I finally made enough money off a custom build that I just purchased the StewMac fret slotting jig and slotting templates, so now I can be confident that I'm slotting them dead on. It's an investment, but I'm happy I could finally make that investment. 😎 It's coming along nicely.
I'm dreading cutting slots by hand (without a jig) but I'll have to try it to gain some confidence. You make it look so easy. thanks for another great video.
It's as easy a banging in a nail, it's just a really weird shape as nails go. Try cutting a few into a piece of scrap first, you'll see how simple it really is, then all you've got to do it pay attention when measuring. I've always said, there's no part of building an instrument that difficult, broken down into it's individual tasks they're all really simple. The tricky part is that there's about 120 little steps and they have to go (mostly) in the right order, and it's a matter of remembering the entire process. I make a lot of lists...
Is not as hard as it seems. Just take it slow, all the mistakes I've ever made cutting slots were because I rushed it. If you don't use a jig to lineup the saw one thing that can help is to radius the fretboard first, is a bit awkward to start the cut on a completely flat piece of wood, but on one with a radius the contact point between the saw and the wood is much smaller and the saw doesn't drift as much.
2 pickups, 4 coils each, 6000 wraps per coil. It's taking a long time and I'm halfway through now. I'm going to have to do something tricky with the wooden tops, if the epoxy soaks through the thin veneer then it'll never take the stain in the same way as the body, I'm going to have to stain it first and hope it matches later. Problem solving in three dimensions...
For the binding, if you wanted to give it a go I wonder how a centered approach would look. Say you cut a thin slot between the two woods, I can't think of how to word it but maybe like the giant trench in the Death Star? Then wrap some binding in that. It would make it super easy to sand flush with the wood around it and might be less of a hassle. I think on a bass like this where the wood is divided right in the center it might look pretty good actually.
Oh my goodness! I've been wondering about your fret marking too ! So...Thank you thank you thank you!!!😂 Oh yeah the fret scale calculator app is still a thing (at least in the US anyway.
17:00 Regarding potential inaccuracies, I would argue that the spacing between the frets is not so much what needs to be considered, but rather the length of the string from the bridge, so even at the 24th fret a quarter of a millimeter would amount to about 0.12 percent of error in string length. Considering that the frets will be crowned, that we will always bend the strings slightly when playing etc. I guess a quarter of a millimeter is plenty accurate enough. Thanks for the video!
Indeed, you're doing the calculation on the length of string that's actually sounding, so that makes perfect sense. I just used the frets on the fingerboard as it was the easiest way I could think of to practically demonstrate on camera. I also went on a long tangent about the limits of human hearing and how the smallest pitch variance we can detect is 0.0035%, it all got very nerdy and was a solid 7 minutes of irrelevant psychoacoustic theory, I might put that out as a separate video because it's all good information but it wasn't needed here.
My fret marking system is similar to yours, except my old man eyes require a little help. I have a desktop magnifying glass on a gooseneck that works nicely.
I completly agree with your binding decision, not because you are bad at it but because I think your body shape looks better without it. more like a warwick style, it makes it look much better IMO
I like the way that binding can help to visually define the shape of the body, but I also like the elegant simplicity of a non bound body. Speaking of Warwick, something's just arrived today that'll be getting featured in a couple of upcoming videos, watch this space 😉
Yep, all my own stuff, glad you like it. I spent years trying to have a hit as a singer-songwriter and got absolutely nowhere, mostly due to the lyrics being trite and my singing being....uniquely awful...I can sing in tune and stay in tune but my voice has all the melodious sonorousness of a weather forecaster😆. Quite a few of the tracks I use in the videos are my back catalogue remixed without the vocals, and they sound much better. All my new stuff is 100% instrumental and mostly written with these videos in mind, I've found my lane so to speak. Thanks
re accuracy of fretslots...just make them as accurate as you can! I have just been drawing a set of fret position markers in my Drawing app, Affinity Designer in my case, but I'm sure there are many apps that will do this. It says it will be accurate to 3 decimal places which is more than enough. What i will do is get it printed at full size, and then transfer the lines to a square section alunminium tube with a scalpel blade. That way i can create a fret ruler with 4 different scale lengths on one ruler. Hopefully the fine scalpel lnes will be easy enough to transfer to a fingerboard.
