RonC

Wow!!! what a stunning bass!! Absolutely beautiful!! enjoy it!!

Almost the end of may… is it finished?? I’m dying to see the end result!!

Thanks!! those frequencies sound indeed far more usable! (I don’t even hear anything anymore above the 15kHz…)

Does anyone here has experiences with the Darkglass tone capsule preamp? For the bass I’m building right now I’m gonna use a Lace Aluma bass Barr pickup (at the stingray position) and the Darkglass preamp looks quite interesting to me.

I just added a transformer to the preamp so the balanced output is working now too. soundsamples will follow soon now!

That's what i thought also, when i had Paul made me a new body (2011) I wasn't able to make one myself, plus the fact that if Paul would build it it would be an all original Wal again. Ever since i started at a luthiers school in 2018 i had thoughts if i could restore this body, cause its a really nice piece of wood with a beautiful centre stripe, but there's to many wood missing on crucial places to make something nice of it again... It's a shame but now i'm glad i've got some cash for it so i can use it for the new build!

In the end it’s just a piece of wood…

I've thought about that too but not only the horns are cut off, the upper- and end part of the centre piece (below the armrest) is also partly cut off, that makes it difficult... i think you can only use is when the body is fully covered with lacquer.. so i think its easier to build an entire new body....

My new build will be a fretless, headless 5 sting neck through. 5 piece neck: 3x wenge, 2x padouk. Swamp ash body with padouk top. Black hardware (not decided yet which) and one Lace Aluma Bass Bar PU at the stingray position. Model will be inspired by the NS Design radius bass, still have to work that out.. .

Well, the demolished body is finally sold.. still got a nice price for it, money i can use for my new build! Very curious what the new owner is gonna do with it! Hopefully he can make something nice out of it.

Around 530km (1060 in total) to trade a Wal for a Wal! From my hometown in the Netherlands to Hull, I booked a minicruise for it. We swapped basses at a parking lot!

Great job Rob!! always nice to see your process, love it!

My Fretless Safran has a hidden PU underneath the end of the fretboard. The pole pieced go through the fretboard so you can adjust them. There's also a piezo under the bridge saddle, mixed with a John East MPM preamp, this combination is great!

I only build around 5 or 6 hrs a week at the luthier school, i started with this bass about a year ago. I think about 40 weeks or so, so that makes around 200-240 hrs. I still have to learn a lot so I’m not the fastest builder… 😉

Thanks for the compliments! it was quite a tough job, especially planing the ebony facings, but it was a joy to make! I indeed used maple for the inlay. I made a logo design in Illustrator and had it laser cutted. I have a box full of them now so i can use them on all of my basses. The cool thing about ebony is that its easy to retouch with ebony dust and superglu (or glu boost).