Rexel Matador

The model or the guy who played bass for Marilyn Manson?

Mission accomplished! Only played through a practice amp so far but it sounds great. Can't wait to get to band practice!

3 hours ago, LowB_FTW said:

The build I'm working on has side mounted tuners, and it's giving me a proper headache trying to get it right. Especially considering it's a 5 in-line and I want straight string pulls from the nut.

So I can totally understand reluctance in starting something like this.

 

Mark

That's why I went to 3+1. I couldn't settle on a design I liked that was four in line. 5 in line will certainly make a statement,  I can't wait to see it!

Regarding your other questions, it looks to me like that pickup is a standard guitar humbucker size, so you would need a router, a bearing cutter and a humbucker cavity template. If memory serves I bought a perfectly good template for the exact job on ebay because I couldn't be bothered to make one.

Did you need to square off the neck heel to fit the pocket in the body?

Just now, LowB_FTW said:

The only impracticality I can see is the tuners being somewhat at an angle to the string pull.

Care to elaborate what you find impractical about it?

FWIW, I really like that design.

 

Mark 

It's a bit too big and heavy for a headstock, and actually winding the strings onto the tuners in the first place is way too fiddly. The angle of the tuners doesn't actually seem to be an issue.

I've done a couple like this and will do another one one day, I'm sure, perhaps refining the design to make it easier to string up.

Sorry @mrbacco, I didn't mean to hijack your thread. I was mainly just suggesting the sideways tuners thing if you wanted something weird for your headstock. Though you may need to add some thickness to it to do that.

3 hours ago, mrbacco said:

Yep, the head is angled back, not sure why some necks are like this? Is there any explanation or just for the strings?

It's so the strings are pulled down over the nut. I don't think anyone questioned it until Fender figured out they could be flat if you included a string tree to replicate the effect.
 

21 hours ago, mrbacco said:

Could you kindly weigh your ideas on what a nice and innovative neck head would be?

Here's an unusual but wildly impractical one I made a while back.

I routed out the area with the mangled screw holes, cut/sanded a scrap of the body wood to size, shoved it in with some glue, chiselled it flush, re-drilled the holes, and forgot to take a picture.

But here it is, taped up for the fret job. After that, I just need to finish off the nut, set it up and we're done. Next gig is on 29th September, so that will hopefully be its debut!

I'm excited to hear how it sounds. I've never played a 32" scale bass before and I've also never tried reverse P pickup placement. The body is very small, as you can probably tell by how massive the bridge and pickup look in the picture. Maybe a bit too small, but it's nice and light and I think will serve me well for the ridiculously long gigs I do these days.

I have an Instagram that suggests I do nothing but build basses, so not a remotely accurate reflection of my life. Wishful thinking, perhaps.

1 hour ago, Andyjr1515 said:

there are some timbers that are very resistant to letting the screws cut their threads.

I had no idea. Always learning!

7 hours ago, Andyjr1515 said:

Ouch!  What drills are you using?  I would recommend some decent quality Forstners.  Are you using a pillar drill or hand drill?

I used a hand drill for the original holes. It's always worked in the past. Pillar drill when I was hogging out wood to remove the screws/make the router's job easier. I don't think a forstner is necessary at this point. I'm just going to use the router to cleanly cut out the offending area and fill it with a new piece of wood. It'll be fine 🤣

Disaster!

I worked out the position of the bridge and drilled the two outer screw holes. They land right on the join between the poplar and the wenge, but thankfully my glue joints were up to it. So far so good. Time to drill the other three holes.

Wait, did that drill bit just snap? Wow. Ok, I'll drill it out, make a bigger hole and fill it with a dowel. It'll all be hidden anyway.

Now the screw has snapped. Ok, four will be plenty. Not ideal, but whatever.

In screws four and five go. Both snap. This is a new one for me. Is there some metal in there that I've forgotten about? Either that or this wood must be harder than diamonds.

So... I drilled a few more holes so I could yank out the offending bits of screw/drill. Next job will be to rout out the area and stick in a new bit of wood which can take the remaining bridge holes. Again, it will thankfully all be hidden in the end. This bass building lark really is a roller coaster. It was all going so well!

47 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

 

They made an improved volute that wouldn't break when dropped and noone would buy it as it didn't feel as narrow as the old ones

They could just use a truss rod that doesn't require a hole big enough to accommodate a massive spanner. Or a scarf joint. But no doubt the purists would complain and a neck that cracks when breathed on will remain a prestige feature for the foreseeable future.

