Andyjr1515

I took off the pickguard, I'll admit, with a bit of trepidation. Was it hiding something horrible? Actually, no - not bad at all. The gap round the pickup can easily be covered with a normal-sized pickup ring; the couple of snail trails (reminder to always use a pillar drill wherever possible when drilling metal) are insignificant; a few surplus holes that maybe can be disguised but, in any case, would be invisible at stage-to-audience distance. Cutting straight lines in aluminium as thick as this is immensely difficult - this is pretty darned good So...to the tailstock. Stop tails on basses are not that common - and there is no commonality across makers. The bushing hole centres do actually match one version of the Hipshot T-o-M ish set...but not the one most commonly available. And the price is eye-watering. So @Happy Jack and I agreed that the only practical first step was to see if I could mod the one he had supplied. But that would mean filing and drilling aluminium alloy away. And that means that, wherever the filing was done, the black powder-coating would be no longer. So I had a ponder. @Happy Jack and @Silvia Bluejay were on the road at the time and our dialogue was being carried out by text via (one hopes) the non-driver. You can imagine the discussion in the car: 'Jack - Andyjr1515 say's he's having a ponder!' 'On no! Not a ponder!' 'Yes - I know...' 'He says if you can't hide it, then you must flaunt it.' 'Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo' ** (** As heard by a pedestrian patiently waiting to cross the road)

@Happy Jack wanted to change it from a 5 string (it originally had a modified 4-string neck - see original thread above) and so promised to send a couple of possible necks and most of the other related hardware, etc, to me to assess and, if it could be done, to get on and start doing it. So how to send a big lump of aluminium and a couple of necks?? The DPD man, when he arrived at the door, gave me a 'WTF?' look...but then we agreed that this was actually a splendid way of sending a large, heavy parcel. Has its own carrying handle! Protected. Weatherproof. Padded. Tear-proof And here it was! An amazing piece of engineering - have a look at @6feet7's original thread. It is hollow, made up of multiple components, ali-welded together. But you would never know - the grinding off of the main front/back weld line is completely invisible. The swirl finish of the top is very impressive... @Happy Jack sent me his preferred 4 string T-o-M bridge and stoptail and challenge 1 was that the post centres were not the same as the pre-drilled bush holes. I did some googling, based on that a different T-o-M type might be a better option than to mod the one sent - but no joy...the stop tail was going to need a major mod, and the T-o-M bridge a smaller one. The right hand side has a 2mm sliding bolt arrangement, but the mismatch was more like 3mm. But as you can see - the stop tail would need to be a major mod if this was going to be used: So out with the heavy gear...they don't call me Bodgers Rogers for nothing!!!

There are builds on this forum that make me go WOW! Builds that are SO different, or so challenging, or so intriguing that I remember why it is that my own build journey has often veered towards the 'bet that can't be done' project gauntlets that are occasionally thrown my way. Occasionally, I even get to see these in the flesh - the regional Bassbashes are great for this And now and again I have been flattered to be asked to assess, or tweak, or mod one of these marvels - either for the original owner or to suit a new owner. One such opportunity has come to me in the last few days - and has to rank a bit of a pinnacle in clambering up the learning mountain. Many of you will remember @6feet7 's remarkable Alumibird 5. If you missed it, his build thread is here. It was an awesome project in the literal sense as well as in the vernacular: Well - to cut a long story short, @6feet7 put it up for sale in the marketplace here recently - and @Happy Jack bought it And @Happy Jack has asked me if I would consider doing some of the tweaks on it he was considering to suit his own playing style and gigging needs. Now, with me having immediately bitten his hand off, he'll need to sort out some prosthetic alternative before he will be able to play it - but my answer was, of course, YYYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've lost days in there in the past...

Love those, @Jimothey

Yes - looking good

Slurry and buffed tru-oil works well on many fretboard woods.

I think this one is rosewood. Pau Ferro is generally quite orange.

There you go - brain back in gear and...yes I had got it right in any case! So, theoretically, if you loosened it 'x' number of turns then it should tighten back 'x' number of turns without maxing out (on a single action rod, maxing out is usually where it runs out of thread). From the above text, I assume you have taken the neck off. If so (you can do this method fitted, but it's much easier off) try this: - Build two piles of books or magazines (couple of inches high is fine) and space them apart at a distance equal to 1st fret to 16th fret - place the neck upside down (fretboard at the bottom) on the two piles, lined up broadly with the 1st and 16th frets - with one hand, press vertically down on the neck in the middle of the unsupported length - hard enough for it bow a couple of mm of so - while still holding it down, use your other hand to see if the adjuster will now tighten a touch **basically, your hand pressure is now doing the job that the truss rod was trying to do and relieving the tension on it. This should make the adjuster much easier to turn ** - if, with that hand pressure, the nut is still stuck fast, then STOP and seek further thoughts here. - if, though, it now will move, then repeat the above process until you reckon it is back to where it was before you first loosened it. Then string it up, tune it up and then see if your relief is back to where it originally was

**deleted** might have got my up's and down's the wrong way round! Will repost when I have a moment

Great job indeed! Looks lovely

Standard 0.6mm veneer will normally work fine.

