Second build - Custom IB4 Bass

[fender3x]

I have tried staining using a variety of tapes, and I always get bleed through.

The Grainger bridge looks very similar in design to mine, but it's milled, polished and electroplated, whereas mine is cast and chromed. The Sung Il site says the saddles are zinc, rather than the brass used on the Grainger. Neither company identifies what the rest of the bridge is made of...so probably pot metal or zinc. The Grainger comes with stainless screws. I threw away the screws that my Sung Il came with and used stainless steel screws from the hardware store. Of course mine is 17 pounds at Black Dog Music in the UK, whereas the Granger is 92 pounds. I am not sure that any of this makes much sonic difference, but the Grainger may well be the high end bridge the Sung Il was making a cheaper version of.

[Simon Barden]

The Grainger bridge looks very similar in design to mine, but it's milled, polished and electroplated, whereas mine is cast and chromed. The Sung Il site says the saddles are zinc, rather than the brass used on the Grainger. Neither company identifies what the rest of the bridge is made of...so probably pot metal or zinc.

Yes Grainger do. The brass bridge is brass base plate + brass saddles, whilst the aluminium bridge is an aluminium base plate + aluminium saddles. All the base plates are CNC milled, not cast.

[Dikkybee007]

Spoke to a person I know who is a Luthier and they said the keyhole bridges are not really made for string through setups. You can use them as such, but they said they would not use them as there are so many other options that would do a better job.

What they are used for is the keyhole allows you to either drill a clearance hole under each keyhole or make a slot that goes under all the slots that allows you to put the ball end of the string through the large hole and then the string goes into the thin part of the slot and it holds the sting in the bridge. The slot holds the string much like other style of bridge that you pass the string through the end beside the screw that adjusts the intonation.

They did say you have to make sure the style of string has a short enough winding, so the thicker part of the string doesn't sit on the saddle otherwise it may not sit correctly in the bridge and will affect the sound as it may not allow the string to bend enough and it may not seat properly.

As for the stain when I have used a stain near some binding I have used a small hobby brush and painted the binding with some sort of varnish and then stained over it and the stain doesn't enter the fine cracks. Just have to make sure the varnish you use is compatible with the final finish you are going to apply.

[fender3x]

FWIW I am using a keyhole bridge with string through and it seems to work just fine. Hollowing out a clearance hole makes some sense, but on my bridge there is already a quick release if you do string on top which would make the keyhole redundant...or as Simon suggests, vestigial. I can't see why the keyhole with clearance hole would be desirable over normal string-on-top. You don't get what I think of as the principle advantage of string through, that the string tension pushes the bridge and saddle into the body, rather than trying to pull the bridge off of the body. Whatever the rational or original purpose, I still don't think I see an advantage or disadvantage of the keyhole or round hole for string through. While I don't know what the designer may have been thinking, my own experience with a keyhole bridge on a soft paulownia body has been that string though works just fine. I experimented with both approaches, but ultimately decided to do string-through because I wanted the string tension to push rather than pull the bridge. Seems to work great. It's my most resonant bass, good sustain, no tuning issues.

[Dikkybee007]

You do you, don't make a guitar to suit someone else's tastes, unless you are making the guitar for someone else. With the softer woods I throw away the screws that come with the parts and use screws that have a courser thread as they use a smaller pilot hole so they have more thread holding the part on. You can even drill the holes out and glue in a dowel.

I use through body strings on all of my guitars no matter what body they are. I have put through body strings on an ES copy. I swapped the guitar with a friend as he liked it as I like mainly solid body. I was told it could not be done but only if you haven't got the skills is it impossible.

At the moment I have a AG-2, a modified JZ-6 and a EX-1R that I have put or am putting through body strings. People have mentioned that you have to shim the neck to get the angle right but again I don't shim the neck but you have to adjust the angle to suit the bridge. Biggest problem is the funds to perform such things.

[Alexej]

Thank all of you again for the input and thoughts

The second bridge arrived now and I tend to (pretty sure) take the "Key-hole" bridge. Iin my eyes it seems to fit better for the shape and look of this bass in general. The rounded/soften edges look more consistent and give a better visual harmony, considering the shapes and colors. But this is of course a personal taste.



Like advised obove, I took some masking tape and marked the line for the 34" scale. Then arranged the bridge about 3 mm more to the neck, to have some space for saddle adjustments, based on the saddle of the G string. I think this should work

The strings would run almost at the same distance to the sides of the fretboard. I gave a little (maybe 0,5 mm) more space on the E string side, for it is much thicker, I thought. Maybe it is wrong, but at this little unit size I think/hope it won't affect too much.



For the string through I would use the bigger part of the keyhole and try to place some ferrules under the bridge, on the same level of the woodsurface. Atm I like more the idea of the strings not cutting into wood But first have to drill all the holes.

Asked myself about the height of neck to bridge, almost equal. So I do adjust the string height by saddles, right? Or is there something wrong?



About the two colored finish I came upen the idea of using natural and colored wax instead of stain or oil. Maybe this gives more control over the process. But never used colored, darker wax. Has someone experience with that? And does it make sence to go with some oil before or after the waxing? Could affect or not affect each other...

Thx

[Alexej]

Could afford some time to move on with the project...

Tried out some colored oils...it even could work by taping the part, which has to stay natural, I think. But of course the body wood could react different than the used veneer... The black one is flowing into the wood, but teh other were fine...let's see if I really go for color or take the natural oil version...



Made also the adjustment between neck and body...actually I want it to be even more one shape going into another, but I am not sure if I will take the effort or am skilled enough not to ruin it...atm I like it at least more than the orignial version...



And also tried out the string through body drilling on a piece of wood...seems to work...using a drilling station makes the whole task much easier ...I think I will make the ferrules also on the front of the body, so the strings won't cut into the wood when they come out to the bridge...just have to put the ferrules deeper into the wood, so they don't touch the bridge...

[Alexej]

Finally finished the string through body work and could proceed with soldering and finishing the guitar. For the wood finish I just used the Walrusoil (Have chosen the save way, without two colours finish).





Everything seems to work, but I think the output jack makes problems. Soldering (followed a very good tutorial) was fine, everything is well isolated. Just made some test, both pots reacted and then tried to tune...somehow it worked...first the sound came but then it disappeared. If I put the plug into the jack, it sounds like I was touching the plug with my fingers (plain noise). So it seems to be a problem with the signal not properly coming. If I move the plug a bit around the sound sometimes comes... Have not much experience. So I think it is the jack. So I will try to install another one, the only thing that comes to mind atm...

The pickups are quiet far away from the strings, about 1 cm and I already raised them higher...(too deep routing in the kit in my opinion) so will have to work a bit more on that. Very annoying...

The bass looks very fine to me and I am satisfied and hope I can fix the little problems soon

[Trevor Davies]

Looks great. The natural colour and black hardware go really well.

[Alexej]

Thank you Trevor! I like the wood and the black details, too. Although I feel like something is missing, some special accent, I am happy with the project overall. The control cover will become black, I think, just feel the need for that. And with the new jack it will even give some sound 🙂