53 minutes ago, Hellzero said:

Fender has this A string or whatever string retainer standard on their new models since a decade or two and they even sell it. 😉

 

It's basically a washer with a string guide pulling down the string, at a delirious price: https://www.fender.com/en-GB/parts/electric-bass-parts/string-guides-nuts/stealth-bass-string-retainer/0078972049.html

 

I thought they only put it on higher end ones. If they're doing it across the board I applaud them.

I would like Gibson to invest in some sandpaper. I don't own any of their instruments and never will, but it really annoys me that people just accept sloppiness at those prices. And the whole thing of the headstocks breaking off being almost part of their brand. Insane.

I also think Fender and anyone making similar designs should have a string tree that includes the A string (or one of those A-string retainer things) as standard.

I could probably do with a more reliable amp, but buying an amp is like buying a fridge for me - they don't really excite me and are just necessary.

I was desperate to "make it" from around mid teens to mid 20s. I assumed I'd get a record deal and make a living. I assumed that any touring band, however obscure was paid a living wage for their troubles! I eventually got involved in the DIY punk scene in Birmingham and the penny dropped - all of these bands are scraping by and fitting this labour of love around their shitty jobs, just like me.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately as my wife is pregnant with our first child. At my school, it was a case of get good A-Levels and go to university, or nothing. It would have been nice if, rather than telling me that only a miniscule fraction of bands ever get anywhere so it's better not to bother, someone had helped me seriously look into all the more realistic ways I might have been able to combine my passions with earning a living.

Not that I have anything to complain about. If I had "made it", I would have succumbed to the cliches of rock 'n roll excess pretty much immediately and probably wouldn't be telling you all this today!

I'm arguably more into building basses than playing them these days - so now the dream if for someone else to "make it" on one of my creations!

Started on the nut - I need to keep busy while coats are drying!

Brass is so easy to work with, I love it. I filed the big slot just to see how hard it would be. The slotting proper can wait until the frets are levelled etc.

Control cavity cover from a scrap of the wenge from the neck:

And this... I drilled one of the tuner holes a bit too close to the edge. I was going to leave it but decided it would annoy me, especially if the other strings run perpendicular to the nut, which was my intention. I plugged the hole and redrilled it. It's a bit ugly but will be totally covered buy the tuner 🙂

23 minutes ago, Dread Bass said:

Love that neck wood combo. I’m going for the same on a build in the near future. How wide is the padauk strips? Looks well balanced to me.

I think they were 10mm when I got them, and ended up at 7 or 8 ish after going through the planer

Wife's 40th and Mum's 70th were a week apart, so I've been incredibly busy, but I've finally found some time today to finish sanding and apply a coat of oil.

Once the finish is done I'll start on the frets. I'm also going to have a bash at making a brass nut, but I've got a graphtech blank as a backup!

On the first pic, you might be able to see a dark patch in the upper cutaway. Its an odd one. It seems to be some kind of discolouration in the wood that really popped out as soon as the oil went on. Ah well. I'm looking forward to getting it strung up and plugged in, in any case! Probably won't be ready for Friday's gig, sadly.

Jamaica?

I had it all sanded and was looking forward to posting some pics - but I made a stupid mistake. I didn't have it clean enough and went to add a coat of oil, and basically ended up washing a load of padauk dust into the poplar, leaving ugly pink stains on it!. So, I'm sanding it back as best I can. Hopefully it will end up being an improvement - I don't think I'd done a good enough sanding job to begin with, so I'm going to try and do it better this time.

Using poplar was a mistake, I think, but I had it there so went with it. It's not a good wood for oiling, while the neck woods absolutely love it. So in the coming days I'll do the best I can to get it looking as nice as possible. I really don't want to be messing with wipe-on poly or anything like that with a through neck build, because I wouldn't want it on the back of the neck. Hey-ho, I'm learning as I go. I'm either too stubborn or too blinded by the barrage of information online to do anything other than trying things out and then getting annoyed with myself when they don't work!

Sorry - not a particularly exciting update for you all. Next one will hopefully be more colourful!

Weird - no idea how this showed up on the front page for me if it's that old - sorry all!

I know I'm not helping (beyond moral support, perhaps) but this kind of thing makes my blood boil. They know perfectly well that no-one outside of the logistics industry knows what it means.

I dare you to tell DJ Yella it's not ok

For reasons I cannot begin to fathom, I've always had in my head that this is only ok for drummers.