It's currently sitting at about 42mm, I need to shave a bit off the back as there was a little tearout from the block plane, it's soft enough so it should sand away without putting up too much of a fight, probably going to wind up square on 40mm. Thanks
I like your method of cutting fret slots. I should try that instead of marking, scribing a line and going straight to the saw. BTW, it was scary watching you joint the surface of the neck. Your fingers seemed to be too close to the cutters.
I have a mantra that I repeat to myself "Where are the blades, where are my fingers, where are the blades, where are my fingers" etc. I can never be complacent when using a machine that'll end my piano career in half a second, you are right to be worried, you are right to point out the dangers, I should make more of a point of emphasizing the safety aspects, rather than just filming it in fast motion and making it look easy as that's not what's going through my head while I'm actually using the machine. Thanks for bringing it up, safety is an extremely important aspect of everything we do. Cheers
@@fanbladeinstruments I've done the same thing - in may case it was chisel that a viewer thought was very close to slicing off my thumb. The reality was that I was paring very slowly and it was the camera angle that made it look like my thumb was close to the chisel. And it didn't help that I sped up the footage.
or maybe you can integrate some sort of multi effects pedal and have buttons and switches like a fender jaguar that work in tangent with the pedals UI and perhaps the pedal's screen can be installed on the side of the bass, facing you for ease of reading or even a little tab where the screen folds up
I have a friend who's just started making little homemade hand soldered overdrive circuits, I've asked him to make me one and I'll most likely leave it at that, I'm not big on pedals although I do like a good bit of fuzz on my signal. I've had another idea too to do with the pickups but I'm going to sit on that for now as I don't know what use it would be.
@@fanbladeinstruments Ahh I see I see, maybe as he improves, he can come up with a custom mini fuzz for the bass. the knobs would look like any active bass, but instead of bass treble and mids it can be what knobs the fuzz has.
"Maybe I won't go quite as heavy on the eye shadow!"😂😂😂
Always thrilled to see a new video pop onto my feed.
I finally made enough money off a custom build that I just purchased the StewMac fret slotting jig and slotting templates, so now I can be confident that I'm slotting them dead on. It's an investment, but I'm happy I could finally make that investment. 😎
It's coming along nicely.
Thanks for showing how it’s done! Going to start my 2nd bass soon.
Your last few custom pickups sounded crazy good. I cant wait to see what you cook up this time! I love your work and look forward to every video!
I'm dreading cutting slots by hand (without a jig) but I'll have to try it to gain some confidence. You make it look so easy. thanks for another great video.
It's as easy a banging in a nail, it's just a really weird shape as nails go. Try cutting a few into a piece of scrap first, you'll see how simple it really is, then all you've got to do it pay attention when measuring. I've always said, there's no part of building an instrument that difficult, broken down into it's individual tasks they're all really simple. The tricky part is that there's about 120 little steps and they have to go (mostly) in the right order, and it's a matter of remembering the entire process. I make a lot of lists...
Is not as hard as it seems. Just take it slow, all the mistakes I've ever made cutting slots were because I rushed it. If you don't use a jig to lineup the saw one thing that can help is to radius the fretboard first, is a bit awkward to start the cut on a completely flat piece of wood, but on one with a radius the contact point between the saw and the wood is much smaller and the saw doesn't drift as much.
@@fanbladeinstruments Thanks Geoff, I'm planning on doing some necks and fingerboards this week. I will practice on some scraps first.
@@eldereth I will get me some good blades, the ones that don't wobble or drift and practice before, thanks for the tips
Wonderful work. The pickup, or pickups, will be interesting.
2 pickups, 4 coils each, 6000 wraps per coil. It's taking a long time and I'm halfway through now. I'm going to have to do something tricky with the wooden tops, if the epoxy soaks through the thin veneer then it'll never take the stain in the same way as the body, I'm going to have to stain it first and hope it matches later. Problem solving in three dimensions...
For the binding, if you wanted to give it a go I wonder how a centered approach would look. Say you cut a thin slot between the two woods, I can't think of how to word it but maybe like the giant trench in the Death Star? Then wrap some binding in that. It would make it super easy to sand flush with the wood around it and might be less of a hassle. I think on a bass like this where the wood is divided right in the center it might look pretty good actually.
Oh my goodness! I've been wondering about your fret marking too ! So...Thank you thank you thank you!!!😂 Oh yeah the fret scale calculator app is still a thing (at least in the US anyway.
