GarethFlatlands

Thanks David, I've ordered a 4 pole female connector and I'm just going to suck it up and re-wire one of the cab connectors, then I'll have the option of using 4 or 2 pole.

Tuff cab dried, the corners and handle were fitted, along with the back plate and 2 pole speakon connectors. See a problem with any of that? I didn't.... I also couldn't find my soldering iron and had to wait for a new, better one to turn up from Amazon before I could wire up the speaker. I noted the holes for the top and bottom holes in the speakers weren't quite lined up properly. I'll fix it if it's an issue, but I lightly glued the tee nuts into place to stop them falling into the cab when inserting the screws so it's going to be a big faff, and the finish line was in sight. Thanks to Phil Starr for letting me know my 16 gauge cable was likely going to be find for the internal wiring which saved me having to order some cable in. The speaker wires were soldered to the lugs, passed through the internals of the cab, and the speaker screwed into place with a piece of speaker wadding stuffed in there. The back plate was then wired up, the amp sat on top of the cab, and..... ...the speakon cable wouldn't fit into the connectors. I didn't know that there were at least 2 types of Speakon connector, 2 and 4 pole. All my cables are 4 pole and the connectors are 2 pole. 2 pole male will fit into 4 pole female, but not the other way around. Some combination speakon connectors allow a 1/4 inch jack to be used in the centre barrel, but not the ones I bought, so I'm stuck until I order some 4 pole connectors, or 2 pole speaker cable before I can see if it all works. I'm leaning towards the 2 pole cable, as it'll sidestep the need to re-wire anything. So close, yet so far.

Speaker fixing holes drilled and porting hole routed, so all woodwork should be done, unless something has gone wrong. After a quick sanding with 80 and 100 grit papers, one coat of Tuff Cab was applied. I didn't see the point in sanding back any further, as the paint is textured and should in theory grip onto the wood better if it's not too smooth. The directions say you can re-apply after 8 hours but I'll leave it until tomorrow and do the second coat then. I'll have to sand back around where the speaker sits to get a good seal but hopefully that won't be too tedious. I hope the colour will look less obnoxious once it dries and hopefully darkens, and all the hardware is on there.

The hardware from Farnell arrived so I was able to do a rough fit of everything, and to route the holes out for the speakon connectors. I also filled any gaps with wood filler. Quick rant:- The Ronseal stuff in the tube I tried was rubbish. It clogged up every couple of inches when it flowed at all, and rather than feed out of the hole it's meant to come out of, the tube popped at the top early on. It also stuck best to anything that wasn't wood, like my fingers or it's own nozzle. I still need to get a hole saw set and some drainpipe (both should be available in 68mm diameter) and decide how to finish the cab (I wanted white cab, black hardware but Blue Aran are out of white Tuff Cab and have a 2 month wait time. Red is an option, as are many other things but choice fatigue is setting in), but we're nearly there. I glued some bits of the 21mm bracing wood onto the bottom for feet, then had to saw and chisel some of it away as it interfered with the plastic corners. Well done me... The only other thing left to do today was glue the vertical bracing in at the back. Tomorrow will be spent worrying about fixing the speaker to the baffle (I'm thinking M6 bolts and tee nuts), then maybe wiring it up to a speakon to see if it all works to any degree at all.

Not much happening today. I'm amazingly tired, and I didn't feel up to anything too in depth. Also, I sliced 2 of my left hand fingertips removing the plastic guard from a pull saw yesterday and wanted that to heal before I injured myself again. Band practice tonight will be fun.... The speaker was checked in the baffle and sits flush with it, so there was no need to sand anything down. I glued and screwed the baffle into place and that's clamped and drying as I type. The 3 pieces that make up the internal dividers were all cut as per a couple of posts above and checked for size. And we're done with the circular saw for this project! Hardware was ordered from CPC Farnell. I need the back speakon panel to arrive before I cut a hole for the connectors so there's not much to do until that arrives. Off to Screwfix tomorrow for some drainpipe, a cheap hole saw set, and a tub of wood filler. I'm still debating the finish. Priming and painting will be very time consuming and costly, varnish straight onto the ply will possibly look a bit rubbish, and a fabric covering is tempting, but I've never done it before and it may go very wrong. Any suggestions are welcome!

Mrs Gareth didn't need the car so I ran to B&Q to pick up a few bits, most importantly some 21mm square pine lengths for the internal reinforcement. They were out of stock on the auger needed for the hole saw, and a roundover router bit to my mild annoyance but I could still make progress. My cutting and gluing wasn't perfect, but was good enough and by this afternoon I'd made something that definitely looked like a box. It'll need a bit of wood filler on some of the joints, but overall, it's passable. I also busted out the router for the speaker hole on the front baffle. I drew a 26cm circle and cut 4 * 8mm holes into the wood as router bit starting guide, before realising that it should have been 23cm. Oops. A quick re-draw and re-drill, then out with the router to cut a (mostly) circular hole. The wrongly drilled holes line up almost perfectly with 4 of the holes for securing the speaker, so I got lucky there. The routed hole fits nice and snug but may need some more sanding tomorrow. Almost a cab!

I've left my notes in the basement so I'm replying as a way of keeping track of some measurements. Internal bracing is the whole internal width and height, but with a gap of about 2cm in the centre, so I need 2 pieces that are 27.6cm by 16.8cm. These sit about 11cm from the back wall and there's also a vertical piece making a t with the other bracing which overlaps by about 5 cm, so this needs to be 11cm by 21.8cm. I can just about get my finger to the gap and it feels like it's packed with wadding. The port is about 7.5 cm diameter, and B&Q sells a hole saw that's 76mm so that's what I'll be doing. The port is 11cm deep. I'm thinking of using t nuts to fasten the speaker to the baffle unless someone gives me a better suggestion? In terms of hardware, I need:- 8 * Plastic corners 2 * speakon connectors A back panel A handle 8 feet Speaker wadding And I think that's it for now.

Made a mill bill from the external dimensions of the One10 (28*30*38) and worked out what I'd need to cut for the top/bottom panels, left/right panels and internal panels. I'd originally planned to get them cut at B&Q as my straight line cutting skills weren't great, but I made a jig for the circular saw yesterday which seemed to work out great so I decided to try it at home first. I had a full sheet of 12mm plywood so used that. I'd also need some more internal panels for the unique bracing the One10 has, but getting the basic box built was the main priority for now so they could wait. I spent about an hour today cutting everything out, and it seemed to go fine. The 28cm measurements were a little short (1mm if that) but it looked good. The plan is to use square lengths of wood for reinforcement as per Phil Starr's easy 12" cab build, but I didn't have anything suitable in the man cave so the next step will be to buy something suitable and assemble the box. I need the car, and the weather forecast for this week is grim so my fiancee might be using it so I can't say when it'll be yet.

Response from Barefaced. "Hi Gareth, The woofer is the same nominal impedance as the One10 woofer. A cab a similar size should work pretty well. It won't add as much output as a second One10 but it should add a bit (it won't handle as much bottom because it doesn't have as much cone excursion as the final driver). Best regards, Alex"

Manchester is already sold out. Bad times.

I got lucky, fired up Facebook and they'd posted it "1 minute ago". Grabbed it while I could!

So I got hold of a prototype 10" speaker from Barefaced, would people still recommend a different design or go for something One10 size?

I'm using 60cm * 120cm panels as they fit nicely in the car. I was trying to use a circular saw using a straight edge as a guide but it would still go wonky about halfway for some reason, so I'm getting some practice in with a hand saw which is proving to be oddly more accurate. Thanks, I'll have a read now! Phil's fancy 12" cab build was way beyond me but I've just found his easy 12" build thread so I'm having a look at that too.

The Zemaitis did it.

Thanks for the feedback, sounds like I should think about a different driver if I commit to keeping the box size the same, or else re-think the design. Nothing has been bought yet other than 2 sheets of plywood, which I seem to have trouble cutting in a straight line, so that's my immediate issue! I'll have a look for the threads with Phil and Stevie's designs to see if they seem like they'd be a better idea all round. Weight will be an issue as it's one of the reasons I went with the Barefaced, although I now wonder if I should have gone for the Two10.

I ordered mine on Jan 1st and it finally turned up on Monday. I feel gutted for anyone who ordered and had it cancelled as it's a lovely thing to sit and go through. Not sure we needed 50 pages on the Jazz bass alone but the pictures are amazing.

If you've seen my Shuker build course thread, you'll understand that I've been bitten by the woodworking bug. I'm also having issues with insufficient volume from my rig, an Eden WTX 264 running through a Barefaced One10. The Eden runs optimally at 4 ohms and the cab is 8 ohms, so I figured that adding another 8 ohm cab would get the whole thing running at full volume, and also raise the height to closer to my head (which, being short is thankfully pretty close to the ground). The specs are based on nothing other than the size of the Barefaced cab and the nice and cheap Faital Pro 8FE200, so if you actually know about this stuff, let me know if I'm making any massive errors before I start cutting the wood! Likewise, if I need to calculate port sizes and add bracing, shout up. I'm using 12mm plywood. External dimensions - H/W/D - 38/30/28 cm 2 * side pieces of 38h * 28d 2 * top/bottom pieces at 28.8w (30w - 6mm per side for the rebate cuts) * 28d 1 * back piece at 35.6h * 27.6w (outside dimensions minus the thickness of the surrounding panels to sit inside and screw into an internally mounted frame) 1 * baffle at 26.8h * 28.8w as I'm planning on fitting the baffle into a routed 6mm channel in the side and top panels in a routed 6mm channel so it's nice and secure.

That's a great looking instrument, lovely colour and grain on the body. I assume it's stained rather than painted? Jon said that a decent, solid colour paint job adds a lot of time to builds and isn't really an option for the course as a result.

That sounds right to me! Jon took the guitar away to a spray booth in a separate part of the workshop so I don't know the specifics of how it was sprayed or what was used. I assume the initial clear coat was to stop the stain getting too deep into the bits I didn't want staining but Jabba's explanation seems like it makes sense.

I'd recommend it to anyone considering it, he runs a few per year and the next is coming up in summer from memory.

£900 for the course alongside 2 other people doing their own builds. He also offers a one on one course which starts at £1,500 but you can build something much more complex on that one by the sound of it.

I could have worded it better! It'd keep the strings in tune I guess... It's hard to say. A fretless Jazz by Sire, who by all accounts make great workhorse basses, is around £450, but with regular jazz pickups and active electronics. A Fender Flea sig Active Jazz bass has the humbucker pickup but is more like £1,500, and I can't see a fretless option for it. In fact, I can't find anyone doing a Jazz body, fretless neck and a humbucker so you'd be looking at a custom build unless you managed to find a nice fretless Stingray (or a fretted one and either de-fret it or get a fretless neck) which is pretty close. Shuker Basses have a regular Jazz up for sale on the website for £1,600 so that would be a ballpark figure at a guess. But like you say, it was partly about the experience and learning the skills, which in addition to having a bass at the end of the week, was well worth the money imo. It's got a lot of great comments and more importantly, I'm happy with it! I get a little tinge of pride whenever I take it out of the case, and I love the sound. I'll try and do a quick video at some point.

Thanks Daz! The course was £900 which included everything for this build (no case included). You'd need to speak to Jon about additional costs for any build you have in mind as I'm not sure at what point the costs would be over and above that base. An active circuit was discussed for mine but this would have been extra for example, but Jon let me specify brand name hardware like the Seymour Duncan alnico pickup, Schaller tuners and Gotoh bridge without any extra cost.

Day 5 I'd saved a lot of time by not having frets, so I'd jumped ahead of the other 2 people on the course by about Thursday afternoon. But Friday was the scary part; drilling holes into all my hard work for the week and hoping I didn't make any mistakes. There was a lot of nervous butt clenching, which wasn't helped by Jon telling us stories of people who'd got to the last day and then made mistakes like drilling tuner holes all the way through the headstock! After the control cavity was lined with copper tape, it was onto the drilling for the neck pocket, front controls, bridge, tuners and anything else I've forgotten. Having most of the day for this, I took my time and thankfully there were no mishaps. The electronics were wired up and installed, and then the hardware and neck screwed into place. A bone nut blank was cut, filed down and polished once the strings (Rotosound flats, 40-100) were loosely installed and then glued in place. I quit eating meat at the start of 2018 and wish I'd asked about another material rather than bone, but didn't think about it until it was too late so just went with it. I might install a Graph Tec one in it's place at some point. Strings on, it was time to set the bass up. 1st fret height was fine, but the neck required a very slight shim to get the action low. A piece of veneer cut to shape was all it took, a slight adjustment to the truss rod and the height could be lowered sufficiently for easy play. Bridge saddle adjustments sorted the intonation out and everything was done! A quick blast through the shop amp ('Music for Chameleons' and 'Every Time You Go Away') checked everything worked as it should (apart from my intonation). The only cosmetic thing I don't like is the amount of the fretboard material that extends behind the nut. I wish I'd taken it back by 5mm or so, but that's really my only issue. Other than that, I'm extremely happy with it. I was worried my lack of woodworking experience would be an issue, but Jon and the man helping him on the first 3 days (none other than Tim Lever, former keyboard player for Dead or Alive) were both amazingly patient and all round great teachers and the whole thing was pretty painless.

Day 4 The front of the neck was done, so Jon took the body away for a couple of layers of clear coat so that the staining could be done, and I got to work on the back of the neck. The heel and the headstock ends were done first, then I worked in to the middle using a flat file, a rounded file/rasp and a saw rasp, checking regularly until I felt like it was a shape I liked. Then lots of sanding and crossed fingers that no major re-working needed doing. There wasn't! Lots of detail sanding was done too. The holes for the tuners were marked out and drilled out on the drill press using a forstner bit. The body was stanined black with some stain diluted with acetone, being careful not to rub it in too aggressively and take any clear coat off. Once done, Jon's assistant rubbed this off until just the grain was black. Then more clear coat. The lion's share of the work done, Friday would be about installing the hardware and setup. I'd been travelling from Sheffield on the train all week but my fiancee and I decided to make a trip of it and stay at the Old Hall Hotel down the road on the evening of day 4 for a pub dinner and a sleep in a 4 poster bed.