String Bass...Literally

When I was in Vanuatu a couple of years ago, the bands there were playing what they called "string bass". This was essentially a wooden crate with a stick jammed into the top at one corner with a thin nylon rope running from the top of the stick to the box.

Having a go. It's harder than it looks.

This kid was playing it, with one knee up on the box and the other barely touching the floor. He would sort of punch his right hand past the rope and "pluck" it with his thumb, while his left hand moved the stick back and forth to change the pitch of the note.

He was brilliant, and it sounded great. I couldn't get the thing to go "boom", not even once. I hope I never have to repair one.

Oh yeah: when you arrive in Vanuatu, it's the first thing you hear!

Shielding Madness

I've been shielding a lot of guitars lately. Maybe there's more noisy mojo in the air in 2012? Whatever the reason, here's some photos of a BC Rich Bass and Tokai Strat copy getting the silent treatment.

The pickup cavities are lined, and wired to the main ground point.

The control cavity is also lined, with copper tabs over the cover plate screw points.

Same, but different; I've added solder connections to link each piece of copper.

I also like to solder the bridge ground wire to a strip of copper for a guaranteed connection.

Each ground wire goes to a central solder lug screwed into the cavity wall, and then to output ground.

Tokai Strat before...

...and after.

I also shielded the control cavity section of the scratchplate. I could have covered the whole thing, but the Bartolini pickups this guitar was getting are internally shielded and very quiet. The control cavity was the main culprit for noise.

Shielding is often a very effective means of reducing RFI and EMI noise being picked up by a guitar or bass. Single coil hum is a separate issue, although there are ways of reducing and eliminating this as well.

Warwick Thumb 6-String Re-fret

This customer bought a fretless-converted Warwick Thumb 6-String, and wanted to get it re-fretted.

On the bench, ready for restoration.

We decided to go with the original Warwick bell brass fret wire for this job. Bell brass frets are a little more malleable than nickel silver frets, and I had to be careful not to over-seat the fret ends before fitting the tang.

Masking off the fretboard around the soon-to-be re-cut fret slot.

When you buy the bell-brass fret wire from Warwick, you get exactly the number of pieces that you need, pre-cut. If you make a mistake with a piece, then you have to but another bag of 26 pieces. I made sure I took my time on this job.

Cutting the slot and checking the depth. The fret wire is also ready to go.

Re-slotting my way down the board.

Installation begins! The fretboard is waxed as a barrier for the gel-type glue in the slots.

Fretted all the way down the neck, ready for clean-up.

Shiny.

Bevelled and ready for levelling and crowning.

Cleaning up the fret ends.

Taped off and marked for levelling.

Crowning begins.

Crowned, polished and ready to go.

Strung up and happening!

Finished!

I always like working on Warwick basses because they behave in a predictable way. They are very well engineered instruments and can almost always be brought back to top notch condition.

Somebody likes my repair work!

A customer wrote a very nice review of the work I performed on his Carl Thompson bass.

Here is the bass in question:

I'll be making a post in the near future detailing the work that went into getting this bass back to its former glory.

Stay tuned!

Setup Procedure

Here's another video showing how I set up our basses before they hit the shop floor:

Truss Rod Replacement Part 2

Finally finished that truss rod replacement, like so:

Trimming the excess fret position marker material.

Levelling the fret markers.

More levelling.

Cleaning up the epoxy on the fingerboard edge.

Levelled, sanded and treated with oil.

Preparing the new ebony nut.

Nut complete!

Finished!

This kind of job is a lot messier than it looks. On the days I worked on this bass, I went home dustier than a butlers' duster. A butler that has a lot of dusting to do in a giant mansion that doubles as a sawmill.

Potential band name: Butlers' Duster. Potential low, about 3/10 or so.

New Mahogany Heel

Sometime in the past, this bass had the neck re-glued at the wrong angle. WIth epoxy. So the whole damn thing came apart like a fart.

The glue they used on this bass in the 70's wasn't the best, and here's the result.

New mahogany block, being carved for a new heel.

More carving.

Even more carving.

Still more carving.

Perfect fit!

Clamped up, lined up and glued.

More to come once finishing starts. Adios.