Because the original P-basses always had maple necks (with either rosewood or maple fretboards) I'm pretty sure a mahogany one would be an out and out special. The cheapest I know where I have yet to come across a duff one are the two (maple and rosewood fretboarded) shape-your-own-headstock offerings from Gear4Music: https://www.gear4music.com/bass-guitars/accessories/parts-spares?page=1&filters[238]=3363&_gl=1*vcm0je*_up*MQ..*_ga*OTUxOTMxNjYyLjE3MTkzMzU1NzY.*_ga_0WF1R5QW3K*MTcxOTMzNTU3NS4xLjEuMTcxOTMzNTYwNS4wLjAuMTE4MDQ5MjE2Ng.. In that it usually costs me getting on for £200 just for the uncut timber for a neck, these - at £55 and £45 respectively - are stunning value...

Yes - if it's a relatively new bass, it is worth talking to them sooner rather than later in any event. It is very unusual for a truss rod on a relatively new bass to seize. Let us know how you get on.

If it's outside warranty, then my advice would be to just carry on playing it. It is entirely possible that the rod will not need adjusting over the life of the bass - especially if you tend to use the same gauge and make of strings. If the relief subsequently becomes a problem, then that will the time to consider doing something about it.

Many thanks for the endorsement, @3below Sadly, I am going to have to pass on this one but yes - if the nut is stripped and it's still seized, then that is probably the only way round it.

Great to see it on a guitar!

Superb

Wow - that's a thread from the past. It's entirely optional. A good quality beeswax polish can add some extra 'zip' if the player does a lot of quick movements up and down the fretboard. On some of my own fretboards I've used it, but most of the time I find the standard slurry-and-buff fast enough.

And so to the levelling, re-crowning and polishing. The fretwire I have used was a touch higher profile than the originals and so there was quite a bit of levelling to do to get them down to the levels of the original frets. The good thing, though, was that there would be negligible loss of overall fret height from the original in the final levelled board. I used my levelling beam and a radius block with emery cloth stuck on with two-sided tape to do the initial levelling. Because the fret gaps were now so small, my usual fret rocker was not much use and I had to improvise with a cut-up old store-card: For the fret re-crowning, I started with a Hosco crowning file and then used one of the excellent Chris Alsop diamond crowning files, first just by itself, and then with 400 & 800 emery papers, using the same file as a former, and then 4000; 6000; 8000; 12000 micromesh cloths** done the same way: Hard work** but a pleasing result: Finally, I mixed some macassar ebony dust with some clear epoxy and filled the new tang cut gaps at the fret-ends: So a bit of tidying up and re-oiling of the fretboard and a final check that the fret levels are all as they should be and it should be ready to return to @PaulThePlug **So that's 42 frets each having treatment from 8 passes - a total of 336 passes altogether. Many of you know that : 1. I play sax 2. I have hand arthritis slowly creeping up on me which is already starting to impact on 1. above 3. With 1. & 2. combined, I usually reckon that a normal fret job puts me out of action on the sax for a week Well, 336 passes - I reckon that will probably knock the sax out for the rest of the month! Word has got around and my local Village Community Association have asked me to pass on their sincere gratitude and thanks for this unexpected but welcome period of peace to @PaulThePlug

Probably something similar to what your lad will say when he tries to find Am. Or more like OFH!!!!

Frets in and new fret-ends being filed: So, with that done we have all the frets now ready for levelling, re-crowning and polishing. Oh, goodness...HOW many frets???????

Paul and I had a number of online discussions about the fret arrangement. Some players pick the microtones at particular fret positions so that they are usable for specific scales and this makes it easier not to get lost on the fretboard, but Paul has opted for the full set For hand cutting frets, I use a radius block clamped to the fretboard giving me an accurate 90 degree face for the saw to be positioned up to. Done it a number of times before but that first cut is always a bit scary! : Phew! This part of the project went fairly quickly: Next job, fitting the frets

OK - confession time. When @PaulThePlug asked if I could convert a Squier guitar neck to a micro-tonal my answer was, of course, 'Yes!' Followed very quickly by the question, 'Er...and just what is a microtonal neck??' And there began a journey into a world previously unknown to me. Bands like King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard and their album Microtonal Flying Banana, Turkish traditional string instruments, etc, etc. Fascinating. The practicality...adding a half pitch between each semitone. I used the excellent on-line github FretFind2D program to work out the fret positions: Being non-standard (from a Western point of view) arrangement, it was going to need to be hand marked and slotted. We discussed whether it was easier to just ad a fret bang in the middle of each fret pair but, even though the human ear probably isn't capable of hearing the difference, nevertheless - as all measurements need to be done from the nut in anycase - it was just as easy to measure the correct scale positions. The hand marking was done with an accurate steel rule and a very sharp point! Next job would be cutting the frets!

There's nothing cheating about that!