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Private member DiscussionElectric Repair

Bass Neck Stiffness, Can't Get Enough Relief

Hello, I hope everyone is having a great 4th of July weekend so far. I was recently asked by a friend to work on a cheap S101 bass someone had given to him. It had no electronics and it was severally back bowed. After finishing up the electronics, I did the set up. He wanted the guitar tuned low, to Drop C. So, I went out and bought some Ernie Ball Power Slinkies 55-110. Once I got to the nut depth check, it was clear there were large, g…

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Private member
9m✎🗑 A standard heat treatment, with the neck clamped in an upbow, should help. I have been using an Aria neck heat bar for 50 years with more successes than failures. You can find the Aria on eBay for…
Private member DiscussionShare Your Repair Content

Rebuilding a 1979 Engelhardt C1 Double Bass

I found a cheap double bass in pieces on Facebook Marketbook, so why not try to bring it back to life? Note, I can't play, so look over the awful hacking during the sound clip 🤣

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Private member DiscussionElectric Builds

Nut slot and action trouble

Hi everyone - I recently ran into trouble making new nut for one of my necks that needed to be trued and re-fretted. I roughed in the nut as usual and then, with the bass guitar fully assembled and strung up, I started cutting the slots to depth. I use the StewMac digital nut slot depth gauge and have had good results in the past. I marked the nut's lowest points (radiused) using the guitar nut scribe tool (first time using this!) and c…

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Ian Davlin
That's actually not how that tool was intended to be used. That is essentially plotting a like to the top of the fret. With a bass, you would need much more than that. When James and I came up with th…
Private member DiscussionElectric Builds

Venturing into the unknown...

Hello friends - I am a bass guitar builder who is considering building a neck-through Flying V-style guitar with a 25.5" scale length and a Floyd Rose tremolo bridge. I have not built any neck-through instruments and would appreciate any guidance on where to begin with respect to laying out the design, in particular, getting the neck angle right and the headstock angled properly. Any resources are welcomed and if someone has any interes…

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Private member DiscussionElectric Builds

Truss Rod Length - Is there a "rule of thumb"?

Friends - My "go-to" truss rod for my basses has been the rod sold by LMII; however, since they are now out of business, I am evaluating what other rods are suitable for bass guitar necks. The attached photos are all showing truss rod lengths from the front edge of the nut slot location on the blank. One photo shows my last LMII rod (23 1/2" in length) vs. 2 other rods, one longer (23 11/16") and one shorter (22 1/4") -- all measured f…

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Private member
I think that the 22.25 is fine to run. It lands over the neck pocket and those last few frets are getting sanded down to create a fall off anyway. Have you ever thought about changing the design and…
Private member DiscussionElectric Repair

Double Humbuckers - Schematic?

Friends, I am looking for a wiring schematic that shows how to set up 2 humbuckers, each with their own Volume pot -- no Tone in this circuit. Everything I have has some type of Tone control in the circuit. Any suggestions? Thanks!

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i erased the tones. if you are leaving a switch out the output hot goes to both middle lugs of pots
Private member DiscussionElectric Repair

Fender P Bass-Plus -- Switch short?

Friends - I have an unexpected problem with my 1989 P Bass-Plus. I suspect that the Series-Parallel switch is grounding out (ie, short circuiting) when the 3-position pickup selector is in the P pickup position (disengaging the J pickup and all 3 pickups). I am waiting for feedback from Fender as to whether there is both a wiring diagram for this bass and the possibility of getting a direct replacement switch. Has anyone worked on these…

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Thank you for the update. I had completely overlooked the selector switch. Sorry to run you down the wrong rabbit hole, but at least you got practice troubleshooting and a nice switch for a future pr…
Private member DiscussionElectric Builds

Repeated blow-out during routing body edges

Hi everyone - although I am not the most experienced builder, I have made a number of bass guitars. However, I have now dealt with 2 instances of serious blow-out while routing the body edge. I use a pattern bit and mark the grain direction all around the perimeter of the Alder body blank -- the attached photo shows today's lovely result. I will be gluing on a figured Maple top and now need to trim away the bad section, changing the con…

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Private member
HI I use a 2 inch spiral as well. after i cut out the trace off my template & also use a spindle sander to get even closer to the line & after attaching the template i spindle a little more carefully…
Private member DiscussionElectric Builds

Resaw a book-matched flame maple top - guidance please

Hello Friends – I am about to start a new bass guitar build using a flame maple top over an alder body. This is my first time attempting such a book-matched top. If anyone has some general tips on how to re-saw the flame maple blank for a well-matched pair I would be most grateful. Many thanks!

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Private member
Ok. If you're talking about joining the faces of what you cut on the joiner, I would proceed with caution. A joiner and flamed maple is going to likely cause insane tear out. Depends a bit on the j…
Private member DiscussionElectric Repair

Presentation and first post

Hey there! Newbie here. I thought it would have been cool to show just a pic of a current work I'm doing for a customer. Basically this was a brand new bass, never played, cause it was delivered with non uniform fretboard, a broken truss rod and warped neck. I had to remove the old fretboard (ebony), reinstall a new double action truss-rod, compensate the eight of the fretboard with 2 layer of black veneer (since this is a neck-through t…

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