Andyjr1515

Next step on the trial was shortening the tuner plate. Out came the junior hacksaw and this was the result: Then I recessed one of the pretend body 'wings' on the joining edge: You can probably see now why the tuner plate needed to be shortened - the upper surface of the wooden block represents the top of the body! What this does, though, is allow the body wings to become the end-stops for the bridge, and therefore the screws are then simply there to hold it in place and not the things that are holding the sting tension. Gluing the 'wing' to the neck assembly, this is how the tuners will sit (at the back of the bass): As can be seen here, there is still plenty of access to the ball-end pullers for stringing up and to the tuner fixing screws: On the same rig, I'm going to put the headstock clamp and a pretend acoustic saddle and 'string it up' After that - and I can probably use the same rig, is working out how to install a hidden magnetic pickup. Then I can start cutting and gluing wood and make Mick a bass! Watch this space!

In between some 'domestic' duties, I did a quick rig of the tuners arrangement to understand better the geometry, angles, access and fixing screw length restrictions. If you remember, the tuner block will be fitted at the back: I got a neck-width lump of wood (at this stage without any 'wings') and fixed the angles as drawn: Here it is from the top - once the wings are on pretty much 7/8ths hidden: Here is how it sits in cross-section: ...and here is the access to the fixing bolts or screws (yet to be decided) and the string ball-end carriers, two of them shown fully extended as if you were about to string up, and two in the playing position: I don't think I can bury the block any deeper because of the rapid reduction of fixing screw length that would result. Strung up (which I will try over the next few days), I think it would look OK, though. Bit more thinking to do and some hacksawing to come....

[quote name='wwcringe' timestamp='1491982730' post='3276865'] AJR ... the Netflix of Basschat, totally addictive builds! Can't wait to see how this turns out!! 😄 [/quote] Haha I'm in a 'thinking' phase at the moment. I'm pretty sure I have worked out the sequence of what needs to be done when,but best to let that simmer and come back to it in a couple of days to make sure there are no 'oh f**k' moments In the meantime, I will do a prototype of the tuner fixing and also a few 'little jobs on other things that have been waiting around'

Looks great, Jez. What's the non-clog file you used?

[quote name='W1_Pro' timestamp='1491762850' post='3275222'] Challenging build that Andy. In the immortal words of David St Hubbins 'I'm sure you'll pull through with great aplomb' Looking forward to seeing this develop. [/quote] Thanks, Stuart Are you sure he didn't say, "I'm sure you'll produce a bass that plays a bit like a plum!"

With the magic of Photoshop, it will fit something like this:

This is where the two body sections will fit: There is a huge amount of offcut waste on an offset shape, especially when you are also bookmatching the figuring. Mind you, it means plenty of sycamore blocks to try to cut out a decent control chamber cover

First real test of the new bandsaw (The 250 sized Axminster Hobby one. Would love to have gone to the next one up - a leap in precision and capability - but this one was the largest I could find that would fit in my very limited cellar work-space. Having said that, it's MUCH better than the trusty old entry-level Clarke I've been using) - cutting out the neck profile: The flat datum is the length of neck that the fretted part of the fretboard will sit on. The 'wobble' you can see is where the frets end and the neck will be gently radiused to allow for some string/body clearance at the playing position - quite important as it is a thru-fretboard. The fretboard will be bent and clamped just aft of the 24th fret position...

Well, still loads of design things to sort but wood has started to be cut and glued! I got some excellent quality maple and ebony inner splices from David Dyke. Here they are being glued up: I only have a thicknesser, so squaring up - easy on a planer-thicknesser (which is designed for that job) - has to be done first by handplane to square it all up and then skimmed back through the thicknesser to get the finish and flatness. I've taken especial care on this one because, if I can, I'd like to get a second (smaller) neck out of the billet - decent quality timber is eye-wateringly expensive! I'm pleased with the result - it's like this on both sides :

[quote name='JPJ' timestamp='1491403753' post='3272765'] and don't forget the extra millimetre or so for sanding [/quote] Yes - I think it will be a case of doing the major stuff and then sanding [i]down[/i] to the sub-mm target There are truly so, so many things that can go disastrously wrong on this build... It's great - just my kind of project

Well....all being well, sawdust will be starting within the next week or so. My workspace is almost sorted and...I have all the wood: It's a bit sobering that you could buy a very nice Classic Vibe or Epi Thunderbird for the price of the raw timber in this picture.... ....especially if it does indeed end up on the barbecue Last design issue to solve, now I have the body thickness sorted, is the hidden magnetic p/up.

