Australian/New Zealand Luthiers Forum

DANG! That's beautiful!

I'm loving it! Beautiful style.
I have never thought of placing individual bridge pieces on a block of stainless

Great explanation on the spraying, its an area I struggle with and my old man is a qualified french polisher and furniture sprayer pushing 67 years of age. Maybe I should just ask for a lesson.

and that timber looks great!

I'd say most of that lower section would have nice figure throughout it. When I mill twisty 'ugly' sections I always end up with the best looking timber.

I'd say find a few large plastic containers and silicone the lids shut for maximum air tightness.

Might be overkill though.

Thanks for the information Curly. I've been slowly working through the stack and placing the purplish more colourful pieces to the sides for guitar making and leaving the less crazy for furniture making.

Thanks again for the information.

Hi, I currently purchased a few cube of brigalow for a furniture project for the wife and have come across a few pieces of darker timber. From my knowledge brigalow and gidgee grows in the same environment so I'm assuming that a mix up could easily happen. Does anyone know if this could be gidgee? I...

I worked it out! I had the pickup wired wrong to the mini switch. Being that I didn't know which side of the pickup was which I have the + & - hooked up incorrectly so it was effectively making hum. This was of course after I rewired the pickup with shielded wire and added more shielding to everythi...

Hi, So I have shielded everything, the pickup cavity, the control cavity, and control cavity cover. The CTS pots I'm using have a little tab that touches the shielding so i'm assuming that is earthed out. I doubled checked the wiring on the jack and reversed the wires just to make sure and that had ...

Here is the bass body with wiring done. It does have a slight buzz so I'll have to double check my shielding. With shielding how shielded is shielded? If I have a small gap here and there will it buzz or could it just be the wiring? image1-1.JPG Can't wait to hook it up to a decent bass amp and see ...

I sanded off the shellac and decided to stain the top. The result is much nicer.

Hi Martin, I've been looking at the internet (all of the internets!) about applying oil finishes over shellac with no great success. Do you have any thoughts on danish/scandinavian/tung oil over shellac? Everyone has opinions, however, none really apply to guitars. I'm wondering how a sweaty forearm...

My Brother in Law is a sparky with all the toys and he is going to take some readings for me when I get around to it. I've decided to go the series/parallel route due to the noise cancelling factor. I was going to use poly for the finish but after finishing a timber gift box in shellac I used that i...

Thanks Dekka and Garry, That diagram is understandable. The pick up actually has wires missing so I had to solder new ones so colour isn't correct anyways. Do people feel there is a noticeable sonic difference with parallel vs series? I was thinking maybe I should do the switch to have single coil a...

I've got a question for wiring, I have my music man humbucker pup, and I want to wire it to a series/parallel switch. I'm using a mini switch that has 6 pins, I'm assuming they are earth, +, and negative. How do you wire the switch? I have four wires coming out of the pickup and am stumped. Google h...

More sanding and more routing, starting to shape up. I noticed that I have a glue line between the top timber and the back. Any advice out there to ensure this doesn't happen again? More clamping, better thicknessing? Happy to hear any advice.

Here is todays progress. My bandsaw, which is maybe from the 80's, decided to not need its guides anymore so I made this sweet as timber one and clamped it on! IMG_4312.JPG However, I still managed to cut out this P bass body today. Made from two pieces of New Guinea Rosewood I picked up a few years...

Hi Garry,

Thanks for the heads up about the pots on a passive pickup, I understand what you're saying. I'll be back in the shed tomorrow so hopefully will have everything finished and ready for the paint shop (A.K.A. dad with 40 years of polishing experience!)

Mat

Here is the first bass. It's a figured mango top on a bunya back. I've rough shaped it and have done the neck pocket, pickup hole and added the bridge. After taking the last photo I drilled the holes for the pots. image1.JPG IMG_4277.JPG Speaking of pots does anyone have any tips for 250k vs 500k? I...

I remember back in grade 9 I did a science project on tone woods and sustain. Apart from getting a decent mark one science teacher threw me a text book on nodes and all that 'stuff.' Personally I had no idea what he was getting at except that the string 'didn't move' in different spots. So i'll be l...

Looks great. Love the headstock

I'll be making two basses now. One will be Bunya Pine with a figured mango top, single coil with the inspiration coming from the EBMM stingray bass. The second will be make from New Guinea Rosewood and taking looking like a P bass setup. Both will have maple necks with rosewood fretboards, being as ...

Thanks Garry, I didn't think of the position of the horn being over the 12th fret. I've always disliked an unbalanced instrument but didn't think of this until now. Makes sense when using lighter timbers. The pursuit of tone does open up a can of worms. All I know is that when I give my guitar to on...

Hi Pete,

Thanks for your response. I see what you're saying and it makes sense to me. I'll have a play around with different timber combinations and see what I come up with. Might even do a Work in Progress thread!

cheers,

Hello, I've been recently asked for make a 'frankenbass' (electric bass) from parts for a friend and will be making a new body due to pickup requests and neck swapping etc. My question is will hoop pine or bunya pine make a good body timber? I've got a stack of timber to choose from, due to my hobby...