rwillett

Just come down if an when you can....

I didn't say I could afford transatlantic yacht racing....

I have a 3d scanner that I brought off kickstarter, still sitting it's box under the desk. I keep saying I'll get it working but so busy these days. Stuff like thumb rests are pretty simply. Designing a thumb rest to fit onto a standard scratchplate into the right holes is no effort at all. perhaps there's a business there

is there any interest in 3d printing? I know it's not really bass focussed but if people are interested, I can easily show people how it works. There will not be enough time to actually print anything useful unless its a thumb rest or a pickup surround. More than happy to do so though Thoughts welcomed? Thanks Rob

Bacon sarnies may well have gone by then, of course for a small fee, one may be kept back....

I don't know anything about pedals so anything and everything is an education for me. I can bring a soldering iron and a multi meter if that helps.

@LukeFRC Please bring whatever you can, I've never really looked at pedals and am looking to findi another expensive rabbit hole I can head down I suspect I'll end up with transatlantic yacht racing as the utilmate 'hobby'. 10:00 is fine. I'll get the bacon going. Well-fired is the state of my normal bacon butties. I'm not a fan of tepid bacon. Rob

@JohnH89 Thanks for the advice on the capacitors. Some of the capacitors were £10-£11 which sounded insane money. I decided not to mess too much with the bass before Sat. However one of the advantages of a modular bass is that I can change the pickups around quite quickly. I created a new pickguard design for jazz type pickups, printed it out, took the old pickguard off and the split pickups and put the bridge pickup from Wilkinsons. Printing the new pickguard took a long time, but once done, took around 15 mins in total. The old pickguard is still usable, as are the pickups. I actually prefer the Wilkinsons to the splits pickups, however they were in the wrong place

Can't remember now which sites they were... At least not whilst I'm at work.... Now you mention it, that does look like a snorkel holder. I am a BSAC diving instructor (somewhat lapsed) and I kept thinking what does that remind me of? We used to tell the diving novices to throw those clips away and just put the snorkel under the mask strap. You don't want anything attached to your mask that may snag on something. Rob

The hum problem is in the Mod Dwarf somewhere. I've been playing with it and I may have screwed something up. I do have a decent bench power supply (60V 10A) which I might hook up to the Dwarf to check things over. Just looking at 500K CTS pots, four for £23, some guitar wire, a couple of capacitors (not sure if they need to be paper in oil or 'ordinary and cheap' ones). I've got some spare sockets as well as copper tape. I might even have some spare capacitors in the box. Its not that difficult to make one IMHO. Always happy to take advice and learn. One day I may teach somebody else something useful (possibly). Thanks Rob

I thought I'd seen something like this before, though now I think about it, it might have been on a more "specialised" site. This might help, Google Reverse Image search. Safe for workplace (honestly) https://lens.google.com/search?ep=gisbubb&hl=en-GB&re=df&p=AbrfA8q4rwchtCwhnMcf-muPgcCqHcSAdtLg0U5o8BuY23zpS5hDWqSyr6rAoZZpz7ysxe3dAkKYaFuuIRO4H2aWbbI8kPqV402HCCD-oE52ycebQa3qkeOh12ltuL4K9nFGdOwuYyXDn8tmaI7DfuqdAPvD6YMGxXcNhQ2pk1rwsZPVOAhwB3Ny2WHRIfngRKSCrFgiZAiaCKzsyQ%3D%3D#lns=W251bGwsbnVsbCxudWxsLG51bGwsbnVsbCxudWxsLG51bGwsIkVrY0tKR1EzWm1ReE9HTmpMVFZrWlRrdE5EVXdZaTFoTmpKaExURTFPVGRrWXpRM1pEZzNNeElmWXpVNFFtNWlZMG8yYjFGVlRVbG5SM0JuU1V4dVVEQnZURTU2UWpsNFp3PT0iLG51bGwsbnVsbCxbW251bGwsbnVsbCwiMi0wIl0sWyJhMTc3NTg2Zi04NjczLTQ0MTUtYWQ3ZC0xNzFkOTFiNzMzZTYiXV1d

here's the full length with pickguards, dodgy control panel and quite nice knobs. I can see better pots wiring and capacitors on the horizon. None of this is difficult to solder up using decent CTS pots, and decent wires. A close up of the front. if this was a Hollywood film, you;d be able to reverse engineer my DNA just by looking at the reflections in the knobs Strap points in, pick guard screws aren't quite right. Will probably move to silver button heads as opposed to countersunk. Here's the back. This is a 60mm wide backbone rather than an 80mm backbone. Seems fine though and saves circa 300g. Things that still need to be done. I still can't get a decent glossy finish so all my guitars are still raw. Six months and no tangible progress. The pieces that make up the outside are not glued together yet. There is tiny movement between them. This needs to be done but I don't want to screw up before Saturday. Rewire the contol panel. probably not before Saturday though I might have a sneaky look on Amazon today for next day shipment on CTS pots. Reprint the pickguards as they aren't perfect. Probably change the pickups to my new Wilkinson ones and design a new pickguard. Thats thne nice thing about this bass, don;t like the pickups, try somnething different. Perhaps a telecaster deluxe design or a strat type design with three pickups. Not a massive problem to do.

