Manton Customs

Tone wise there is a little bit of extra brightness to me with the SS wire, they can also feel a bit slicker too when you bend a string. But mainly it’s about the durability as SS frets will last a seriously long time. They’re a little harder to work with but it’s generally over exaggerated as long as you’ve got decent enough tools.

Ok here goes. I don’t know your experience and don’t mean to sound like I’m not giving you credit of having any knowledge, so please don’t take it that way! How do you know the depth of the truss rod and are you aware they are routed into a curved channel on the vast majority of basses? So if it doesn’t look close at the adjustment end, it may get quite close at the middle of the neck. Its most likely the profile shape which makes the neck feel like a baseball bat rather than the actual thickness, so you can safely alter this without touching the wood directly above the truss rod rout. Though you would probably be safe to reduce the thickness by a mm or two above the rout, you should take great care and check with a magnet throughout. Some Fender necks have as little as 3 mm of wood above the rod at the middle. If you go through to the rout the neck is finished. Whatever you do, do not use a router. It’d be complete overkill and would not create a finished shape. Some people use a round over bit as the very first step on an uncarved blank just to remove some bulk and then continue with safer tools to get the profile right (but the video above has taken it a step further). The actual amount of wood you’ll need to remove from your already carved neck will be surprisingly small and it’d be very easy to take too much off, slip up etc with a router. It’d only take about an hour using hand tools anyway. If you did want to use a router, you’d have to come up with a jig for the bearing to ride against like the one in the video (may even be a pin router) and it’d still need finishing by hand. So if you’ve got some experience, you could definitely do this with hand tools but leave the router alone and don’t try and take too much off the middle. You shouldn’t have any problems with the neck warping, I never have on the necks that I’ve shaved down anyway. Hope this helps without sounding too condescending

I was making a pickguard for one of my basses recently so thought I'd take a few pics along the way in case anyone else might want to have a go at making one. I'll be using a router, but if you don't have access to one it's easy enough to make a guard without one and the steps would be similar. I'm making this one for one of my own builds which is a Walnut bodied 50's Precision style bass, this is the first 50's style one I've done but intend to do more, so I'm going to be using a template for repeatability. I first draw my pickguard on the body, I'm using a chalk pen here which cleans off very easily and can also write on a finished bass. You could also use a chinagraph pencil or anything else which fits the bill. Ignore the inner lines here, that's for the chambering which I've yet to cut. Next I lay a piece of clear Acetate on top of the body and using a DVD/CD pen I trace onto the Acetate from the line beneath. You could skip step one and draw directly onto the Acetate, but I prefer to draw onto the body first so I can see it clearly and don't have to worry about creases or positioning too much. Then I cut the Acetate out and transfer that onto a piece of 1/2" ply wood. This will be my template for the router to follow, if you don't have a router, I'd still advise to use a template but you could use much thinner Ply, or even thick card. Then the ply is cutout, if you've only got hand tools - a coping saw, file and sanding block would be all you need. You can see I changed my design slightly where that black line is towards the top. I've also drilled all the mounting holes so I can use these to index the template. The neck pocket the area around the control plate are rough at this stage, we'll take care of them next. Here's the router (with wide base attached for stability) and a bottom bearing guided bit. I attach the template using a couple of the mounting holes, then use the router on the basses neck pocket walls to cut the template flush to the pocket. Now I rough cut the pickguard, I used a bandsaw with a fine blade, but you could use a jigsaw, scroll saw, or a coping saw if you're using hand tools. Then the template is attached to the rough cut pickguard using double sided tape (you could also use the mounting screws) and cut using the router and the two bits here. One is a bearing guided flush cutting bit, the other is the bevel cutter which cuts a very neat bevel onto the pickguard. If you were using handtools you would use a file and scraper to get both the correct shape and the bevel. I actually follow up a with scraper if there's any little bits which need taking care of, but usually it's pretty good straight from the router. Then I polish the edge with 0000 steel wool. Next I countersink the mounting holes. I use the drill press and set a depth stop, so that every countersunk hole is the same depth. The finished pickguard! The bass body now finished and with its chambers cut And the finished article! Hope this has been of some help, or at least mildly interesting!

I was talking about the possibility of this bass using a similar construction to that of the 70s Gibsons. I was just using Gibson as an example of another manufacturer doing a similar thing (except without the MDF).

https://www.wood-database.com/european-beech/ https://www.wood-database.com/english-oak/ Check out the averaged dried weights @Grangurcompare it to some other woods like Ash and Maple too. You might be surprised.

Unless I’m missing something, nothing would need to be inlaid. It’d be just a case of laminating enough thin (which means much cheaper) wood to make the central core. Then they can cut out the “tone chambers” with a jigsaw or similar. Then glue the top and back on. Not sure what type of tools they have there but for a small shop this would actually be quicker than routing out chambers, which would have to be done in multiple passes and still require a top to seal them. It would also save money as the timber wouldn’t be body blank prices. Some 70s Gibson’s (known a pancake bodies) were made like this to save on costs of full thickness Mahogany. As to whether or not it’s MDF, I can’t tell from the pics.

Glad to see you putting it to good use already!

Kind of a grassy smell to me. Not unpleasant but quite strong. Genuine Mahogany on the other hand smells really nice (to me), like an old fashioned antique-y smell.

