Hnnnngh. That red highlight is a wicked idea mate.
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Hnnnngh. That red highlight is a wicked idea mate.
What a stunner, brilliant job Arzi. GOTM here you come;-)
Wow. This is a really tasteful build. I like it a lot. :)
Thanks for the compliments and help along the way. Still have loads of work to be done and keeping my fingers crossed until I get to play the first notes.
Next gonna ground the bridges and then glue the neck. I'm a bit nervous about it as it is crucial step in the build and hard to get undone after glued in. Just have to take my time setting it in place. Thought about using the fishing line on this like when locating the bridge. I'll post photos when I'm doing this so you get the idea. Basically fishing line instead of using real strings - keeps in the slots better than fat bass strings.
Looks great. For some reason I can imagine it being played in a country and western band....
So....
I put the bridges on yesterday and did th grounding a bit temporary way for the moment. As I said - have to have the neck in place before journey home.
Put some screws for the bridge pickup and guards as well.
Just now put the glue and clamp on and letting it sit until tomorrow.... Seemed to go on well and tight. We'll just have to see. Nervous at the moment...
I'll try to post pics later in the evening. The strings seem to travel about 2mm above the fretboard when there is no tension on and the bridge is at the top hight so I think the level of adjustment should be enough for the hight once it's strung up. The neck is straight as an arrow.
nice one Arzi always a nervous part of the build gluing the set neck. How much travel and height adjustment do those individual bridge saddles have ? Sure it will intonate nicely.
Look forward to pics !
The bridges are 60mm long and intonation travel is about half. Hight adjustement maybe about 3mm.
The problem with my first build is that I ccan't get the strings low enough. Thanks to this community I know I can fix that with a shim later cause it's a bolt neck.
My mind is already going towards the next build. I was thinking about MMB4 with a maple neck, classic red/white stain work with veneer scratch plates, shaping the edges of the body to get grains more visible etc... If I just had more time and money... :)
sounds like the saddles will have ample intonation movement Arzi.
Glad you can sort out the string height on your first build. Shim in the neck pocket much easier than sinking the bridge.
Your plans for the MMB-4 for next project sound excellent, have to start saving for that !
That's a sick avatar you got there dawg, those tattoos are choice!Quote:
Originally Posted by wokkaboy
cheers Barge, you doing a bit of thread jacking yourself haha
I call it "moonlighting".Quote:
Originally Posted by wokkaboy
Hi
almost crapped my pants when I saw Wokkaīs avatar...:D
Promised to put some pics of the gluing process so here they are
Used fishing line with some washers as weights in the ends of it. This way Iīm able to check how the strings would place without using the real things and quickly take them off and put them on. Used this to place the bridges a while back. The fishing line seems to be surprisingly stable and not move the bridges while positioning due to their flexibility and the weight is delivered evenly on the nut and the bridge. Line stays straight and still. This way I canīt see how it would look with the fat strings of course but if the main thing is to try to match the string spacing at certain spot and measured from the middle of the string to the next - it does the job.
I could only fit one clamp on this due to the narrow counter space on the bodyīs back. I think it will do the job.
Spotted the tip about taping the surroundings yesterday from another post. Good thing I did because the glue came out quite a bit from the joint. Would have been a pain in the **s to wipe off or in the worst case - sand off later.
Itīs 10:30 PM here at the moment and tomorrow Iīll clean the bindings and place the neck pup scratchplate screws. From there on itīs putting some of the pieces together and the fretwork I forgot totally until I glued the neck... NNGHH! Can do it of course but would have been easier with the neck loose.
Good night to everyone reading this.
looking good Arzi you are on the home stretch now. I've glued about 20 set necks and never thought to tape off the neck pocket area to stop glue oozing onto the finish. Thanks for the great idea !
PS I don't look anything like my avatar, thats Barge's paintshopping talking me up ! haha
So - the neck is set. I removed the tapes from the body and headstock. Saw how much stain there was on the binding and started to clean it up.
