Manton Customs

8 hours ago, kodiakblair said:

Have I got this right,you think they cut out a square then drop in MDF pieces with the pickups already cut ?

That makes absolutely no sense. It would take the same time to rout out a big section as it would for the pickups. Then they'd be back with the router when the top was added.

 

Been a carpenter 35 years,the MDF pieces would be a huge waste of time and money.

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. 

2 hours ago, Osiris said:

I've used Acetone too before and it works a treat for this sort of job. It evaporates really quickly so you have to work quickly, I just applied some to a rag and worked it over the stain in circles and the stain came up in a few seconds. There were no obvious watermarks either once I'd finished. I'm not sure how the acetone may affect any finish that's already applied to the body but if you're planning to refinish it anyway that shouldn't be a problem. 

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!

3 hours ago, Hellzero said:

Ammonia is aging woods (with just a wet passing) and it's been used for centuries in this purpose. Never heard of vinegar doing this, but you learn everyday.

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.

16 minutes ago, Marcoelwray said:

That, my friend, I will discover it deeper this weekend ! Hard to say, finish is too raw to tell...

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.

1 hour ago, rubis said:

 

 

The fingerboard material is a little unusual....."FINGER BOARD WOOD: Brazilian Walnut - Reclaimed Lumber from The Coney Island Boardwalk"...……..sounds quite cool coming from the Coney Island Boardwalk but from what I can gather, it's a very similar colour, and I had intended to try using brown dye to darken the fingerboard for a more aged look anyway (apparently brown leather dye works well).

 

 

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.

Received some more parts from Marco and he's one of the most generous, efficient people you could hope to deal with! Thanks again Marco.

Depends on what the base of the varnish is. Acetone may work to a certain extent if it’s an oil based varnish or Nitro (not a varnish though) but be careful as it’ll melt any plastics you may have around (including the side position markers!). If it’s polyester or another type of catalyized finish it’s pretty much indestructible to chemicals and scraping will be your best bet.

If you’ve yet to buy the pick guard it might be easier to buy a blank sheet of pg material and take that to a luthier (no I’m not after work!) with a tracing or the old guard. It’s perfectly possible to bevel it after by hand though, it’d just be a bit easier the other way round.

The way a luthier would do it would be to use a router and template. The template is attached to the sheet of pick guard material, the sheet rough cut, then routed flush using a bearing guided cutter. Then with the template still attached but using a different cutter in the router the bevel is cut. This is accurate as everything is already lined up where it should be and fast as it’s just a quick whizz round with the router to cut the bevel. Making a template for an existing pick guard and using the same router method would be a bit of a pain as any tiny discrepancies between template and PG would be obvious in the bevel.

So that would be two options...start from scratch or bevel by hand. If you bevel by hand you’ll find it quicker to use a file to rough it in then a scraper to clean it up. 

Ps the jig looks cool too 😎 

I bought some SD pickups from Marco. I purchased them late one night and they were on their way to me the very next morning! Lightning fast, friendly service and the pickups were as described. Thank you Marco!

Where are you buying your CTS pots for 2 Euros?