And here's a first go at the cross-section to work out the constraint parameters in terms of top and back curvature: What it confirms is that there is only room for two pots plus a barrel jack socket. BUT, Artec do a mini-pot concentric so this can cover blend, master volume, master tone and jack in the three positions above. It also does confirm that the machining and carving is going to need to be sub-mm accuracy Note that the inset fretboard is the same radius as the body at 20"...in fact [i]is [/i]the body....I have ideas whirring around in my head Never a good thing

[quote name='samhay' timestamp='1491307833' post='3271974'] If you are really tight on space, you could split the control cavity. You could put the controls on the other side of the bridge (so you could see them with the bass on) and run the wires to the 'existing' cavity, perhaps via the pickup route. As the buffers would go before the controls, these would be low impedance, so shouldn't pick up much/any noise. [/quote] An interesting thought... Thanks for your interest and input, samhay

You will have noticed that there have been plenty of drawings and not much sawdust yet You will know that many of my builds are in the 'make it up as I go along' ilk, but frankly this one can't be. Stuff that normally would be 'near enough is good enough' is going to need to be sub-mm accurate. Later today, I will be drawing detailed full-size cross-sections of the body. It's a bit chicken and egg - the actual shape will depend on the hardware and configuration. This is the basic conceptual cross-section: The dark-blue rectangle is the neck wood. The body wood is only 1.5" to start with - and I'm going to scoop a significant amount out of the back! Ideally, I want to scoop 0.5" out, leaving a [i]starting [/i]body depth of only 1" (I think a typical Gibson / Fender is 1.75"?) And then I want to slim it down!!! The practical constraints become, therefore, the depth of the pickup and the depth of the pots and battery. Basically, dimensions A and B in the pick above have got to include the: pots/battery size + top thickness + control chamber cover thickness. So basically I have to work backwards - ie, work out the minimum dimensions A and B can possibly be and then I can work out the maximum depth the scoop can be. And then I need to cut wood to the same accuracy. I can almost smell that sycamore-rich barbecue already

[quote name='samhay' timestamp='1491237157' post='3271465'] Nice, but no volume control? [/quote] Maybe...

Thumbs up from Mick on the controls thoughts. It's a spin-off from Nic's Mouradian style where we were trying to hide the Smoothound Tx from the front-view: So what I've got in mind is this: Bearing in mind that the body starts at 1.5" and slims down to nothing, I've got the bulky stuff closer to the neck (pots and battery) and the slim stuff closer to the edge (jack socket and preamp/mixer) with simple blend, master tone and jack socket. Might just work! And if space is still tight, some of the better-makes small pots would also be fine

[quote name='Paul S' timestamp='1491200602' post='3271080'] Question - what is the main objection to using double ball end strings? I find them to be perfectly ok, as is the Steinberger double ball end bridge. Is it simply the lack of choice of strings? [/quote] Hi, Paul I think Mick does have particular preferences for strings but from my point of view it's all about practicality. I may be feeding the strings though small ferrules on the extended fretboard from the back, and I definitely will be feeding them through small ferrules at the headstock - the clamping will be at the back of a headstock rather than the blunt-ended 'conventional' headless arrangement. The plan (if it works out! ) is to keep the front view as clean and minimalist as possible - no tuners, no knobs - just wood and strings. On the knobs front, I've got a great solution I'm just about to bounce off Mick . I'll post a drawing if he's happy with it

[quote name='MoonBassAlpha' timestamp='1491165018' post='3270986'] Are you going with double ball-end strings? [/quote] No - single. The other end is a double clamp system, different to the steinberger.

Just spotted / remembered that Jez (Jabba_the_Gut) toyed around with piezo and magnetic last year on one of his magnificent builds. I'll drop him a line.

The two piezo / magnetic pre-amp / blend systems that seem to have a good reputation are the Bartolini MPB2-918 and the John East MPM 01 Anyone had any experience with either of these?

Neck wood is on order (5 piece - maple/ebony/maple/ebony/maple) as is what I hope to be a nice piece of maple for the extended fretboard. For completeness and comparison, this includes the width of the actual fretboard and also I've put ferrules for the string exit rather than an open chamber (final decision won't be needed until the bass is pretty well carved): The final thing I have to get my head around before I start cutting any wood is the electrics. The ideal is:[list] [*]Undersaddle piezo [*]Hidden magnetic [*]Some form of blend [*]Hidden controls [/list] I've got a number of thoughts about the controls, but blending the piezo and magnetic is still a bit of an unknown and my thoughts on hiding the magnetic pickup is, as yet, unproven... What I am pretty sure is that, whatever, I will need to incorporate a piezo pre-amp. The chamber can be very large area-wise, but it will be very, very slim....

Amazing

Just caught up with the progress photo - it looks splendid!

Many excellent things in this build. Love it