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Shoving some bits together P bass


Waddo Soqable
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10 hours ago, Waddo Soqable said:

The saddles will need new slots filing for the strings too as the existing spacing is all wrong.

Hey waddo, I’ve got a spare Wilkinson bridge which I bought just for the screws, but I never used , your welcome to it if you want it , and I think I’ve got some neck/body screws in my workshop you can have, let me know and I’ll pop them in the post 🙂

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Got a few bits on the way ( and many thanks to our gallant Reggaebass man above for the bridge !👍 ) I ordered a Zero fret set up as I'm going to fit one, I started a seperate quick thread enquiring about these as I couldn't remember the name of the product... The name i was looking for was Zero Glide, they're an "easy" all in one replacement nut and zero fret unit...but, unfortunately these seem unobtainable in UK at the mo.....so I've gone the other route and gone for a Sintoms  zero fret, which is just a specifically shaped piece of fret wire of appropriate dimensions for the purpose, that will require the nut to be ground down a bit and butchered, sorry, adapted to include the zero fret !

Just for a lark today I squeezed an old random P stylee pick up from the junk box under the strings, it still had the pots and jack socket dangling so was able to plug it in in a very rough try out fashion, didn't last long as one of the wires fell off but gave me a couple of mins hearing it "live" !  I reckon when it's sorted and the decent pick ups & proper pots fitted it'll be a goer ! 

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A bit more stuff done, I got the glue and cocktail sticks out, and plugged all the screw holes in the body, most of them will be redundant but a few will almost, but not quite, line up with screws thru the scratchplate, so best blank them off and drill pilot holes in, hopefully the right places!

The bridge is in the wrong place, as can be seen by the string line up, and needs shifting "south" a few mm. so these screw holes were also filled as above.. the rest is trial fitting and trimming etc.. the scratchplate once its got the full size pots in place, very much wanted to sit where it does, so will require a couple of mm taking off the curve where the butt end of the neck joins it. I previously shifted the neck back into the body a bit so this seems about right, judging by the old scratchplate holes its kind of in the right place !

I marked with tape where the bridge originally was with lines to show approx 'in tune' saddle positions, and marked where new screw holes will be pilot drilled.  I'll also have to take the neck off and shim it quite a bit, as mentioned before, the saddles are right down on the bridge plate, so theres no adjustment at all as it is!...  I'd certainly like a lower action than how it is now, tho of course it's all just trial fitting at the mo anyway.

 

 

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46 minutes ago, Waddo Soqable said:

I've only got three of my box of 18 bars of Old Jamaicky left now... 

Ok - that’s you covered up till about 3:40 pm - need to find two more to get your full fruit and veg count 

how about a bounty bar and some Whole nut ?

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41 minutes ago, Geek99 said:

Ok - that’s you covered up till about 3:40 pm - need to find two more to get your full fruit and veg count 

how about a bounty bar and some Whole nut ?

Whole nut, now that's a thought, haven't had a bar of that for years..good call..

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  • 2 weeks later...

Ok done some more, assisted by Gin and Tonic & Old Jamaica !... Though sometimes hindered by the cat who wanted to help by sitting on it...

Anyway, the scratchplate needed a bit taking off at the neck joint end as I'd moved the neck back, so a bit of sandpaper glued round a piece of dowel made a good round 'file' to do this, constantly comparing with the neck til it fitted.  the scratchplate also needed opening up a bit for the pick up casings, as they were slightly too big and wouldn't pass through the apertures. This done I fixed the PUs into the body, packed out underneath with the foam they came in, they needed moving slightly to suit the S.Plate ( from where the originals were fixed in this body, very wonky anyway ! )    Then out came the Woolworths finest soldering gun and fixed the PU wires to the appropriate pots, this done all was stuffed inside and scratchplate pressed down, it was a nice snug fit and was happy to lay in place nicely without having to do any bullying !

Next making the holes and screwing it down to the body, the holes needed careful 'digging' so they didn't go off centre and pull the s.plate out of line..I found my Granddad's old bradawl  a good hole starter, then did the pilot holes with a little pin chuck thing rather than blat away with an electric drill. All fixed down, before going further I plugged the whole shebang in to make sure I was getting a signal from the PUs by tapping with a screwdriver, and trying tone and vol..all good so far.  using the same tools I did the bridge pilot holes in the new slightly shifted positions and screwed that down.

At this point thought I might as well bung some strings on and see what it does, this achieved with some random used strings I tuned them up in stages and left the whole lot a whole tone flat for now , plugged in and the thing actually sounds pretty good, the Maida Vale PUs, bought from one of the guys on here, sound great and on first impression I can highly recommend these as a good very reasonably priced PU ( made by a guy in the UK too ! ) 

I'll need to take the neck off and shim it etc to get an action I like and do a few bits and bobs ( I strung it up without even the little string tree button )   but I'd say it's looking fairly successful for a bung it together from random parts bass !

 

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Ahh..I see what you mean now !... I've had a hunt round in the garage this evening and transpires I have a bag of various thicknesses of hardwood veneers that I got for something else years ago....  so my plan now is to make a full pocket taper wedge, like the (crazy expensive) stew mac things. With a whole bunch of these I can make it spot on with no gaps.

Cheers for the kind thought with the brass bits tho 👍

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Note to self, must remember to fit an earth wire to bridge.. I carelessly omitted this, which was fine trying it thru the little zoom b1 on battery power, but when plugged into something that's connected to the mains via a wall wart, it makes a nasty buzz ! ( it naturally stops when you touch a vol/tone knob).. Doh....

Edited by Waddo Soqable
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