After sanding, I have given the body and the neck two coats of dingotone - Coolangatta gold. It has come out a little darker than I expected , but I am happy with it. The neck will need a few more coats to match the body.:)
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After sanding, I have given the body and the neck two coats of dingotone - Coolangatta gold. It has come out a little darker than I expected , but I am happy with it. The neck will need a few more coats to match the body.:)
After more coats of the neck and body, and waiting for them to dry, I have come up with a few possible names for this guitar. I hope these have not been chosen by others. Any comments.
I think the Winged-V would look good horizontally at the top of the headstock.
There is a V in coVid...
Small truss rod cover - Phat V where the normal Script logo would be.
Large truss rod cover -V- on the top and Korona 19 on the truss rod cover.
My $0.02
While adding more DT coats to the body and neck, my impatience has got the better of me.
So I decided to give the soldering a go. I have swapped the 3-way switch with an all black one I purchased. I have left room for the pup wires on the connector strip. I purchased some Irwin wire stripping pliers which did a great job at removing the insulation.
It has been a while since I soldered, but all seemed to go OK.
I have also had a go at making a wooden template to make a custom truss rod cover - some 3-ply pick guard is on its way. My trial with MDF sheet worked well using a router table with flush trim bit followed by 45o bit.
Good work. That test truss rod cover looks nice.
Everything has been going slowly due to cooler weather.
I have now completed the 3 ply truss rod cover.
Started coating the body and neck in tru-oil - 4 coats so far.
Nice work on the truss rod cover
Put it all together. All the electronics works - yeah. Still need to do correct setup.
Looks good to me!
Thanks Simon.
Got to set the string height at the nut now. They all seem way to high.
I cannot find much online about this.
One site says to capo at the 3rd fret, and get a string clearance at the first fret of:
0.10 mm for G
0.15 mm for D
0.20 for A
& 0.25 for E.
Another site says a clearance of 0.550 mm above first fret for all strings with no capo!
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Regards Trevor
They are all trying to achieve the same thing, i.e. the string as low as possible over the 1st fret without it buzzing on it. The 3rd fret capo method will result in the strings being closer to the 1st fret anyway, which is why the clearance values are smaller. You will need slightly more clearance as the string diameter increases if you aim to get the string clearance as low as possible for the lowest overall action and the most 'in-tune' you can be at the lower fret positions, so take 0.55mm for all strings with a pinch of salt.
Don't get too fixed on the actual numbers as they are generally values that will always work, but can often be improved upon (that's if you want to).
The third fret capo method is the method to use if you haven't set anything else up yet, and the string heights at the nut are very high. If they are just a little bit high, then I'd wait until you've finished the rest of the set-up, and then tackle the slot depth, as the final adjustment of the nut slot depth is the last thing you want to do before final intonation.
I'd put a capo on the first fret to do your normal set up - truss rod adjustment for a very slight concave neck bow and then adjust the saddle height to get the overall action you want. You need to do this before final nut slot depth adjustment because if you set the saddles down lower after lowering the nuts slots to their minimum depth before buzzing on the 1st fret, then that height above the 1st fret will be reduced and you may then get fret buzz. The same thing happens if you adjust the truss rod for a flatter neck after doing the nut slots.
You can of course leave a bigger gap over the first fret to allow you to do all that later, but the bigger the gap, the harder the strings are to press down, the higher the overall action and the more out-of-tune the lower fret positions will be, even if the 12th fret intonation is spot-on. So any real fine tuning to lower the slot depth should be done just before you do the final intonation checks.
I adjust slot depth on a bass using a round needle file. Angle the slots back towards the headstock, so the highest point of the slot is where the string leaves the nut to run across the fretboard. You can get bass nut files, but they are expensive (and quite rare) and aren't as necessary as nut files are for a guitar.
Thank you Simon.
My job for tomorrow.
Nut slot heights finished. The slots had to be filed down a lot so I decided to remove the nut and file base down a bit.
I was a bit worried about removing the nut - but one gentle wack of persuasion with a large screwdriver and hammer and it was done.
Cleaned up the old join, filed about 2 mm of the base of nut. Couple of drops of superglue to hold it back in place.
Retuned and double checked the intonation and all seems well.:)
Now I have a working bass. Now I will have to learn to play a bass!
Next I need to get some water decal paper.
Photos of the back.
Hi, with regards to the Neck mounting plate there is a plastic plate and the metal plate. Is the plastic plate also meant to be used - or is it optional?
Optional, but you'll probably find using just the metal plate will bruise the wood/finish a bit, that's the main reason for the black plastic.
I'd say optional. I never use them. Fender don't. I'm not sure why they exist TBH.
And the bass is looking good. Nice.
Looks nice - I hope my TB-4 turns out as well!
This build was also finished a long long time ago, but I have finally got around to putting a logo on. The logo and the "winged V" are vinyl cut with a Cricut machine.
Nice work.
How well does the vinyl stick?
Also, is it thin enough to bury under a clear coat, or would that require ridiculous amounts of clear?
Two or three of coats of spray paint normally matches the level of the metallic vinyl disk I use on the headstock before putting a decal over the top, so it's not a ridiculous amount you'd need to add to cover it. But not sure how many wipe-on coats you'd need to use.
They stick really well. I have use the Permanent and the Temporary - both stick well.Quote:
Originally Posted by McCreed
Both the Permanent and Temp vinyls have a a thickness of 0.10 mm, compared to my sticky tape with 0.05 mm thickness. So they are quite thick. They do not have any coats over them on this build. I did not bury them TO with my STA-1HT build , they are well coated, but I quite liked the 3d effect.
I will try spray coats down the line.