't seem to check how difficult it is to fit their own products. And they often don't provide the basics to allow the fitting to be done successfully and/or easily. The worst case of this was this piezo Hannes bridge. Flagship product. Total nightmare to fit. And I pretty much know what I'm doing! And I've got lots of standard and obscure tools. And I still needed to buy another specialist drill bit. Yes - a drill bit!!!! : Looks nice. Until you see the back: ..and then read the instructions of how to bolt it, and the instructions of how to string it, and the complete lack of any reference, whatsoever, of what you do with all the piezo wires and collector block - important in the context of the 10 or so precision drill holes (tenth mm precise at the guitar top and tenth mm precise at the guitar back after drilling through 30mm of wood or, trust me, it isn't going to fit) you've already drilled perilously close to each other and very perilously close to where the piezo wires are going to have to be. Anyway...I've taken a few more pills and calmed down a bit. And compared with a Hannes bridge, fitting a Schaller pegged tuner is, I suppose, a doddle. But is it asking too much - and surely it wouldn't be too much trouble - to pop a little piece of paper in the box with a full size drawing of the centres of the bush and two pegs to use as a template? Anyway, for what it's worth, this is what I do nowadays with pegged tuners if I don't have a template or the exact dimensional drawing to hand (and trust me - you can't measure the actual item accurately enough): I drill a hole for the bush in a thin piece of hardwood. I pop a drop of paint, or snowpake or wet sharpie ink on the pegs, pop the bush on, tighten until the pegs touch : I drill the peg holes on a drill press to ensure they are vertical and test fit the tuner. I then use this, with a bush pressed through the template and headstock hole, as the drill guide: Then, if everything is flat, square and vertical, the tuners should fit without having to 'ease' out the peg holes at all: Anyway, that's how I do it. And maybe it's just me that finds pegged tuners a PITA... Next job is carving that slightly ugly volute

Yes - where the fretboard is over the body, there is only room for the 3mm versions. Albeit I did them vertically (as there was no raised fretboard - the body curve was the fretboard) I did the same thing on Mick's Psilos: I put the small dots on Neil's fretboard before gluing it on. Don't fret (like the pun?) about the glue line, by the way - the joint hasn't been scraped yet:

And another one off the list. And I remembered that it's best to install the luminlay dots before the final sanding of the neck! Some folks make their own, but with the material coming in stick form, it is SO easy to install: ...and looks SO good once it has been, especially the black bound version. Makes great daylight and low light visibility even if you don't charge them up for the glow:

And another 1.5 items off the list. Just-a-nut positioned and back glued, and ebony trussrod cover cut. This will be secured with a single small magnet once the headstock plate has been finish-sanded: