Day two:
Measuring-checking-measuring….
Fitting the neck today, and hopefully positioning the bridge. A few measurements seem a bit off however. First of all the distance between the 21st fret and the bridge position seems to be about 7mm too long. Checking with a Real SR5 reveals the generic curve at the foot of the neck/fretboard is the culprit. The neck in the kit is highly likely to be used on other 5 string basses, so this is not unexpected. No problem however, as I just radiused the foot of the neck to match that of the real SR5 and used the trusty router to match the neck pocket to suit. Everything aligns beautifully now. Great fun making the jig to do this too…
The next issue was that the existing holes for the neck plate appear to be incorrectly positioned.
After a few measurements I came to the conclusion (I could be wrong however) that these holes are probably correct for the four string version of the bass.
As I was only going to use the first two holes (closest to the neck) as the alignment point for the 6 bolt neckplate I was not too concerned, however laying out the drilling template for the other 4 holes showed just how far out the original holes were from square…. (circled in red below)
Test fitting of the control plate shows that the routing is a bit out in places, with one mounting hole hanging over thin air. Will deal with that one in due course.
Overall, I’m really pleased with the experience so far; it’s making me think about engineering solutions I thought I’d forgotten many years ago.
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