Toaster Covers

[RedHouse]

Very nice build Jeff, do tell what the switches and knobs are doing?

[jeff mills]

Thanks for the reply RoadHouse

Here's another PIC - please excuse the sawdust. I really don't like slotted shaft pots or switches I found jamming a thin strip of hardwood in the slot helps one side of the shaft from bending.



SW1 on/off/on - is the center pickup on? If so, is it grouped with the bridge or neck pickup?

SW2 on/on - is the center pickup in series or parallel with the grouped pickup?

SW3 - on/off/on is the output mono, completely off or stereo?

Volume 250 pots
Tone 250k pots (both .047 cap)

Rotary switch - just used to snap a bunch of different cap values off the hot leg of the center pup, bleeding off a different frequencies to ground. Thereby giving a wide range of overall tones that come out of the center pup grouping. I had to remember caps in parallel add, caps in series are the highest value of the two, so based on how the center pup is selected via SW2 (series of parallel with the grouped pup there are many different possible tonal qualities that can be selected.

My take - I can dial this thing in to sound clean, crisp and whimsy to dark, muffed and heavy and most all points in between. It's much more than I expected - I am completely satisfied with the pups and all the tonal variations. A real plus is playing stereo through two different heads, a couple of floor toys on one head really make for some interesting practice time.

[RedHouse]

Very cool Jeff.

I hear ya on that slotted-shaft thing, I often end up using some pieces of old jig saw blade with a little light filing they fit right in and can torque the scew pretty good without collapse of the insert.

Again, nice bass man! looks fretless, can ya tell us more about the neck and body?

[jeff mills]

Very cool Jeff.

I hear ya on that slotted-shaft thing, I often end up using some pieces of old jig saw blade with a little light filing they fit right in and can torque the scew pretty good without collapse of the insert.

Again, nice bass man! looks fretless, can ya tell us more about the neck and body?

Thanks RedHouse yeah your right it's quartersawn hard maple fretless neck, I'm currently tooling up to make a fretted neck for it also. It's a 33 1/4" scale length, semi hollow poplar body.

Here's some closeups of the finger board, it's a good looking hunk of wood that you can't admire from the profile picture.





I don't want to bore everyone with the wood working details.

[David Schwab]

I don't want to bore everyone with the wood working details.

No, please do! A lot of us here build instruments. We love this stuff! I know I do.

You should also post the build pictures at MIMF.com

[RedHouse]

No, please do! A lot of us here build instruments. We love this stuff! I know I do.

You should also post the build pictures at MIMF.com

+1

Hey Jeff, is there side-dot markers on the neck?

[jeff mills]

+1

Hey Jeff, is there side-dot markers on the neck?

Yes 3/32" round black ones at the 1,3,5,7,9,12,15,17 &19 positions. Instead of placing them in between where the lines should go, I placed them on where the line ares supposed to be.

I've not played a lot of different fretless bases and the ones I have played had lined finger boards with the side dot markers in between the lines. I wanted an unlined fretless and placing the side dots where the lines should be has so far helped me find the right notes quickly and play in tune.

[jeff mills]

No, please do! A lot of us here build instruments. We love this stuff! I know I do.

You should also post the build pictures at MIMF.com

The body mainly consists of two 1" thick pieces of poplar. I hollowed them out with a forstner bit chucked in my drill press and a template, 1/2 straight bit and template bushing in my router. I hollowed it out 3/4 deep and to 3/4" from the edges and 2" from the center line, which left me with a 2x4 that runs the length of the body after gluing the two halves together.

As you can see in the pic below the centerline is 1/4" wide strip of poplar on ether side of that is 7/8" wide hickory then widths of poplar to make up the body width. All the lumber I used is quater sawn.

Why use hickory? Well they make tool handles out of hickory although it's not a tone wood it's strong as heck, so my neck body joints are made in the hickory. Poplar is a pretty softwood and very bright sounding as far as tone woods go. But Poplar is to weak in my opinion to be joining a bass neck to a body in. So by gluing up hickory in with poplar I was able to reap the benefits of using the tonal qualities of poplar and added the strength of hickory.

The neck is attached via a mortise and tendon or pocket joint that runs just a little past the second pickup. Two brass inserts screwed into the bottom half hold the neck down to the bottom with 2 1/4-20 hex head screws and 4 1/4-20 sets screws allow for neck tilt within the pocket. All the connections are made in the hickory strips for strength. Why did I do this? Well routing a long pocket allowed me to flip my template and get a near perfect centered neck. The neck/body connections are hidden under the pickups. I can slide the neck out easily. Is strong as heck... I'm a pretty big guy and I jumped up and down on the joint and tried to break it before I went on with the build - it just laughed at me. I'm currently tooling up to build a fretted neck. So when all is said and done this bass will have two necks a unlined fretless and a fretted.

Here it is roughed out, the body is held together with masking tape on the edges at this point, stung with a set of old rounds for testing and dialing in the neck height from the body. Knobs are on lengths of 1/4 dowel rod


Here the body being glued together, you'll notice 7 wood screws used to clamp the center 2x4 together while the glue sets up. The wood screws are placed exactly where the center screws for the pickups are located and one under the bridge. I removed the wood screws after the glue dried because they were no longer needed and just added weight.


Here the pickups are fitted and wired for testing. The Hipshot brass bridge squared up and set for 33 1/4" scale length.


I made the peghead truss rod cover in the shape of a claw, I originally had the end pointed but it didn't look right so I rounded the end over. It's made of 1/8" thick maple, pained bone my daughter painted the lettering. 2X2 Hipshot HB1 tuners are fitted. I originally used enamel paint as shown in this picture which never really dried, so I had to scrape and sand that off and use lacquer instead. I had a few dings that needed sanded out anyways so I didn't consider it a big deal.


The next one I build - I'll try and do a play by play - I'm sure I'll bore the heck out of everyone in the process.

[jeff mills]

Guess I bored everyone - I suspected I would. I'm preparing for my next build, I would like to do an octave 8 string along the same body style. I really struggling finding any octave 8 string bridges and nuts does anyone know of any suppliers? Thanks

[big_teee]

Guess I bored everyone - I suspected I would. I'm preparing for my next build, I would like to do an octave 8 string along the same body style. I really struggling finding any octave 8 string bridges and nuts does anyone know of any suppliers? Thanks

Not Boring, but it Does IMO look like a topic suitable for the Guitar Tech(Basses too) Forum Area.
B_T

[RedHouse]

Heads up, check the "garage sale" page:

Classic Garage Sale!