BassTool

Stunner 😍

Bought a pedal from Sean, great comms, excellent packaging, very quick insured delivery, another top BC'r, deal with confidence 👌🏼

Never, ever, been a fan of single cuts either...

Consider me converted 😳

Lovely work as usual @Andyjr1515

👌🏼

5 hours ago, Andyjr1515 said:

The headstock is designed to accommodate the 5 ultralights, keep the string runs straight and, most importantly fit in the electric guitar hardcase that's ready and waiting!

A double check that the tuners will fit in the right places also gives me how much room there will be to pop a couple of swifts onto the headstock plate:

 

For those who have seen this many times, feel free to skip the next few photos - the inlays 

They are marked out on the mother of pearl:

 

Cut out with a jeweller's saw:

 

Positioned and a pencil outline drawn round them:

 

Then out comes the Dremel with a precision router base and 1mm bit:

 

One done, one to go!

 

And then glued in with epoxy mixed with walnut dust which will secure them and the squeeze-out will fill any gaps with walnut-coloured filler:

 

And after lunch I can sand them down and we should have a couple of finished inlays

 

 

 

Never get bored of this bit, brilliant every time 👌🏼

5 hours ago, Andyjr1515 said:

 

The darkening at the volute...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

😁

@SpondonBassed

On 22/05/2021 at 15:13, Dom in Dorset said:

What is the most satisfying thing about making instruments?

- Digging, it's all about the digging.

Electrician number two has put in a quote and can start next month. Before then I have to dig a trench for the cable not less than 60cm deep. As we are also putting power into the summer house I have another 30' stretch to do as well. I'm on s budget so it's just me with s pick and shovel. I'm done for the day , lying down in a dark studio for a while.

 

Armoured cable Dom?

I'd be smiling with an Ultra-Brite smile if I'd got that result 👍🏼

On 23/05/2021 at 19:30, Andyjr1515 said:

Yes - pretty unusual too.  With the exception of the Fender varnished maple (and even that is a pretty light coat), most fretboards I've come across are just oiled

Oh God Andy, don't mention oiled fretboards 🤭

8 hours ago, owen said:

 

In case anyone has ever had any doubts about Jez's abilities, the man is a wood whisperer.

That's a great phrase, and one that could be applied to many of the talented and very helpful guys who frequent the Build Diaries section - you all should know who you are by now😆

Great that you could get help from one of them, nice one @Jabba_the_gut 😉

At no point in the hilarity, did a certain member ask me how often I applied my 'mix' to my 1985 bass rosewood fretboard that I've had from new 🤔

I would have at least expected that question being asked, before the ranting and ridicule that ensued  🙄

Of course, if it had been asked, I would have gladly replied 😉

Three  or four whole times, for anyone interested 🤭

That works out as roughly once a bit a decade that my 'destroying' potion was applied to my fretboard..

There were times the bass had sat dormant perhaps, or from the many years it was so well used three or four nights a week it became manky from the working men's club circuit around the country, and required cleaning and rejuvenating.

But, like many on here, my bass fretboard is still intact, and looking - as well as feeling - fabulous after many years of use and care.

I wouldn't like to say what I used on the Bubinga body and neck of my Warwick Thumb NT 🤭

Couldn't stand the outrage 😆

25 minutes ago, Killed_by_Death said:

vinegar & lemon juice are acidic, it's a fact

which you can't seem to understand, since you're using it to 'condition'

 

Yup.

And you still do not seem to understand that...

IME...

..it's worked for me, for a lonnng time now 😁

So, in the words of @Maude..

I'm out 😉

Suggest you still grab that beer or whatever 😆

Well, you've certainly tried to make a rather forceful point here @Killed_by_Death, and in the process, you've created an interesting thread which has both been informative and at the same time amusing for our community 🤭

Each to there own, my basses with rosewood fretboards are all in beautiful condition, so I can only assume I got lucky over the 30+ years I've been doing this to my guitar fretboards, which incidentally, are all - thus far - still intact 🤞🏼

This forum welcomes opinion, it's what makes it interesting and diverse 😁

What it doesn't need is members insisting that they know best, and pontificating that they are right, and everyone else is wrong 😉

It's all opinion, and what works best for one bassist, is quite possibly the worst possible scenario for another 😳

You disagree with oiling a fretboard, I think we've cottoned on to that now 😆

Grab a Budweiser or a Jack Daniels, or whatever your poison is over there in the US, and drink to the fact it's ok to be different, in every aspect of whatever we choose to do with, or in this case what, to our own instruments..

Cheers!

😉🍻

43 minutes ago, Killed_by_Death said:

All it does it make it pretty. What you're doing will have the luthier hurling expletives when they're putting in new frets.

 

It your instrument, but using vinegar & citrus juice is damaging. Letting it soak, even worse. 

However, it's yours to destroy as you see fit. Have a nice weekend, what's left of it.

