looking unreal Geddy ! What is the drop top timber like a curly maple ? This is going to be a beast 3 bass humbuckers !
looking unreal Geddy ! What is the drop top timber like a curly maple ? This is going to be a beast 3 bass humbuckers !
Current Builds and status
scratch end grain pine tele - first clear coat on !
JBA-4 - assembled - final tweaks
Telemonster double scale tele - finish tobacco burst on body and sand neck
Completed builds
scratch oak.rose gum Jazzmaster - assembled needs setup
MK-2 Mosrite - assembled - play in
Ash tele with Baritone neck - neck pup wiring tweaks and play in
Quilted maple...this is what I'm going for on the body:
Last edited by geddyfan; 14-03-2017 at 09:22 PM.
nice one Geddy, the quilt isn't very obvious in its raw state. Sure when its sanded and stained I hope it looks like the picture you posted !
Current Builds and status
scratch end grain pine tele - first clear coat on !
JBA-4 - assembled - final tweaks
Telemonster double scale tele - finish tobacco burst on body and sand neck
Completed builds
scratch oak.rose gum Jazzmaster - assembled needs setup
MK-2 Mosrite - assembled - play in
Ash tele with Baritone neck - neck pup wiring tweaks and play in
Not sure about any RC-4 kits, but a few people (myself included) have stained kit rosewood fretboards black.
Regarding the 3rd MM pup, that's potentially going to be a lot of magnetic pull on the strings. Have you researched the possible effect on intonation and sustain?
Scott.
Looking great. Glad the glue held and all is well.
Six pairs of big magnets pulling on those strings - you might loose some sustain as a result, but it will look pretty awesome. As you will be lacquering the fingerboard, any black wood dye should be fine as it's going to be sealed in so you don't have to worry about getting dirty fingers, though others have used leather dyes before to good effect. You can often get them in a marker pen form, which would make it easier to 'draw' round the inlays to avoid staining them. It will simply polish off the frets.
If you are going with 3 pickups you need to start thinking about switching and control options as you'll need to drill the holes for them before you start the finishing work on the top. You can use a rotary selector switch (like on some PRSs) rather than a Fender style 5-way, or you could use individual on/off switches, or individual 3-way off/series/parallel switches, or separate on/off and series/parallel switches (like Brian May) or..or.. too many options! But you'll need to make a decision and commit sometime soon.
Hmmm....intonation and sustain...who cares about that, right? Coolness vs. "quality" of the bass as a "musical instrument." It's tough...reconciling the 13-year-old punk and the 53-year-old "musician" inside of me...Originally Posted by WeirdBits
Must research...
Yeah...that's why I didn't do the pickup routs...I'm going to think on it while I do all the finish sanding, etc. I could change my mind (but I doubt it)...so, I was thinking (for three pickups), I have some cts pots (regular and push-pull), so three volume (1 per pickup, using the push-pulls for coil tapping), and then a master tone, no switches. That's about as far as I've really considered...not much wiring guidance out there for triple humbucking pickups on a bass...and though I'm okay with a soldering iron and don't fear electronics, I've never wired a guitar beyond fixing a broken solder. So I guess the wiring will be an interesting challenge.
Gotta have a solid plan before I start cutting into the wood again...
...and my wife, being awesome...bought me a hard case for my project...fits great!
Gotta protect it...it might be awesome one day!
...explain THIS:
That's FIVE...watched a demo of this bass, and Bootsy seemed to be getting plenty of sustain...
Awesome wife indeed, nice case.
3 push/pull volumes and master tone is a relatively easy layout, but if you get stuck just ask and I'll draw something up for you. However, just using volume pots to select/control the three pickups may not be ideal, for a number of reasons, so you may want to consider some switches. If you add two standard 3-way toggles to your push/pull plan you could have any combination of the 3 pickups (any one, any two or all three) using those two switches, plus still have your individual volumes and coil splitting etc.
Bootsy is a special case, in all aspects.
Scott.
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