kodiakblair

3 hours ago, LowB_FTW said:

only I'll be using the J-type pickups Reverend uses in it's basses.

Interesting idea Mark 😎

2 minutes ago, Peaty said:

A Question I have for anyone who might know is, what are the pros and cons of a separate battery box over mounting the battery inside the main control cavity ?

Pros.

Only 2 screws to slacken instead of 4.

A few more grams of weight shaved off.

Less chance some ham-fisted oaf can disturb components when prising the clip off the battery.

Cons

There is no universal standard size for 9v batteries. That can cause problems at a really inconvenient time, box was designed for Duracell but you're holding Eveready.

Not an issue with a control cavity mount.

2 hours ago, Peaty said:

although I will splash out on a nice walnut top for it.

I've had some lovely drop tops from these folks.

https://edelholzhandel.com/Amerikanischer-Nussbaum-Black-Walnut

1 hour ago, CavershamBass said:

anyone recommend where in the UK I can get a new scratchplate made for my Lakland Skyline 44-64?

Brian, eBay store "earlpilanz", has a template for the 44-64. He'll email you a PDF to check against yours and save you sending off the original.

It's a Cat 3 size, £42 for standard 3 ply rising to £55 for mirror finish.

You'll find it listed in the description for .

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/114490584526?itmmeta=01KC6FXR70KVEKCGYES866A6MA&hash=item1aa82badce:g:bt8AAOSwloxfnA5O

Stunning 😍

7 hours ago, rwillett said:

Brilliant, Now I know who to ask...

Best have a look at reviews.

There's only 3 so won't take long 🙂  2 of them report poor QC regarding the sizes 😞

2 hours ago, bloke_zero said:

Interesting! I'd have thought it'd be loud as hell - shows what I know 🤣

No, your thinking is sound. It'll go plenty loud, just not the way it's currently hooked up.

Main concern last Friday was practical stuff, had I cut the pickup slots in the right place/ did they fit the cavities/ would the bloody thing make a sound etc 😆

Took the coward's route for wiring, 4 pickups in parallel. Going 2 pairs in parallel or 4 in series will up the output.

Weird.

Followed your link. Left click to highlight address, right click copy then right click paste here. Just pastes the item description header.

Same result with left click, run the mouse, Ctrl-C then Ctrl-V here or when I used Crtl - right click paste.

Now copy/paste is working but only if I skip .html  

@tauzero

You're a star.

No idea how you managed it but you did 🙂 Thanks for putting in the effort, it's much appreciated 👏

@Si600

I gave that a go but got the same result, just a text description.

Thought I'd try again with another browser, healthy reminder why I dumped Google Chrome 😃 Slower than a slow thing and for some reason it's forgot how to auto enter my password.

Sorry folks this is way too much trouble just to save you going to Ali-Ex yourself, entering "Long Shank Diamond Round Micro File" and clicking the one at £1.46 👍

An Aussie bloke had a thread on this over on TalkBS 😀

He'd bought round diamond files from an Ali-Ex tool store, B2 Mold Accessories, and wanted to share his good news. Now as the name suggests, B2 are a tool store selling a wide range of abrasives.

Pretty important point as instead of some joker touting welding tip files to "luthiers" it's a business with a focus on grinding and shaping tools 🙂

Caused a few ruffled feathers with the Stew Mac/Gotoh crowd, especially when he countered their "Buy quality, buy once. Buy cheap, buy twice" pish by pointing out that at $1AUD he could buy 100 times and still not reach to their $105USD 😃

They cost a bit more now, £1.46 each or 5 for £2.82. For bass guitars you want 1.2mm (0.046) going up to 3.2mm (0.125).

I'd leave a link but copy/paste is just leaving text 😞 

Will post a follow once I see where I'm going wrong 👍

2 hours ago, bloke_zero said:

How does it sound?

Well I said it sounds like a P-bass but some boy on TalkBS tells me that's impossible and would I kindly re-string the bass with zingy roundwounds, somehow it'll better reflect the pink and blue lines he's drawn on graph paper.