 

I've been destroying it since 1985, honestly, it's absolutely ruined...😉

16 hours ago, adamg67 said:

As a fan of hand tools over power tools for a lot of jobs, I'd be leaning towards a small round file. If I didn't have one I'd be using it as an excuse to buy another tool for the tool rack 🙂

That might just be me though.

^This^ 👍🏼

On 19/05/2021 at 18:21, Killed_by_Death said:

 

I've been telling people for years that oiling your fretboard just makes it pretty, it does nothing to protect it or moisturize it.

 

As said many times, never on a maple board.

Got to disagree with OP though, as rosewood really benefits from oiling. I make my own up from extra virgin olive oil, white wine vinegar and fresh lemon juice, and apply to a cleaned down board.

It must sit flat for at least 24 hours to soak in, but the transformation is absolutely brilliant.

See the pics in my thread here..

On 10/05/2021 at 18:24, Jabba_the_gut said:

That’s on the job list. I’m just sorting a logo that can be made on a slide transfer to be lacquered over.

http://www.guitardecals.co.uk/

Superb logo transfers as recommended by me and @Andyjr1515 Jez 👍🏼

Beautiful work 👏🏼👏🏼👌🏼

Have you considered asking your local body shop spray painter?

These guys do this work to an amazing standard day in day out to cars, and I'd imagine they'd welcome doing something slightly different from the usual. No harm in asking for a price?

I got my Build Diary BlazerRay bass project sprayed by a car painting mate of mine who has since retired, but he did a superb job of it with a primer coat, three white top coats and completed the finish with a laquer top coat.

12 hours ago, wright/watt said:

 

Oh my!!!! That is a stunning bass 😮

5 minutes ago, Andyjr1515 said:

That is a stunning bass....

 

Shame he didn't know about your magnet trick on the back though  

3 minutes ago, Andyjr1515 said:

That is a stunning bass....

 

Thanks Andy, it's a Cliff Bordwell fretless. 

On 07/05/2021 at 15:27, Andyjr1515 said:

I did a number of passes, ending up with a 4mm deep slot:

 

Then, from the other side, cut the chamber as I do my pickup chambers nowadays...starting with a Forstner to part-depth:

 

Then chiselled the periphery to act as a guide for the bearing on a top-bearing router bit:

 

So now, and only now, when it is captive and can't go anywhere because of the bearing, out can come the horrible hand router... :

 

...to tidy up the sides and gradually deepen the body until breakthrough!  :

 

And, with a mm adjustment of my chisel line eventually release.  And we have a grain matching, 3mm thick back cover 

 

I think the phrase, 'Well, you could knock me down with a feather!' springs to mind.  I wasn't expecting that!!!

Time for a cup of tea, I reckon....

 

 

That's really clever! I have a bass that has a matched grain cover, and it had me beat how that was achieved, now I know

Just to clarify (and I've just come off watching a live 1985 Paul Young gig from Rockenplast, complete with Pino - absolutely awesome playing, plus 3 fabulous backing vocalists and PY at his showman level best, no auto tune or whatever to make the vox in tune required) my previous rant related to the inability these days of performers to sing live without any enhancement to improve tuning - whatever the particular kind of technology that may entail these days. I'm really not interested - because I prefer anyone singing live to be genuinely just that, without anything electronic pulling them in tune - I'm not really sure how I can possibly emphasise that point any more than I already have. What happened to talent?

Call me old school, call me old fashioned, call me old, I really don't mind 😁

Over the years I've spent hours and hours with fellow band members working on harmony vocals till it totally cheesed everybody in the band off, and on the gig nights when it all comes together down the Dog and Duck (remember those days?) it all seems worth it for that nanosecond or longer - because of all the work and effort put in - not just for the band members, but the audience too.

Younger BCr's may argue modern gizmos - to enhance dodgy live vocals - are to be embraced, and will call it progress. 

That's fine, we are moving on all the time.

But for me personally, I disagree.

Again, IMO - it's simply cheating  

Anyone want to see a great vocalist, three fabulous backing singers, and a half decent bassist (   ) plus a kicking band, check this gig out... no pitch correction required back then 😎

Call it old school if you like   

3 minutes ago, Downunderwonder said:

Certainly. Your concluding paragraph on stadium gigs endorsed correction as a means of giving the paying audience better value.

Certainly did not intend that as an endorsement, that was not my intention at all.

I honestly thought I could have not have been clearer.

Pitch correction in any form, any performer, from Arena to pub. No.

IMO  

1 minute ago, Downunderwonder said:

The bit I quoted was accepting of big gigs using the tech but in the next breath pilloried the solo artist for needing to practice to make auto correct unnecessary.

Suggest you re-read my original post @Downunderwonder maybe I didn't make it clear, but regardless of either big band in an Arena or solo pub player, I think the same of both. I'd rather hear how they really sing, and think it's a shame an audience has to be fooled by tech these days.

As I've intimated, I'm old school, plug in, play, let's hear what you've got.

Without pitch correction