Taped the binding edges and tried to wet sand carefully - no luck. Then took out my disposable surgical scalpel ( perks from work) and started scraping. Scraped the neck clean and then took a look at the body... Damn... Saw all the flaws I left behind before putting on the finish and - decided to scrape those too.
At this time I knew that I will take the TO off as well from the bindings. At this point I've spent 3 hours scraping in total and still have an hour of work left. The neck binding was shiny white as the body binding yellowish from oil and spotty as well.
Anyway - after I'm done there will be no stain on the binding and afterwards it's masking tape and wet sanding to smooth out the binding. Also there is a line that you feel with fingers on the edge of the binding that needs to be smoothed out too - don't know yet how but I'll think of something.
Gonna be up late again this evening... It's pics time again tomorrow at some point...
Daylight...
So I cleaned the bindings after scraping with wet sanding 2000 grit and then polishing with nameless product and nameless wax as before... came out ok. Seems I used the nameless oil so generously that I can also sand without fear of breaking the finish. The borders came out nice - especially the neck feels smooth going from wood to binding.
Drilled and screwed the tuning pegs/machine heads on last night as well as the neck pickupīs scratchplate. I had ordered a black set of pegs and thought it would look nice to use chrome ferrules with black pegs. Kind of goes with the colour theme on the body.
Today when kids were taking a nap I decided to shield the pickup- and control cavities with aluminum tape. Used the tape with my first build with good results - no hum - except from my cheap amp but thatīs another story... The glue should be conductive as it reads so on the product. Only remembered to take pics when the last one was up.
After that the sun came out and I decided it was time to take daylight pics of "The Cole" so here they are. In different light it shows different color as can be seen on the photos. I could not decide witch ones to post so here they all are. Hope itīs not too much at once.
Next I have some soldering to do with the pickups and slugs, then fretwork followed with stringing it up. Then adjusting the truss rod, filing the nut, setting string hight, setting intonation, and doing some of these all over again a few times because of the truss rod living itīs own life from several hours to a day at a time after adjusting it... and of course design the truss rod cover with a logo of mine ( thatīs gonna take time...)
At the moment weīre going through the coldest summer in 20 years in Finland with a lot of rain too so you know what that does to a guitar wood... :( Too bad I told one of the members here to bring speedos along when they arrive - even I havenīt dipped in a lake so far and I live here...
Hope you had the patience to go through my short novel again and maybe like what you see.
And some more....
And a bit more still...
wow Arzi that looks unreal. Must be on the home stretch now !
Thanks Wokka
I aim to finish this during august. It's back to work in under two weeks and kids are starting day care. Wife starts working again also so we have our calendar quite booked. Best to leave this project to be finished at work. Maybe GOTM entry if I feel good about the end result (mainly if it plays ok and I don't bang up the guitar before that).
Soldering and testing if electrics work
Just finished soldering the pickup wires. Had a bit of pot and grounding problems. Both of my volume pots were dead - I may have caused it myself when practicing soldering and using too much solder and time on top of pots. Don't know if this burns the insides or something. Anyway no biggie cause I had ordered a dozen of both A and B 500k pots. These are ridiculously cheap from China - also cheap quality but easily replaceable if needed.
After changing the pots one of my wires needed replacing as well.
Then used my Vox Amplug for bass headphone amp to test the pickups and pots. Plug it in and tapping the pickups with a small screwdriver and you can test both volume and tone. If you have any amp with headphone output that works as well. I don't know how others do this but this is one I thought of.
Now it's just fretwork, truss rod cover and then stringing it up. Can't wait for the big day... :)
great job Arzi, you must be happy with it
Speechless Arzi. That is beautiful.
Hi,
Got a moment of time in the evening and it's now well over midnight.
Did the fretwork...
Put the strings on cause could not wait...
Adjusted a bit of the truss rod...
Adjusted the intonation and string height...
Filed the nut...
And "The Cole" came alive! It works great! Still got things to do with the truss rod cover and some more adjusting later on but what matters is that it works...