John, These were the first pickups that came to hand Literally. I wanted to check that these all worked. Its wired volume/Volume/Blend (or it should be). I'll sort the hum out, may be a noisy PSU, I suspect that my home office is bloody awful for RF as I have a large colour laser printer, 2 x 3d printers, 2 x UPS's, network switch, EXSI server, multiple laptops, desktops, monitors, ipads and servers. I might change it to use two Jazz pickups, or something else. I really like my P90's on my home made Tele and once I get the guitar winder working, that'll be my first design. Here's what pickups can be fitted. The red squares are for Thunderbird bass fittings, the blue squares are for Fender neck and Fender bridge pickups. The neck pickups are 38mm apart and the bridge pickups are 40mm apart. The yellow squares are for precision type split pickups. I forgot to add them to the neck position in the design <doh>. However since this is a modular design, I will put the split pickups screw mounting holes in to the neck position as well. I need to print off a single new plate. It does involve dismantling some of the guitar as it's right in the centre, but probably 45 mins each way. Six hours to print as well. I may just go back to my Wilkinson Jazz pickups, all that entails is taking out the split pickups and putting the jazz ones back in. All the cabling is modular as well, so thats not a problem. I will need to print a neck pickguard, but thats a few hours and easy. The other screw holes are for pickguards, or attaching the outer frame. Thanks Rob

Fitted the cheapest, nastiest control panel I could get from Amazon to make sure I have something that works. Well it was cheap but it was wired incorrectly with the cables to the socket reversed. I assumed it was my connections or soldering or anything, but no, it was the sodding wrongly wired socket. No doubt there's a chinese forced labourer chuckling to herself in her dormitory how she's going to bring down Western capitalism, one badly wired socket at a time. Two sodding hours to find that as I thought it had to be me. Anyway, fixed that, left a review on Amazon so the next sucker knows what to change. Plugged in and there's sound. Not sure if its the right sound, but there is something coming out of it through the mod_dwarf. There's also a lot of hum, even without the bass plugged in, but thats a problem for another day. Got both pickguards on, weight is 4.02kg which is highly annoying as it's 21g more than I was working for. I'll change the metal knobs for plastic or fit lighter strings. It's 400g lighter than the last one though. It still needs to be setup properly, it's almost there, but I prioritised the build over setup so that its ready for Sats Bass Bash. I'll post pictures tomorrow, but I now have a working headless bass. First post for this was May 6th, so eight days from start to finish. For some reason I thought it was significantly longer, it feels a lot longer, especially as I got up at 02:30 this mornning to add some embedded nuts for the strap mounts.

If nothing else, we'll eat well..

And particular favourite pig? I suppose proper home made crusty bread goes without saying, any, preference on the flour? Would an aluminum pan be ok or do I need to forge an iron pan with Lake District ore? I also suppose you want it cooked on oak boughs grown in a western hillside with specific soil pH. I'm afraid that rounding up a virgin to cook it might be beyond my powers though....

Last chance for letting me know about any dietry issues. Otherwise it'll be a selection of pizzas. Also any interest in bacon butties or sausage sarnies on arrival?

Brilliant, sadly Frank can't make it @rwillett- Ibanez short scale, Fender Jazz bass, Fender Mustang bass, Telecaster, Westone six string, 3d printed guitar, small practise bass amp, small practise guitar amp, Mod Dwarf, various guitar/USB interfaces and quite a lot of software and a fair few laptops as required. I live next door Probably cake as well. @ossyrocks- '73 P bass, '73 J bass, '78 P bass, '87 MIJ P Bass, Fender Bassman 50 (rebuilt from the ground up by Gartone), Bergantino Forte D, TE Elf, Barefaced Super Compact and One10, Fender Rumble 100. @sifi2112 - Vigier Excess 4, Mas26 (x2) sfx D3 preamp Koch ATR4502 poweramp @neepheid - Some and hopefully all of Epiphone Jack Casady, G&L L-1000, Epiphone Les Paul Standard, G&L Tribute LB-100, Sire D5, Reverend Triad, Yamaha BB1200, Harley Benton HB-50, Soloking MJ-1, Epiphone Explorer, Markbass Mini CMD 121P IV, Markbass NY 121 cab @ead - ACG SLG 32" 4-string; "Lee Sklar bass"; Ibanez Grooveline GS104; Yamaha Attitude Special; SBMM Pete Wentz Stingray sig bass; practice amp (with headphones) @Muzz Three or four various Shukers, Dingwall ABZ4, modded BB414, modded Rumble 100, modded Westone Quantum, Helix Stomp, possibly Walkabout and BF cabs if I've got enough room in the car... @peterjam - ACG J-Type 4-string (0096), ACG Finn Fretless 4-string (0122), ACG Harlot 6-string (0240), ESP Ltd B-208FM 8-string, Michael Kelly Firefly 4-string acoustic, Chapman Grand Stick 10-string (deep matched reciprocal tuning), Ashbory Mk2 4-string, Phil Jones Bass BG-110 Bass Cub Combo ... and cake. @GreeneKing - ACG B Retro 5 35”, two Zoot Funkmeisters both 32” scale, one a P with a Noll preamp and the other a J with a John East Uni Pre 5 knob, Cort Elrick NSJ5 35” with Noll preamp, Eich T900, Accugroove Tri 112, pedalboard (?) @Ruarl - Sei Original Headless 6, Ibanez GWB1005, JV Precision modified into an active PJ, Ibanez EHB1506MS (for sale!). Barefaced Big Baby 2 & Quilter BB800. Maybe the Tacoma fretless acoustic if there's room in the car. I might chuck the G&L ASAT (non-bass!!) in too.

Good progress overnight. Managed to finish off the last two body parts. Strap screws in place for neck and bridge. Earthing wire in and not working Need to resolve this. Am now printing off two pickguards, one for the neck and one for the control panel. 4-5 hours each. @JohnH89 still offering advice, the guy must be a saint putting up with my witterings Weight without pickguards and control knobs, 3.9Kg. can't see it being under 4K as each pickguard is 50g and the control knobs and wiring will be around 100g, so 4.1Kg. The last bass was 4.4Kg so I have saved 300g. TBH was hoping for more. The body is a little longer so more filament, may look at printing with less infill or tailor the infill for certain areas. My MIJ 97Jazz is 4.4Kg, my medium scale Mustang is 3.5Kg so just about in the middle. Rob

Oddly enough the one subject I did like was maths. Did a lot of maths, a hell of a lot from memory. None of it any use whatsoever in the real world.

Dunno what school you went to, my school day consisted of trying to avoid getting beaten up by 5th years, 6th formers, 4th years, actually just about everybody now I think about it, trying to be super cool and chat girls up (failing miserably), copying homework out in the line before it's due in class in around 30 secs, wearing crappy clothes, discovering deoderant, talking about TOTP the day after, blagging NME and Melody Maker from whoever could afford to buy it, failing to chat girls up, not spending your dinner money on school dinner, but heading down to the local chippy for a bag of chips and saving what was probably 8p and so on. I'm struggling to remember any talk of Fender basses and identifying the particular year of manufacture to be honest. Perhaps my school was 'special'...

Currently it weighs 3.3Kg = 7.27lbs. Things to be added: Control panel = 198g Top Middle bit = 179g Top left = 205g Pickguard <== estimate of 150g with screws Control knobs and wiring <== 70g This theoretically adds up to 4.1Kg/9lbs Now the previous bass I made weights 4.4Kg and I know I have reduced the weight for the headless one. I have a narrower backbone which saved 300g, the headless neck is lighter. The neck clamps and bridge may be heavier but not to a great degree. lets see what it comes out by. The aim was to get under 4Kg and I'm close. Perhaps I won't paint it a la Formula One cars Rob

A number of printer issues has slowed down printing the outside components but it's progressing. Big shoutout to @JohnH89 who has been exceptionally helpful as I struggle through some of the setup. He's been utterly brilliant. The neck is still being setup, am printing another neck shim to try and get things in the right place. I'm also doing the three remaining components, bottom left (control panel), top right and top middle. These aren't that important but give you somewhere to rest your hand In deference to @tauzero I have added three strap buttons to the bottom of the bass as well. One in the middle and one either side. I can easily blank any of them off. Added in two pickups, these are what I had to hand, though I can use Thunderbird pickups, jazz pickups or probably most others. Not soldered them yet as I need a control panel and thats still printing. I might just have it done for the bass bash. Rob

^ This

Six days to go