3below

Enough to make a complete 23" scale length bass there

Happy days, I remember those articles. Building and repairing is much more straightforward with the amount of kit now available.

Ex army bass player essential - ideally Cav or RTR (others will be considered) . Player must be experienced with any of: Challenger tank, CRARRV, MAN trucks, Warrior, Warthog, Mastiff, Jackal, Foxhound,CVR(T/W), FV432 and variants, ARRV. The requirements ensure the bass player can be the tea boy/girl in adverse situations and that they are good with heavy metal. BV - boiling vessel as fitted to many mil vehicles.

I got into this from necessity, luthiers were non existent in the 1970s rural Herefordshire boonies - so as a 14 year old I had to sort my own basses out beyond basic (later I was a Physicist/Engineer and have the do stuff myself mindset). These days I use a straight edge to get the neck flat before doing anything (an aluminium bar that I flatted true). After that a Chris Alsop diamond file (glued my own handle on) and follow the sharpie pen and flatten advice on many youtube videos. My early crowning tool was made by putting wet & dry on top of a good fret, sanding a groove into some beech - et voila a crowning tool. It worked as well (more youtube magic), these days I use the Alsop tool. Those steps plus polishing have sorted out all but one of my (many) basses. For the more difficult bass (slight neck twist?) I made a flat notched bar section (get the neck straight before fret levelling) and a flat long box section (for fret levelling). Total cost £15? plus some time. I can't sort everything out myself, on the two really high value guitars I have owned and could not get right, I resorted to proper luthier setups resulting in proper results.

The other useful bits of kit I have bought myself are some long sections of box section aluminium. You could pay serious money for 'true/levelled' beams or if you have access to some plate glass (or an engineering surface - cast iron planer bed, table saw bed) you can diy level the box section to your own taste. The same applies to a fingerboard levelling edge, 20 x 3mm /5mm aluminium, level it and file your own slots out, spend the savings on some fun

I have bought Chris Alsop fret crowning files and a diamond levelling file. With some other home made tools I have found them really good for builds, refrets and setups. Paid for themselves many times over. Nut files are another issue altogether. I would like a set of Hosco files but the cost is ££ for the amount I would use them. Any of my builds now use copy adjustable nuts which makes setup much easier. Sadly that does not help with a P bass nut, my 'bodge' diy method for a nut that is already slotted is folded wet & dry, or wet & dry rolled round a smaller wire or scraped out with a Stanley knife blade. Disclaimer, all my own basses... YMMV

Bought a Rockman Bass Ace from Lawrie, excellent communication, deal with confidence. Many thanks again.

A former colleague of mine did this when a student asked him a question. Bandsaws are not hand friendly devices Whilst working out my time (I had made myself redundant with early retirement - result) I blagged myself a place on a wood machine tools safety course through work (totally unrelated to my job). Much highly useful advice was received.

Just add to this table saws and you have the holy trinity of digit decapitation (or worse).

Further left field thought: Rout a pocket at the bridge end and inset a block to extend the body by a few cm as needed. Merge this block into the body with suitable curves and then rout the inset for your tuners as needed. You are effectively extending the body a few cm. This will require a refinish. At this point it I think it would probably be easier to make a new GSRM25 body that is slightly elongated and has the recess that you want.

AFAI can think at this time of night... it will work. One factor to consider is the side and face dots. These will be in the wrong places and will have to be drilled and plugged (straightforward enough) and new ones inserted as required. With a fretless neck, think long and hard about where you want dots at: 1,3,5,7,9 12 etc or between 2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9 and 11-12 etc. I know where I like my dots lol.

Well that is different. With that, the opening song on any set must be Goldfinger He's the man, the man with the Midas touch A spider's touch Such a cold finger Beckons you to play his bass of sin But don't go in with apologies for the changed line

Fixed that Even works in my new (to me) prog jazz rock band (as a temporary fix in tricky situations until I really get to grips with it). @Lozz196your set list looks a blast to play, you will be 'tearing the roof down' at gigs 🎸

As always excellent advice from @Andyjr1515, particularly the advice on freehand routing. Also take care to avoid unintentional freehand routing, I am ruthlessly careful to wait until I can physically see that the router bit has stopped rotating before moving away / out from the work-piece. A barely rotating router bit will cause unfortunate damage if you accidentally catch it on the bass/guitar body as you move it out of the way. If you are rounding do watch out for body cavities / chambers / jack socket holes that you may have previously created. As the router bearing falls into the hole a nicely rounded divot will appear in the body and your work so far will probably become expensive firewood. My time is 'cheap' these days, wood is not . I can safely say that I have never done this once before, I have in fact done it twice, stupidity is a hard lesson. In respect of routers, I am increasingly on the same page as @Andyjr1515and try to use it as little as possible.