Boy is a genius, doesn't need to play your bass or know what pickups you used. Nope, one look at a picture tells him "there's a 20dB drop off in the higher Mids" 😳

He could be right or maybe my penchant for single coil P-bass gives me a different view on "sounds like a P-bass" 😁

Anyway, I'm sticking with like a P-bass and have vowed to never  read another TalkBS post by someone on my "ignore member" list, they're on the list for a reason 😁

Should say it's not the loudest P-bass so I'll likely try the coils in pairs.

14 minutes ago, Gank Bass said:

hopefully it'll still look ok!

Sharpie if it doesn't 👍

On 23/11/2025 at 20:07, Gank Bass said:

So a small finish update

That is going to look fantastic with black hardware.

Looking forward to seeing the end result.

22 minutes ago, Richard R said:

Waiting with interest....

I won't keep you in suspense Richard 🙂

Scratch plate got pickups marked on then cut out yesterday afternoon. Did a wee bit tweaking this afternoon then when I was happy everything sat nice I switched on the soldering iron. 4 lipsticks in parallel, 250k pots and a 104 cap.

Just the pickup heights to balance and the cling film to remove; might swap stings for something looser than Fender flats 👍

Pearloid material arrived and I got the jitters 😀

Get one chance cutting plastic, likelihood of failure was high 🙁

Thought about ordering up a blank scratchplate, having a custom one cut, getting a pickup template made; anything to avoid cutting plastic 😁

Stern talking to and I came to my senses. Scratch plate cut 😀

Main purchase was lipstick pickups.

I had 3 in the drawer for an un-yet started Dano build. Buying a 4th was complicated, the 3 Dano lipsticks came from Ali-Ex several years back so the chances of finding a matching 4th were slim. I also had a slight concern regards polarity.

Artec came to the rescue by selling Strat lipstick pickups where the middle pickup was RWRP. 2 Bridge and 2 Middle were ordered.

A wee play-about in Photoshop showed me just placing them next to each other wasn't going to work.

What I really needed was 52mm between the top adjusting screws and 54mm between the bottom screws.

Drawing on paper followed while I waited on the pearloid scratch plate material arriving.

Had the main elements for the bass at hand. 

A Paulownia P-bass body and maple neck purchased from @tom1946 a year maybe 2 years back.

The body is nice and light plus Paulownia is dead easy to work with 👍

All I had to to was copy the scratch plate, cut out the pickups and a wee bit router work to the body.

Given my taste in P-basses runs counter to the norm it's no surprise those Italia basses from a few years back caught my eye.

Pity I never got my hands on one and the ones I've saw recently have daft prices😕

When faced with daft prices I went with my default setting of "I can do that" 😀

1 hour ago, BassApprentice said:

Great colours.

Green with Tort looks brilliant 🙂 

3 hours ago, Guildguy said:

Hi, yes I am still looking for a t20 guitar body template 👍🏼

Going by memory but I'm pretty sure these had a 62mm heel.

That is what the attached image has been resized to. Print settings must be 100% actual size at 72PPI.

4 hours ago, SICbass said:

Do you think it‘s worth investing in a steel ruler that is long enough to measure a 34“ scale length

Not really.

You could buy a yard stick, or even a 2 ft rule and measure from 12th fret. Neither will be particularly accurate.

30"/ 32"/ 34" or 35", these are just rough numbers; all they mean is the speaking length of a string will not be shorter that the given number. Actual speaking length varies on the string; gauge and construction. Intonation is set by ear or tuner not measurements  👍

19 hours ago, Gazz said:

I'm looking for a decent replacement pickguard, if you know of any? 

Made a trip to the hut, have a B/W/B pickguard so give me a shout if you want it. 

1 hour ago, Guildguy said:

wondered if somebody could draw/ template around there t20 guitar body

Wish I could help but I sold on my T-20 several years back.

There is a nifty piece of guitar CAD software would solve this, damned if I can find the link. Basically you stick a guitar photo in then enter known measurements, in most cases nut to 12th fret. Software works everything  from that and gives you a PDF 🙂 

Will see if I can come up with something 👍

29 minutes ago, Gazz said:

I'm looking for a decent replacement pickguard, if you know of any? 

Aye, should have one out in the shed 🙂

The 'Brian Pillans' @neepheid mentioned used the PG from my T-40 to make his master template so if I'm talking mince about the shed he's your man  👍