mybass

There is a certain amount of space within the saddle for the screw to alter where the saddle will sit...ie, it either 'unscrews' / forwards the saddle until and saddle falls off the screw or it screws backwards and the screw will reach the limit it can turn within the saddle. I found filing the screw down a few mm (on a Hipshot) bridge helped pull the saddle back a little further.

I have filed the screw shorter itself to gain a little extra backward movement but the filed end has to be smothed off to allow it to screw easily back into the saddle. May I add that pictures may help us out here to see better....?

The 'dampit' I have I think was a D'Addario one. It doesn't drip or leak water, the tube slowly 'expels' moisture and shrivels in size when dried out. I think its better than nothing (as pictured above, I also use a couple of drill hole lidded containers). My double bass tutor of many years ago made his own ‘dampit’ from a piece of plastic tubing, about 1" wide with holes drilled along the length. It had foam inside to soak up water, blocked both ends with one end having a piece of wood or plastic across it to stop it falling through the F hole, simply left it in his DB, this was way before commercial companies made them.

I may give David a call on this, thanks.

Yes I use the Stewmacs thanks....I do cut fret slots by hand but I wondered if there was anyone with a 'spot on' setup who already cuts them as a business so I could call and order same week type of thing.....and in 33" scale, which none of the current people I find will do due to having to set up a new jig.

Strings.....are they in good order or old? Try a new E string as an old one can be ‘out of tune’. Bridge....take the old one and try and line it on top of the Babitz to see where the saddles line up or not. I think the same the same screw holes are used? Have a look at this website....https://www.stewmac.com/FretCalculator and it should be showing you where frets for a 34 inch scale bass should be set and at the bottom of the page is their measurement from the nut (where the fret side of the nut) to where a Fender bridge SCREW line should be set....there is a small plus/ minor degree measurement. Good luck....

Strings.....are they in good order or old? Try a new E string as an old one can be ‘out of tune’. Bridge....take the old one and try and line it on top of the Babitz to see where the saddles line up or not. I think the same the same screw holes are used?

I want to get a fingerboard with a 33" scale with the fret slots cut. Does anyone know of a UK (preferably) place that does the 'scales'. There are a couple on Ebay but they stick to long and short scale for bass only.

I also use a couple of smallish lidded plastic containers. Drilled multiple holes across the top lid, fill with water and place on the floor underneath the bass. Picture below, not great but you get the idea. I’ve one of the humidifiers you mentioned, it’s a good ten years old and I forget to refill it, must try it again!

I assume Fender are talking about Swamp Ash here, a lovely tone wood in itself but different to a degree with Ash as in European/UK Ash which is generally a heavier and tonally different to swamp ash. I've used both 'types' of ash for bass building but usually go for Ash with its slightly 'tighter mids'. Swamp ash though is an easier wood to work on and still sounds great. I'm not so sure with the Fender idea of Alder over Ash.....but theres another discussion!

Yes, the sweet spot may well be where the pups were originally placed. I became more interested so looked at Fender’s website, not much there to be found but moving on this was found.....beware, takes a while to read through! http://www.till.com/articles/PickupResponse/

Very interesting to read this topic as I’ve always been a jazz pup person. I recently made a single ‘P’ pickup bass guitar (not a ‘P’ bass replica) and reversing the pickups position was something that was proposed many years ago as I’d wondered why that pickup was placed where it is by Fender. I tend to think there was no real science back in the darker ages of bass guitar manufacture and that jazz and precision pickup placement was made simply because they sounded different to each other in those positions and looked good there ... possibly! So some tracks have a wonderful P bass sound and others not as good......maybe the player, the amp, the recording quality, the actual song or size of band trying to be recorded? My thoughts for a new bass focussed on best pickup placement for a single pickup bass for recording and live, giving a tighter note off the E and A and hopefully matching the ‘bass’ tone given off by the D and G. Sound pretty good too with it’s Bartolini offset poles ‘P’ pickup but I’m putting in a Nordstrand one (bought on Basschat) as the bar magnets will straddle under the strings better....the problem with moving the pickups is the pole pieces don’t quite line up under the strings, something I never thought of, you learn all the time, but they still sound great!

Pickup (Nordstrand) from Ben, real quick efficient sale and post, received the next day. Marvelous....cheers Ben

Micro mesh is also used by guitar builders, especially acoustics, to highly polish the (top) wood pre oil or spray finishing. This is how I heard about it through David Dyke’s Luthier Supplies. Micro mesh doesn’t really take away any layer of wood but after sanding hopefully leaving no scratches, micro mesh is used starting normally from 1500 (or is it 1200?) working up to the final piece in a 9 pack that looks like a shiny piece of material itself. However, using this stuff can also highlight scratches unseen at the end of normal sanding as the polishing effect brings them out so before oil or spraying a clear finish, those damned scratches can be looked at.

iI know Ebay have their own postage thing going but how and if it’s in the UK I’m not sure. Sending stuff overseas can be done through Ebay. Check their options? They have a warehouse in East Midlands somewhere that handles their international posting hub.

Roasted Maple, um, sounds scrummy! Jury in my house is still sitting on a decision but I lean towards it looks good, possibly like very aged necks and sometimes that does help us feel good about playing it. I’ve had and made single maple piece necks that are still strong and true today and then one or two single piece ones that were not that good ..... so my theory is it’s in the wood for a start, not so much in the roasting, if it’s a decent piece, dried correctly and maybe even wants to be a neck, as I’m sure wood sometimes has its own mind!

Maybe an electric upright is going to be the answer?

I do remember that Neville Whitehead used a lot of the the DB fingerboard length, as far up to the P bass pickup and carved the board almost around the pickup. However, there was quite a drop in volume 'up there' and of course it was quite difficult to get the (left) hand in any comfortable position that far 'up there'! Here is a very poor picture of that P bass but you can only tell the thickness of the f'board I'm sorry to say. You can see how much the radius had been taken down. I practised a lot on double bass, which led me into fretless bass.

Great pic! He probably had a jazz done too..... I'm sure he started with a P bass conversion as I just went out and bought the same model I saw in Neville's workshop.

He was recycling old boards so they were already 'radiused' a lot, too much for a straight electric bass. He got me to take the bass home and get a feel of the radius, then we slowly reduced the radius until I was comfortable with it.

I mentioned that he probably flattened ...but should have said reduced the thickness...by planing the underside of the f/board to reduce its height to accommodate string height using the same bridge. It was still a thick board after that. Just a small amount of shaving wood away can produce a big difference in the boards thickness. I’m not sure that you will get a double bass string spacing on a P bass neck. Maybe a whole new neck would be simpler ?

Many (many) years ago a double bass repair expert called Neville Whitehead ( now in Australia) started putting double bass fingerboards onto Fender Precision basses. I was in his High Wycombe workshop getting my DB sorted and saw a Fender P bass on the bench and enquired about it.....fretless bass was making its mark on bass players at the time.....the bass was being converted for a London player called Dill Katz. I immediately said I wanted one, went out and bought a P bass and Neville transplanted a fingerboard onto it. However, the radius camber of the board was too much for electric/me and it took a few visits back for him to tone down the radius camber, flattening it to a more comfortable playing setting so you may find you’ll have to do the same. We used the stock bridge so string height etc wasn’t a problem. He probably thinned the underside of the f/board before gluing it to accommodate the thickness. Later on of course I had a jazz pickup installed by Kent Armstrong but that’s another story.

Nice looking cabs for the retro market. Fairly pricey huh...looks like $799 stateside for the single 12”