This is fixable, I had a similar 'break out' with my G&L L1505. Jon shuker's repair (new truss rod, new fretboard) was better than the original.

All of the above. Also tape some thick cardboard over the body with an opening so you can get to the the neck-plate. Minimises any potential damage through dropped or slipping screwdriver 😱

The big plus is that good hand tools can be gathered at very low cost. I have found a spokeshave and card scrapers to be my most effective tools. Recently I took my EUB to Tim Phillips (violin maker) with a view to him sorting the fingerboard scoop out. Encouraged by him I did the job myself with a card scraper. He showed me how to sharpen a card scraper with a file - a revelation. Flat, round and half round files are also useful. I sometimes use a rasp and/or shinto for rough shaping, although at my (lack of) skill level much care has to be taken to avoid going fractionally too deep with the rasp/ shinto - stop just before it looks right, avoid cut marks that are too deep. Tenon saw, chisels and mallet are useful for body cuts / forearm chamfers. Stanley planes, the ubiquitous no 4 is highly rated, I like my no3 which is a bit smaller and lighter. I have found https://paulsellers.com/ really inspirational and useful about hand tools e.g. lidl chisels are an absolute bargain, so are antique centres / boot sales. Wooden planes and spokeshaves can be bought for peanuts and when fettled they are an absolute joy to use. Sharpening on the other hand.... I was better at it when I built my first bass aged 14 than I am now possible shopping list - I am sure others will find things I have missed Square, sliding angle bevel square Card scrapers, flat and curved Spokeshave - Stanley 151 or 51? (s/h vintage) Chisels x 4 small to wide Lidl or boot sale - vintage Stanley/Record or get lucky and find Sorby /Old Sheffield steel Planes Stanley No4 or No3 (wood handle, older is better). Planes - desirable but not essential? small block plane Files - round (big and small), half round, flat-coarse, flat-fine and triangular - Draper, Bahco ? Tenon saw - vintage Spear and Jackson (be prepared to sharpen it) or a modern hardpoint (throwaway) e.g. Irwin Mallet - find one you like the weight and feel of, or apprentice task, make your own Rasp / shinto Sharpening stone (diamond plates are nice but £££) Stanley sharpening roller guide luxury: Veritas Cornering Tool Kit - I got bought a set of these by Mrs 3below, not essential but very nice. Ask around, many hand tools can be picked up free or at very low cost. Highly satisfying using them, no need for dust extraction and much lower risk of digit loss.

I have the same experience - "have you thought about getting a Fender instead of a Fender copy?" even though it has by Leo Fender on the headstock, and as quoted by the man himself on the G&L website, ‘G&L guitars and basses are the best instruments I have ever made.’ There is a plus, used G&Ls represent great value for money.

Making sawdust Xmas day then S'manth?

Use some spacers both sides of the tuners, thinking about something like this as an idea.. since you only need 15mm or so you could use them as spacers under the strap buttons thus sorting two issues at once. If you were inclined you could have something conical turned flaring out from the strap button width to something near the body width. As @tauzero says it is not the end of the world, using a guitar stand is a good thing

It looks like there is sufficient thread sticking out to be able to file / hacksaw a slot in. This might give enough purchase with a flat head screwdriver. Just wondering how much thread is on the other side - enough to grip with pliers? If so heat as before, wind it out and replace with a new one. I have spares, or you could get something from *bay or a local nut/bolt company. Usually friendly fastener companies will give you one free

By 'stripped' do you mean that the Allen key hexagon has rounded out? |If so, Is there enough thread sticking out at the other end to grip onto with a second set of pliers or cutters - you might get lucky. If not,measure the saddle (width, diameter, groove position), someone in the BC collective will have a spare one, I might have something suitable which you can have free gratis.

From experience, before you take the plunge do some measuring - these are 32 1/4" Ball-End to Silk (according to the LaBella website). Labella short scales will fit one of my short scale basses but not another one. Measuring the strings I have (760FL S): Ball end centre to useable string start 3cm Ball end centre to end of useable string 81.3cm Whilst they state 32 1/4 length I would realistically work on having 32" (81.3cm). Rather than converting to headless have you considered lightweight tuners - Hipshots have dramatically improved two of my basses