Westone "The Rail" Bass - DOA - Now a minimal bass

[JohnH89]

A choice between finishing the bass or a six string ? Oh come on Rob , this is BASSchat . 😁

[rwillett]

So started drilling this evening and broke my one and only 6mm metal drill, I had three holes to do and then I could do the M3 hole tapping. Somewhat annoying but two 6mm's on order for tomorrow delivery. That's half a day lost.

 

My issue now is time, I'm in London Tues and Weds, jam session Thursday and I may have family things at the weekend. I'll probably have to put the guitar on hold but I'm worried that any paint finish will not be dry, so suspect I may have to just prime it and bring as-is.

 

Ahhhh! This is annoying, work is definitely getting in the way of play now.

 

Rob

[SpondonBassed]

2 minutes ago, rwillett said:

So started drilling this evening and broke my one and only 6mm metal drill, I had three holes to do and then I could do the M3 hole tapping. Somewhat annoying but two 6mm's on order for tomorrow delivery. That's half a day lost.

 

My issue now is time, I'm in London Tues and Weds, jam session Thursday and I may have family things at the weekend. I'll probably have to put the guitar on hold but I'm worried that any paint finish will not be dry, so suspect I may have to just prime it and bring as-is.

 

Ahhhh! This is annoying, work is definitely getting in the way of play now.

 

Rob

 

Annoying maybe.  Despite that, it sounds like a good life/work balance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[rwillett]

1 minute ago, SpondonBassed said:

 

Annoying maybe.  Despite that, it sounds like a good life/work balance.

 

It doesn;t feel balanced, I need 48 hours per day to do what I'd like to do

[Stub Mandrel]

21 minutes ago, rwillett said:

 

It doesn;t feel balanced, I need 48 hours per day to do what I'd like to do

 

You and the rest of us!

[rwillett]

I now have five days to complete the bass, I've had to go to London twice in the last seven days so progress was limited.

 

Today's activity is to file the aluminium backbone and floor to fit. I've cut it approximately down to around 2-3mm too big and now ill use the finger grinder and a file to make it better. The red parts below are all sacrificial and to make sure it all fits.

 

All the drilling (bar four countersunk holes for the neck bolts on the bottom) and tapping is done. The top aluminium still has it's protective cover on. 

 

 

Once shaped, I'll polish it to an inch (or 25.4mm) of its life. 

 

Body sides are more or less done but need some filling, sanding and then priming, sanding, priming, sanding, painting, more painting, yet more painting and then quick drying lacquer. That might be tight

 

Rob

[rwillett]

And it's all gone wrong. 😩

 

The primary aim of this build was to get a better finish on the body. As its 3d printed you get little layer lines and large join lines.

 

The layer lines are caused by building the body up in layers between 0.1mm and 0.2mm high. The thinner the line, the longer it takes. Currently all the bits take around 36 hours to print. 

 

As nobody makes a large enough decent printer to do a bass body in a single pass, it has to be made in sections and joined. If anybody thinks RatRig does one, they don't. Had a number of discussions with them and they were not hopeful. 

 

So the intention of this build was to focus on finishing quality. I've been experimenting with various finishes and one that I thought might work hasn't really and so the body I made looks bad so back to the drawing board.

 

I'll use the opportunity to try out a different build method so that if things do go wrong, I won't lose the whole body next time. 

 

One step forward, half a step back. 

 

Rob 

[SpondonBassed]

3 hours ago, rwillett said:

One step forward, half a step back. 

 

It's a good half step forward Rob.

 

Lots of claims are made about 3d printing with plastics.  The big drawback seems to be - plastic.  It's fine for a lot of things but very poor at one or two.

 

I've followed your progress with great interest and the thing that is becoming apparent is that it is ideal for development of complex designs and so forth but not really suited to production.  Also, you are having to use materials other than plastic to make your guitars work.  It complicates things somewhat.

 

The overall designs are exotic and versatile but the modular approach to assembly is an obvious issue as is how to make the finish a little less plasticky.  It's a tough nut to crack but I have every confidence in you to persevere.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[rwillett]

I'll get there. The aim is to make a bass or guitar that looks and plays like a decent guitar.

 

As you say, 3d printing is great for some things, it does allow designs like this, that you can't easily do with wood.

 

They also sound pretty good. I'm sure a Fender aficionado would complain its not as good as their 62 or 72 or 82 Jazz but they have other advantages. left handed is easy, changes to accommodate different sizes is fairly easy. The metal work is not too bad now, it's about 90 mins depending on how much I have to cut through.

 

The end build is strong, I was a little surprised that joining bits together works so well, so that's an issue resolved. The next one is the finish, and thats where its been a bit hard. Given some of the chemicals I've brought, I'm fully expecting a visit from the boys in blue asking whats going on  I've yet to buy 2.5 tonnes of ammonium nitrate though so that might work in my favour.

 

Thanks

Rob

[Stub Mandrel]

10 hours ago, rwillett said:

various finishes and one that I thought might work

 

Have you tried fuzzy skin?

It disguises lines and imperfections by being a textured surface.

[SpondonBassed]

1 hour ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Have you tried fuzzy skin?

 

Isn't she still doing bird for selling skunk to a spider called Anansi.  You must have read about it.  It was all over the web.

[rwillett]

2 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

 

Have you tried fuzzy skin?

It disguises lines and imperfections by being a textured surface.

So here's where we get all geeky... @Stub Mandrel will understand this though

 

Yes, already looked at that. Fuzzy skin is great for non-horizontal walls but it can't go on the bottom and on the top of flat surfaces.

 

For example, here's the top left part of a six string, this is a Prusa Mk4 printer so it's 250mm x 220mm printing area. This is in Prusaslicer

 

 

After setting to fuzzy skin I get this, I've zoomed into a smaller section. The vertical shells are actually quite good with fuzzy skin, but the top flat section (Middle Left) and the top slightly curved section with all the ridges doesn't work with fuzzy skin. If you can make the model far more non horizontal it works OK. I believe that Oraslicer is more advanced than Prusaslicer here but I know Prusaslicer and it's set up with Fusion and Octoprint.

 

 

However the major issue here is that I don't have a printer than can print a body in one go, so it still has to be joined together. I've resolved joining accurately, I use centuries old techniques of dowels and pins and it works fine. However there is still a join line that fuzzy skin actually highlights as it has this nice random texture and then suddenly a a rather sharp vertical join line.

 

If I was making tool handles or knobs then fuzzy skins is quite nice, but didn't work for this.

 

I also have looked at very large scale printers and seeing if they can scale up. RatRig and I have exchanged comms and I've asked about a slightly bigger printer than they actually sell. They make a lot of fuss over their customisation abilities, but they were not keen at all on making the X and Y bigger than 500mm. They were happy to scale in the Z (that's the vertical) but not so happy in X and Y as it would need a new frame, heater pad, bed plate, mag sheet etc etc etc. They make a point of their flexibility and if they can't do it, I can't build one any better. 

 

I'm not disheartened, I'll get a better looking bass and guitar one day, every iteration is a positive step forward (normally), so even steps backward are good as I know not to go there.. If I don't blow myself up with the next batch of chemicals I mix up, I'll be happy. I will need to build a proper spray booth though, with a decent extractor fan. Some of this stuff is not nice on the lungs. I suppose I could get my scuba gear out, but I'd be looking like a complete tw1t (or something) wearing a reg, a bottle whilst spraying stuff. The neighbours are already talking

 

Rob