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Hi everyone,
I've had this kit for awhile and I'm going to build this for my brother.
One coat of timbermate has been applied a couple of months ago but not sanded off. I'm about to do that after a mock build.
Again another bolt on kit missing holes in the neck heel. Their site says it's a 34" scale length with 24 frets.
Do I use the same intonation guide here on this forum or is it completely different?
Attachment 15532
Cheers,
Alkay.
Same guide. A 34" scale length is a 34" scale length. Though I do have a Peavey bass that says it's 35" scale length but it measures as a standard 34" to me. So if you want to be 100% sure, measure it, and if the distance from the fretboard side of the nut to the crown of the 12th fret is 17"/432mm, then it's definitely a 34" neck.
I'd almost prefer bolt-on necks to come without the screw holes in the neck. Drilling your own guarantees that they will be in the right place and that you can add any necessary angle to the neck (neck pocket width withstanding) at the time you drill your holes.
Thanks Simon. I guess drilling your own gives you a bit more play incase its not spot on.Quote:
Originally Posted by Simon Barden
I just measured the distance from the fretboard side of the nut to the crown of the 12th fret and it's 431.5mm.
That should be fine because I can adjust bridge saddle slightly when doing the intonation?
First bass I'm building but by the sounds it should be fairly similar.
Cheers,
Alkay.
Hi Alkay, good axe to start with both as a kit and also if you are new to playing Bass.
I have done 3 bolt-ons and they are less scary than set necks, even if you have to drill the bolt holes. You will find this kit a breeze after the LP's.
Thanks waz thats good to know. I might tackle a set neck when I'm better but for the moment I feel more comfortable with bolt ons.Quote:
Originally Posted by wazkelly
This ones for my brother but I'll have a go on it. I'm very very average on bass.
Hopefully this build won't take up too many pages on the forum hahaha.
Cheers,
Alkay.
Need to see lots of pictures.....don't go soft and deprive any of us from seeing what you have been getting up to.
Yes I'll keep doing more pictures. I also need to put together a video too for the other LP build. I have been testing stains and clear coats recently.Quote:
Originally Posted by wazkelly
Here is a test run I did with poly clear coat. Not a guitar but it was a test so it's related hahaha.
Attachment 15556
Attachment 15557
Attachment 15558
Sort of related as it is timber and turned out to be a great test bed.
That looks great and can't wait to see how you transfer this new skill on to your guitar builds.
Do you want to come around and do my knife block too please?
Thanks it was a good test run.Quote:
Originally Posted by wazkelly
Hahaha sure sounds good if the cold beers are flowing :)
Hi everyone,
Two problems pictured below.
You can see I have filled the crack with timbermate but it still stands out. I was thinking of scraping the surface inside the gouge slightly so I can add a saw dust and superglue slurry?
Also, the bridge drill holes are missing on this body. Is there are thread on here that shows how to accurately align the bridge on the body? The plate may even cover up the above timbermate fill depending on where it is placed.
Attachment 15654
Alkay, are you sure you haven't just filled in the hole for the bridge earthing wire? If so, you will need to un-fill it! There should be a hole running from under where the bridge would sit, to either the nearest pickup cavity or the control cavity, so that you can run an earth wire for the bridge. If you look in the cavities, you should be able to find the other end of the hole.
My brother did the wood filler on it months ago. From memory it was just a chunk taken out of the body face that was unsightly.Quote:
Originally Posted by Simon Barden
I just ran a guitar string from the cavity into the earth wire hole for the bridge and it doesn't look like it reaches that spot that has been filled with timbermate.
I might scrape it out and check now.
They are often drilled at an angle by necessity, so they often do look unsightly.
However, it will mean that the hole/filler should be covered up by the bridge.
Thanks Simon,Quote:
Originally Posted by Simon Barden
I think I have a bigger problem by the sounds of it.
-Bridge earth hole not correctly drilled
-No drill holes for the bridge
This sounds like it will be tricky.
Someone will have drilled the earthing hole by hand, and when drilling anything at a very small angle, it is difficult to get the initial hole started, as the drill will want to skid off in all directions. The steep angle also means that the drill is likely to throw off splinters around the hole, which will probably have been simply pulled back and removed, making the hole entrance look rough.
It's difficult to see how it was drilled unless using a right angle drill bit attachment. There's no way the jack hole lines up with the bridge earth wire hole. Maybe it was done earlier on when glueing the layers to form the body as a guess?Quote:
Originally Posted by Simon Barden
You might be able to see the layers of timber below in the control cavity. Bridge earth wire hole is on the far right.
Attachment 15656
The bridge ground wire hole will have been drilled on an angle down from the top of the body into the cavity. You'll need to dig that filler out (carefully) and you should then be able to feed a wire down into the cavity from the top.
You need to position the bridge and drill the holes yourself once you have the neck attached and has measured out the scale length etc. DB posted a good guide with pics a while ago, I'll try to dig up the link: Bass bridge placement
Thanks WeirdBits, that's exactly the link I was after. Thank you very much. I will dig out the filler before drilling the neck and bridge holes.Quote:
Originally Posted by WeirdBits
The lack of drill holes for the bridge can be an advantage, as it means you can fit whatever bridge you want. Whilst there are generally standard fixing hole arrangements for guitar bridges, bass bridges come in all shapes and sizes and with varying numbers of screw holes. So having holes pre-drilled for the bridge that came with the kit (if there was one) might mean that you'd have to fill those holes if you wanted a better bridge with a different number of screws - or they might even be on display with another bridge fitted, and spoil the look.
It's not hard to locate the bridge position. First you need to draw the centreline for the guitar. Bolt the neck in place, get a long stiff straight edge, place it along each side of the neck and draw pencil lines back to the area where the bridge will be. Use light pencil strokes as you don't want to gouge the wood, and you'll need to sand the marks off later.
Draw lines that cross the body at right-angles to the (as yet undrawn) centre line (the pickup routs should be perpendicular to the centre line as well, so use the as guides) near the neck and at the bridge end of the guitar. Measure the distance of each crossing line between the two lines you first drew, halve the distance and draw a dot at each midway point. Now connect the two dots with a line and that should be the centre-line for the guitar (as determined by the neck).
You can now measure the bridge, and mark with a thin felt-tip (or anything that will put a mark on the metal) at the half-width point of the bridge at the neck-end and tail-end of the bridge. You can now put the bridge down on the body so that the middle is sitting on sitting on the initial centreline. You know the scale length of the guitar, so you can measure roughly 34" (or whatever the scale length is supposed to be) from the nut to the bridge saddles position, and move the bridge so that it's roughly in position with the saddles in mid-adjustment position. I'd use the Stewmac calculator (on their website) to work out the exact length away from the nut that the top G string saddle (in it's mid position) should be from the nut. Mark the top and bottom position of the bridge on the guitar with pencil.
Keeping the bridge in position (maybe using double sided tape), I'd run a piece of string from the bottom E slot to its saddle, and from the top G slot to its saddle. Hopefully the strings should run nice and parallel to the sides of the neck without getting to near or too far from the edge. If the strings look skewed to one side, then you'll need to move the bridge sideways a bit until they aren't. Hopefully the strings should now run nicely either down either side of the neck and as close as you can get to either side of the pickup cavities. You can always place the pickups in the cavities if this helps (as the cavities may not be exactly the right shape and it's the way the strings pass over the pickup that will matter most).
Once this is done, mark either side of the bridge on the wood and you've now positioned your bridge. Mark out the screw holes, then drill the holes (remembering just to drill to the depth of the screws). Best to test out the position of the bridge again once it's screwed into place, in case something went horribly wrong with your drilling. But if you are then happy with the location, you can then clean up the pencil lines and relax.
Don't forget to fit the bridge earthing wire before you fit the bridge for the final time.
Thanks Simon I'll try that soon but I need to go to the hardware store and get a long drill bit first.
I scraped out the timbermate and there definitely isn't a hole for the bridge earth wire.
I measured this with a guitar string in the bridge earth wire hole and it doesn't even come close to the gouge I previously filled with timbermate (20-30mm away from gouge). It just wasn't done on this kit. It was a cheap factory seconds kit before the site shut down and I bought this knowing it would have- issues.
Adam and DB did a video on drilling the bridge earth wire hole to the control cavity so I will watch this again before attempting it further as I have already made a mess splintering the face. I thought I could find the hole but no luck. It should be easily repaired and the bridge should cover it up anyway so I'm not too worried about it. I'll just drill a new hole and then try your instructions above.
I'd mark the bridge position first - as you don't want to drill a hole and then find it's not under the bridge!
Hahaha thanks Simon, yes I will do that. Might give it a go tomorrow after some sleep. Thank you.Quote:
Originally Posted by Simon Barden
Hi Simon,Quote:
Originally Posted by Simon Barden
This is probably going to open itself up to other comments hahaha but I can't find the calculator you were talking about for the G string?
I have found the Conversion calculators page but nothing in relation to saddle position for each string. Thanks.
http://www.stewmac.com/FretCalculator
It says fret calculator but also tells you how far to position your bridge away from the nut using the screwholes (not the saddles as I thought, the guitar option gives more bridge options). Select bass guitar and 34" scale. Pick any number of frets as its not important here.
For a 34" scale and a Fender style bridge, it says have the bridge screw-hole centreline 35" away. A nice easy number!
Now if you haven't got a Fender style bridge with your kit, you'll need to tell us, or else try and compare the details of your one to a Fender style one. You should be able to find the dimensions online.
Ok thanks Simon I found it. I don't know inches. I'm only metric.Quote:
Originally Posted by Simon Barden
A = Finger board side of nut to crown of 12th fret is 431.5mm
Therefore scale length: A x 2 = 863mm
Input:
Number of frets: 24
Scale length: 863
Selected millimeter radio button
Selected bass from the drop down combo box
Selected calculate
Output:
Bridge placement for 863.000mm scale length
Distance indicated is from the fingerboard face of the nut, to center of rear-most row of mounting screws. (I think this means the rear saddle adjustment screws for each string on the bridge and not the screws that fix the bridge to the body?)
Fender style bass bridges: 888.382mm (± 0.5mm)
So I think it means the rear of the bridge where the saddle adjustment screws are?
I forgot to attach bridge pics, I'm not sure what sort it is:
Attachment 15730 Attachment 15731
Cheers,
Alkay.
Ok epic brain fail. Apologies, it means the center line screw holes on the bridge where it's screwed to the body as you said. It's late ok that's my excuse hahaha.
Attachment 15732
I can work in both metric and imperial (but mainly metric), but standard scale lengths are normally defined in inches, so it's easiest for me to reference them that way. UK rulers and measures have both scales on, so it's not really an issue for us, whatever scale's used.
1" = 25.4 mm, so 863+25.4 = 888.4mm (without laser measuring and cutting tools you're never going to position it better than ±0.5mm anyway. As long as you've got at least 25mm of movement on the saddles from above the fixing screw position to their maximum forwards position (whilst still on the screw thread) you'll be fine.
Ok thanks Simon,Quote:
Originally Posted by Simon Barden
34" inches = 863.6mm on google.
So I'm in the right area I think. I'll put the screw holes that fix the bridge to the body at this length?
Actually I think that I am wrong.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alkay
I should position all of the bridge saddles in the center of the bridge(so it's 34" or 863.6mm) before it's installed and use that as a guide where to place the bridge on the body.
That way I have equal travel in both directions if sharp or flat for the intonation on each string.
Your G string should be the furthest forward saddle, and that should end up at or just slightly further away than the 34"/863.6mm scale length. On some heavier string sets, experience has shown that it may need to be a bit further forward than this. So if first you set your G saddle fairly far forward. with say 5mm of screw still poking out the front and locate that around the 863 mm point, then check how much adjustment behind that the other saddles have. All the other strings will have their saddles staggered back from here, with the bottom E having its saddle furthest back. Anything over 25mm should be fine.
Hopefully you'll find that the mounting screw-hole centres should be about 25-26mm back from that G saddle position as well - which will tie-in with the StewMac suggestion as well.
Further away in what direction? Towards the nut or away from the nut? Cheers, sorry I'm a bit confused.Quote:
Originally Posted by Simon Barden
Further away from the nut, probably by about 2mm further, making 865mm in total from the nut.
This is one of my basses and although it isn't really a Fender style bridge (as its got through-body stringing and the bridge mounting holes are further forward as a result) its got similar style saddles.
Attachment 15733
You can see that the G string's saddle is furthest towards the nut, but that it's also still got a few mm of forward (towards the nut) adjustment left. The other saddles are progressively further away from the nut.
So the middle of the G saddle is probably about 865mm from the nut. If I changed the strings to another brand or gauge, then I may have to re-intonate the saddles a bit further forwards or backwards as a result, but there is space left on the adjusting screw to do so. The important thing is to place the bridge where all the saddles have room to move back away from the nut (you'll never get the saddles right against the backstop because the springs will get in the way once they are fully compressed).
I've just noticed I the picture that the E and A adjustment screws are longer than the D and G adjustment screws. On your saddle it's the other way round - and it really should be the other way round on my bridge as well. So your bridge is already OK from that point of view, as the D and G saddles will be further forwards (towards the nut) than the E and A saddles
Is that any better for you?
Yes thank you very much I do test you guys out on this forum with my lack of knowledge so I appreciate you taking the time.Quote:
Originally Posted by Simon Barden
Your bass bridge is very similar to this one even though this one is a cheapy.
I now have it positioned correctly. I hope my brother doesn't want to change bridges anytime soon hahaha. If that happens, if and only if but not likely I have read that they use dowl to fill the holes for the new bridge depending on shape.
Geez the way I'm going I might have to do a scratch build soon hahaha.
Thank you so much Simon. I really appreciate your patience. Time to drill some holes for the bridge, pickups and tuning keys.
Oh and the neck heel too. I'm confident I can do this by myself without an issue as I have done it before.
Here is a picture of it at the moment:
Attachment 15734
I'm happy with the strings where they sit inside the fingerboard. Cheers Simon.
No problem And don't forget to drill that bridge earthing lead hole!
Yes I forgot to mention that. I picked up the drill bit for it today...well yesterday now.Quote:
Originally Posted by Simon Barden
Just checked the pickups in the their appropriate cavities. These ones screw into the pickup cavity instead of on the body face like the LP's I have done so that's easy. I'll do that just before I apply the conductive shielding paint or foil in each cavity. I'm not too sure what's the best for shielding a bass. I bought the conductive shielding paint from the UK and used that on my last LP. It works quite well but everyone says use tape now so I'm a bit confused.
The tape is expensive. I have also seen aluminium foil works so maybe if the paint is no good I could use that and get some sort of spray can glue. I don't know just I thought and putting it out there?
Anything is better than nothing, so if you feel happiest with paint, then use that - but don't forget that you'll still need to connect it to ground somehow in each cavity. The thicker the paint, the more conductive it is, so I'd use more than one coat. I haven't found any scientific testing that says copper (or aluminium) is better than conductive paint, plus the paint is easier to apply. StewMac recommend using conductive paint for cavities and copper tape or foil for the undersides of pickguards where it's easier to get a flat finish.
I'm really not sure how well paint or tape works anyway when the top of the cavity is open and there's no metal cover on the pickup. the shielding will absorb some RF signals but I feel a lot will still get through. The cavities aren't really deep enough or the pickups sitting inside them enough for them to act like true Faraday cages. So here they may attenuate rather than completely block RF signals (though any attenuation is beneficial).
Shielding is more effective in the control cavity where a conductive box can be created, and the smaller wiring holes in it meaning that shielding should be good down to the mid-microwave wavelengths (though some nearby mobile phone signals may still be picked up as they work at these short wavelengths).
So I'd stick with the paint as you've got it. You don't need very low resistance for the shielding to work properly. And just remember that most commercially made guitars don't have any shielding at all!
Yeah Ok thanks Simon,Quote:
Originally Posted by Simon Barden
Just from what I have read some people prefer copper tape. I don't have allot of money to spend so I may as well use what I have with the paint left over from the last build. I think it was WazKelly who suggested using the paint. It works for great for me in the fact that I can apply it very quickly without mess. I'm not great with the science with electronics but the tape had a lower reading on the multimeter as opposed to the paint which was a bit higher. The tape I have used on the first LP build took me hours to apply. I do mean hours, a few beers may have slowed down the process but it was tricky to work with but I also didn't have a good soldering iron and absolutely no experience.
Actually you are right too, my first electric guitar is a Samick and she doesn't have any shielding at all but she has noise now but that's probably the jack which I will leave for another project. I may even pull all the electrics out on that one and shield it too while I'm at it.
You really need to measure the impedance at the relative frequencies you're trying to stop getting through - and radio frequencies are a long way from a DC signal!
It's a shame that guitars aren't now shielded as standard. Most were designed in the late '40s or early '50s and the construction methods haven't really changed since then. And there is now so much electronics around us putting out noise compared to then. It really is stupid for most guitar companies to continue to think that what was OK then is still OK now.
Yeah true, but manufacturing costs go up if a company has someone dedicated to detail too in regards to cavity shielding.Quote:
Originally Posted by Simon Barden
Not by much in the big scheme of things.