17:00 Regarding potential inaccuracies, I would argue that the spacing between the frets is not so much what needs to be considered, but rather the length of the string from the bridge, so even at the 24th fret a quarter of a millimeter would amount to about 0.12 percent of error in string length. Considering that the frets will be crowned, that we will always bend the strings slightly when playing etc. I guess a quarter of a millimeter is plenty accurate enough. Thanks for the video!
Indeed, you're doing the calculation on the length of string that's actually sounding, so that makes perfect sense. I just used the frets on the fingerboard as it was the easiest way I could think of to practically demonstrate on camera. I also went on a long tangent about the limits of human hearing and how the smallest pitch variance we can detect is 0.0035%, it all got very nerdy and was a solid 7 minutes of irrelevant psychoacoustic theory, I might put that out as a separate video because it's all good information but it wasn't needed here.
My fret marking system is similar to yours, except my old man eyes require a little help. I have a desktop magnifying glass on a gooseneck that works nicely.
I completly agree with your binding decision, not because you are bad at it but because I think your body shape looks better without it. more like a warwick style, it makes it look much better IMO
I like the way that binding can help to visually define the shape of the body, but I also like the elegant simplicity of a non bound body. Speaking of Warwick, something's just arrived today that'll be getting featured in a couple of upcoming videos, watch this space 😉
Love this bass, love your videos. What is the music you use during the work segments? Is that original, cause it's a bop.
Yep, all my own stuff, glad you like it. I spent years trying to have a hit as a singer-songwriter and got absolutely nowhere, mostly due to the lyrics being trite and my singing being....uniquely awful...I can sing in tune and stay in tune but my voice has all the melodious sonorousness of a weather forecaster😆. Quite a few of the tracks I use in the videos are my back catalogue remixed without the vocals, and they sound much better. All my new stuff is 100% instrumental and mostly written with these videos in mind, I've found my lane so to speak. Thanks
Tundra Man has a simple easy fret calculator you can punch in any odd number and calculate it out.
re accuracy of fretslots...just make them as accurate as you can! I have just been drawing a set of fret position markers in my Drawing app, Affinity Designer in my case, but I'm sure there are many apps that will do this. It says it will be accurate to 3 decimal places which is more than enough. What i will do is get it printed at full size, and then transfer the lines to a square section alunminium tube with a scalpel blade. That way i can create a fret ruler with 4 different scale lengths on one ruler. Hopefully the fine scalpel lnes will be easy enough to transfer to a fingerboard.
Coming along nicely 👌… what is the thickness of the body ?
It's currently sitting at about 42mm, I need to shave a bit off the back as there was a little tearout from the block plane, it's soft enough so it should sand away without putting up too much of a fight, probably going to wind up square on 40mm. Thanks
@@fanbladeinstruments cool as
I like your method of cutting fret slots. I should try that instead of marking, scribing a line and going straight to the saw. BTW, it was scary watching you joint the surface of the neck. Your fingers seemed to be too close to the cutters.
I have a mantra that I repeat to myself "Where are the blades, where are my fingers, where are the blades, where are my fingers" etc. I can never be complacent when using a machine that'll end my piano career in half a second, you are right to be worried, you are right to point out the dangers, I should make more of a point of emphasizing the safety aspects, rather than just filming it in fast motion and making it look easy as that's not what's going through my head while I'm actually using the machine. Thanks for bringing it up, safety is an extremely important aspect of everything we do. Cheers
@@fanbladeinstruments I've done the same thing - in may case it was chisel that a viewer thought was very close to slicing off my thumb. The reality was that I was paring very slowly and it was the camera angle that made it look like my thumb was close to the chisel. And it didn't help that I sped up the footage.
What u thinking about the built in effects👀
or maybe you can integrate some sort of multi effects pedal and have buttons and switches like a fender jaguar that work in tangent with the pedals UI and perhaps the pedal's screen can be installed on the side of the bass, facing you for ease of reading or even a little tab where the screen folds up
I have a friend who's just started making little homemade hand soldered overdrive circuits, I've asked him to make me one and I'll most likely leave it at that, I'm not big on pedals although I do like a good bit of fuzz on my signal. I've had another idea too to do with the pickups but I'm going to sit on that for now as I don't know what use it would be.
@@fanbladeinstruments Ahh I see I see, maybe as he improves, he can come up with a custom mini fuzz for the bass. the knobs would look like any active bass, but instead of bass treble and mids it can be what knobs the fuzz has.
Looks like Elm Geoff ?