Will post pics when I get the chance but now I gotta sleep. :)
nice one Arzi look forward to seeing finished pics
Great news Arzi
Nice work Arzi! Looks fantastic :-)
HI,
so here are some pics for you. One shows the "poor manīs fret levelling beam" I developed. I was not ready to pay almost 100 euros for beam and adhesive papers. I walked to a near by hardware store and bought a 20cm "bubble beam" and regular hobby paper glue my kids use to make their own "cut and paste" postcards. I cut some wet sanding paper strips and glued them for about 10 minutes with a clamp and voila - had a sanding beam. Worked perfectly and the paper was easy to change as you could just peel the old one off. Cost me 4,90 euros total cause I had the paper already.
The individual bridge saddles at the end were about 1-1,5mm towards the E-string. Still the strings are perfectly in line with the neck so I donīt know what caused this. Could be the bridge pickup cavity is a bit off but it doesnīt matter cause it does not affect playing. String spacing is even 20mm at the bridge between all strings.
The neck of course is somewhat wider than my jazz I use at the moment so feels slower of course.
The nut was ridiculously high as you can see in the pics and I still have some filing to do cause itīs still too high for my liking ( about 0,35mm at the first fret when pressing 3rd fret down). I might still put the bone nut on later cause as you can see the strings go too deep in to the nut. MIght also file this one down - donīt know yet.
The truss rod works fine and at the moment Iīm about in the middle of all positions at the adjustments so have plenty of wiggle room left. Intonated great.
So here you have them. Gonna do the truss rod cover after I get my logo designed.
And more pics....
That's a piece of art right thur! Love it.
Excellent job, this bass has come up a treat. I've also used a spirit level for fret levelling, works very well and a multi-purpose tool!
awesome build Arzi its really come up a treat. Once the logo and truss rod cover go on it will be complete !
Hi guys
Thank you for the nice words. The build has been a huge learning experience and I've surprised myself positively more than a few times along the way on how I've been able to create something like this. The more you eat the more you feel the hunger though...
At first this was gonna be a red top with black burst and black sides plus back. Just a color job and rest more or less like "inspired by" model. Then the kit arrived with one of the body blanks being flamed and my brains started to turn...
How about if I tried this colouring - would I succeed doing it with stains when I've never used them before? Would I even dare to try if I screw it up? Then I thought if I try it why not change this and that also?... Finally I had all these mods in my mind and I'm glad I did try them. Came up more original.
I could have not done this if it wasn't for this community that has sooooo much info and detailed instructions on how to do each step. 15 years ago it would have been a frustrating job to try educating one self on everything that's needed in building a guitar. Now I had help from the other side of the planet with my build.
Thank you all for the wisdom shared and thanks to Adam for helping me out in the beginning with a few questions marks on the build. I will put another order in for the winter so I have something to do in the long and dark nights to come. I don't know about others but for me this build is something that has taught me new things about myself and I will keep the flame burning.
Hi
started at work today after almost 8 weeks of leave. Now had a bit of on call time (hobby time??) in the morning and did the truss rod cover.
I tried to think of a logo for myself and didnīt come up with anything usable so i decided just to sign my work. Took a bit of time to design (google) my name in different letters and came up with this.
I had to design the shape so that I could remove and put back the cover with the strings attached. This I could have not done with the "inspired by" shape. cut a piece of paper to fit in place and then dremel the plastic with free hand...
The signature I drew with a marker on top of the shielding plastic and then after I carved a bit of lines on the surface - took the shielding off. Then it was just layer by layer slowly carving until I got to the white layer. Then a bit of diamond files, surgical knife, dremel bits by hand...
3 hours later this is what I got. Put it on and now itīs all done.
Decided to try september GOTM even though Iīm already taking this to band practice and itīs not all show piece anymore. Done and have my mind on the next one already... :)
And the whole thing once more
this is a superb build Arzi, you've done a great job and made a great unique axe
Looks amazing Arzi! There's nothing like a black Ricky. Amazing build.
cheers,
Gav.
Great job Arzi!
Arzi stunning bass. the individual bridge pieces and personal custom touches really make this shine.
well done Arzi, should be hard to beat in September GOTM