Nice score! It's harder to find thicker stuff like that, it's often 20 mm ish. If it's genuinely old (early 1900s) it'll likely be Honduran and way better than what you can get nowadays. If it's a bit later from like the 60's onwards it could be Sapele....I'm obviously generalising a bit here. If you've worked with Sapele before you'll recognise the smell.

Yep it's useful stuff. It won't touch modern Polyester but will dissolve Nitro in seconds and partially break down an oil finish also. It'll harm most plastics too, like pickguards, side dots etc....I don't think any of that applies in this case, but perhaps worth mentioning to add to the thread!

Yep, you can use long scale - looks like crap and could potentially lead to string breakages as your bending the "fat bit" at quite a steep angle...but you can - and probably a lot of people do. But if you like Prosteels, they do those in medium scale.

D’addario make a few different sets for medium scale, or you can go to Newtone strings and get your own custom gauge set made for you for the price of a standard set!

Its quicker, more dramatic and easier than using Ammonia. Plenty of info on google, it’s not really the vinegar that reacts with the wood - you mix the steel wool with the vinegar and leave for a while. This dissolves the steel wool to some extent and creates iron acetate, which reacts with the tanin in the wood. Species with a lot of tanin in (like Oak) will turn nearly black. Padauk obviously doesn’t have very much as the solution did very little to the boards I have here. However you can add tanin to wood which is lacking it by soaking in dark tea, but I’m sure it won’t give the effect like Marcos boards. As far as Oak being heavy...it is heavy sure, but no more than the majority of woods used in luthiery, it’s lighter than Padauk for example and about the same as Maple if you conpare the average dried weights.

Either alcohol or acetone will both dissolve the ink, careful not to spread it about though. I’m presuming it’s already natural wood if you’re going to oil it. If it’s not already bare, the finish will have to come off anyway before oiling, so just sand it. To be honest that’s probably the best bet anyway as you’ll need to sand it to a high level before oiling. Use a soldering iron or a clothes iron to remove the dents caused by the pen as mentioned above.

Looks really cool, I especially like the contrast between the top and sides! Shame the grey doesn't run very deep, though I didn't think it would. I imagine it would take quite a while to go grey like that, usually it just goes to a Mahogany ish colour and loses the brilliant orange quite fast. Have you ever experimented with ageing wood with steel wool and vinegar Marco? It can give a similar effect to that grey Padauk on some woods. Basically it reacts with the Tannins in the wood and gives an aged look similar to wood that's been left out in the sun. You can see it on the neck (Maple) of this guitar I did a while ago, it's more bronzey, but that's mostly due to the finish on top, before that it was grey-er....I just tried it on Padauk though and it didn't work!

Doesn’t look too severe, a washer or two under the truss rod nut would likely buy you back enough adjustment to get it straight.

If you find anything good let me know and I can help you recoup your massive 20 Euro outlay ;).

Nice haul :). Are the Padauk tops figured at all?

Yes, it can likely be saved, but a picture looking down the neck would be helpful to illustrate the bow. If the truss rod is maxed out, a washer can be fitted under the truss rod nut to buy back some more turns. If it's twisted it'll need straightening by a luthier who has experience doing this, but avoid anyone who mentions using steam. The crack at the back is also reasonably common and can also be glued up/filled.

You can use EMGs/active pickups without an onboard preamp, so you could keep the standard vol/vol/tone controls of a PJ setup. But you can’t use the pickups without a battery as this powers the pickups themselves (which have an internal preamp). So you wouldn’t be able to do the active/passive thing. The majority of ‘active basses’ have an active preamp with passive pickups.

If it is Nitro one explanation could be you have particularly acidic sweat, which wouldn’t effect a poly finish, but it can some Nitro finishes. Nitrocellulose is an evaporative finish which never cures chemically, so can always be dissolved (which your sweat may partially be doing). If you decide you want to remove it, rather than scuff it you can use Acetone. It’s one of the solvents for Nitro, so brings it off very easily. Careful though as it also melts plastic like binding and side dots, so mask off first and be very careful! Just use a rag dampened with it...not a flood of it and don’t go too close to the masked off area. Best case scenario is the neck has Poly undercoat (the “nitro” finished fender bodies do), which Acetone wouldn’t touch, so you wouldn’t need to refinish it after and should solve your stickiness problem. Obviously stripping it is a drastic cure though which would ruin the resale value. But thought that info may be useful if you did decide to.

It’s more commonly called Ipe over here...confusingly it’s not actually a Walnut at all! It’s mega hard and heavy so should last well as a fretboard. Though being so hard and oily you may struggle to get a nice result with dye.

Ah, I presumed you already had the bass. Maybe post a thread in the basses section asking for someone helpful with one of those basses and a magnet to check for you. It may be more productive there, as I doubt anyone over this section will know for sure. I've had a few through the shop but can't say I ever checked the length of the truss rod! How are you planning on detaching and reattaching the neck? Are you intending on doing the work yourself?

A magnet should help with this.

Yes, you’d fit the new locks as you suggested, using wood glue and dowels to fill the holes. Make sure it’s a wood to wood contact and there’s no finish in the hole before gluing the dowel. For the dowels you can buy hardwood dowels online in a few different species, “Plug It” is the name of one site, but there are plenty of others. Depending on the size and what they have available, you might need to pick a slightly larger size and sand/scrape to fit. Done correctly it should be plenty strong enough. Then saw off and scrape/sand flush...without damaging the finish surrounding it (use masking tape to start with) ...or what @ped said! Dunlop dual designs all the way for me.