Bill Bass Build 2 Thunderbird

[Simon Barden]

Yes. It's always a problem knowing the best place to put a battery compartment and sometimes your options are very limited. Unfortunately you've just taken out all the mass you want underneath the bridge, or at least one side of it. Let's hope it doesn't cause you any problems.

Acoustic guitars have thinner tops and they generally work OK with only occasional problems, and you should still have a fair thickness between the compartment and the top, plus full thickness under the other part of the bridge (from what I can see).

Do you plan to rout the edge to recess the compartment, or leave it sitting a bit proud on the top?

[billb]

Yeah FrankenWashie definitely hand routed (as can be seen by the pretty ordinary job), next job is to turn the neck humbucker cavity into a PBass cavity, hopefully that will be a bit neater, but again I'll have something to cover the cavity so it won;t be visible. At least there's no real options about getting the location wrong!

Simon - there were plenty of places I could have put it, I just completely missed the main consequence of this location - the only excuse is stupidity. Agreed with the mass below the bridge too, thankfully I won;t find out until it's too late to back out of it all Live and learn!
I was going to recess the compartment originally but now that extra mm makes a huge difference to being able to get away with this workaround so it will be proud. It's nicely rounded though and where it is shouldn;t be too much of a risk of jagging on clothing etc.

[wazkelly]

If you were really worried about mass or density underneath the bridge probably best to fill it up with Plasti Bond or something similar and find another more suitable location for the dual battery box setup.

[billb]

hmmm, it's been a while, but this is starting to come together. Here's a couple of photos just to show things are happening, hopefully in the next month or so it will be finished. It is playable as of this afternoon but I need to sort out the truss rod cover and logo and let the strings/neck settle in. Definitely happy with it so far, the TBird shape is the one true shape for a bass
I'll post proper photos when the whole thing is sorted

First coats of primer,much sanding followed.


Trying to get a decent coat of paint during the Canberra winter


The lamington factory exploded!

[wazkelly]

Cutting scratch plates can be messy.

[Fretworn]

So the whole raised centre block will be covered by the pickup/pickup surround?

[billb]

Yep Fretworn, trying to highlight that whole center section.