Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by petey twofinger on July 17, 2010 at 8:26am

really cool ! i wanna make a bass for my wife soon . love the tuners ! nice work .

i have a few decisions to make , like strings , i would love to hear that , what did the weedwacker strings cost you ?

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Permalink Reply by pi_r_squared on July 17, 2010 at 8:31am

I had trouble finding ROUND cross section weedwhacker strings in different thicknesses.....with all the square, star-shaped, etc ones out there......the Ace hardware nearby had TONS of differrent sizes, around $5 for a 40 ft roll. A little less per roll than "real" bass strings are "per string". for the .130 I could only find a big roll, 80 ft I think, for around $10.

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Permalink Reply by Dan on July 17, 2010 at 8:41am

pi r not squared, pi r round, corn bread r square....
great build, keep up the good work!!!

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Permalink Reply by Don Thompson on July 17, 2010 at 11:33am

Very nice first effort. You might have to grind the screw heads down to fit into a wing nut but they would be easier to tune.

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Permalink Reply by Outhouse Instruments on July 17, 2010 at 12:04pm

Me likey. Really cool idea for the tuners ... I may steal ... er ...BORROW that one.


Matt


btw-

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Permalink Reply by pi_r_squared on July 17, 2010 at 12:40pm

Don,

YES!

ok, I had thought about all sorts of nuts.....but kept envisioning having to thread them onto a piece of threaded rod maybe weld them to keep them in place.......*face-palm*......I hadn't considered just getting longer screws and screwing them through from the top......head---->desk :)

Picture me getting my butt to the hardware store to pick up three of anything that might work.

I guess 2 heads are WAY better than one.

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Permalink Reply by Paul Stephen Eklund on July 17, 2010 at 4:20pm

I"m with Matt Towe on this one. Totally dig your tuners! Great build!

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Permalink Reply by MichaelS Country Boy Guitars on July 18, 2010 at 1:28am

Nice job, I like the tuners, have had simular visions, but I got lazy and used store bought tuners. Well done.

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Permalink Reply by Hey, TURN IT DOWN! on July 18, 2010 at 6:02am

LOVE the tuners...that is a Killer idea!! I might have to "borrow" that as well!!

Good looking build!!!

Tim

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Permalink Reply by Larry McInnes on July 19, 2010 at 7:37am

Hey PiR. Excellent first build. And that's a great solution to alternate tuners.

I ran into the exact same issue with the strings falling a half-step out of tune by the 12th fret. Here's a link to that discussion by people who are a lot smarter than me.
http://www.cigarboxnation.com/forum/topics/fret-spacing-and-sharpening

Cheers!

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Permalink Reply by pi_r_squared on July 19, 2010 at 8:15am

Thanks Larry, that's a good read.....but I think I'm in a different ballpark than someone adding 1/16" of an inch at the nut to compensate.

I do need to lower the action at the nut a little.....just not relishing the idea, I just need to grind down the topnut until the strings hit the fretboard, then "ungrind" a little to make if perfect?? Seems I always end up with shims under the topnut, for grinding off just a "bit too much".

I also wonder, the strings I'm using are nylon weed whacker strings, and I wonder if I need to go a little lighter on the highest pitched one? I get much less "bang for the buck" as I'm tuning the highest pitched string, like I'm WAY past the linear portion of the stress-strain curve (if there is a linear portion for nylon).

I'm going to play it for a while as-is.....see if it will hold a tune, then see how it's behaving, maybe experiment with some different strings.

Thanks again.

Larry McInnes said:

Hey PiR. Excellent first build. And that's a great solution to alternate tuners.

I ran into the exact same issue with the strings falling a half-step out of tune by the 12th fret. Here's a link to that discussion by people who are a lot smarter than me.
http://www.cigarboxnation.com/forum/topics/fret-spacing-and-sharpening

Cheers!

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Permalink Reply by Fitzhugh on August 4, 2010 at 5:45am

You did a beautiful job on the headstock and tuners. I saw something similar recently and loved the idea, waiting to use it on one of the next ones. (here's the link http://www.cyberferal.com/UncleBob/manufacture.html)
Your version is so much cleaner, with the slotted headstock. Cool!

As for fretting, I'm having good luck with paper templates that I tape on, taped between each fret line so the rest stay as I saw through the paper on each line. I've tried using an x-acto razor saw with both the x-acto miter box and with a piece of wood clamped to the top, lined up with the fret line: MUCH better results with the latter, as even that narrow slotted miter box (their little aluminum one) has too much room for play. I just hold the saw blade against the side of the block of wood with two fingers pressed against the side of the blade. I use a tri square to square up the wood clamped to the top. I found by accident that the wood I first used was just about the right height to stop the blade at the proper depth. I sanded it down a tad, and now the metal brace on the back of the saw blade reaches the wooden guide block right when the cut reaches the right depth. I'll buy a proper fret saw some day, but this lets me buy other things I need first.
You can find various scale length templates via google, but I make my own since I've found errors in a few I downloaded. Not sure if this helps, but there you go.

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