This episode I have some trouble with pickups and logos, but I don't let it slow me down...much...well, quite a bit actually but I got through it in the end.
Little more satisfying in these build videos than when the freshly sanded body/top takes on that first drink of CA glue... watching the colour and grain pop like that always makes me smile!
I'm really taken by the design here, that body shape and F hole placement is just very satisfying to look at. also the clean look of the wooden pickup will be the cherry on top. as far as your pickup disaster, I've learned from LOTS of mistakes, ALWAYS take your time and spend the money to get it PERFECT or you'll be offended by it for ever.
Yep, there are no prizes for being the fastest to screw it up. The actual problem is that the time I get to spend in the garage is finite, so I always feel pressure to accomplish as much as I can when I'm in there, and that doesn't always work out how I'd like. I need to spend more time in there. I haven't sharpened my hand planes for a couple of years now. And I'm actually making it harder for myself by videoing everything, I'm not just cutting a piece of wood and drilling some holes in it, I'm also thinking about camera angles, audio, lighting, focus, continuity, etc. When I tackle these projects I'm pulling 14 hour days to get them finished and one little mistake can utterly derail a very carefully planned schedule, as we've seen here. But I wouldn't have it any other way, I love making the videos as much as I love building the basses. I just need unlimited time and money so I can do both properly🤣
@@fanbladeinstruments well thanks to my health going bad, i have nothing but time, and so little energy to use it. so be mindfull of the cost of the greener grass.
Cracking progress, the grain is looking really good. I like the headstock logo, a polished pewter one inset would look nice, mebbe add to that vintage look too.
That is the end goal, I'm giving myself another 5 years to seriously hone my skills but I want to be ready to produce basses for sale at some stage after that. It's all still experimenting, even at this point, but every bass is getting better and I always learn heaps from every build, thanks.
Ahh, yes, I always seem to forget to cut that through the veneer🤣 It'll need to happen at some stage, I should probably do that sooner rather than later actually, yes.Cheers
That looks fantastic! After asking about it in the comments of a previous videos a few months back I have started experimenting with a superglue finish, for the moment only on the fingerboard of a fretless guitar I'm modding, like you said it's both very rewarding and a toxic minefield, the learning process was made much quicker thanks in part to your videos.
Thank you, happy to help. It's amazing stuff if you can be bothered solving a few of the problems, you can get really great results, good luck and carry on😁
Just a bit time-poor for the hobbies at the moment, didn't finish in the window I'd set aside for it and so it dragged out, but we got there in the end, Thanks😁
might be a better option though that probably involve a bit of trail and error thats to either vary the amount of windings per coil / the thickness or the wire / the strength of the magnet inside it magnet strength might be hard to replicate but can be done when using alnoco , these can be demagnitized and magnitized , possibly while there cast in resin even though im not sure if you can do it without affecting the other magnets thinking about it you might be able to de/ magnitize the different magnet cores by running current through each induvidual coil temporarily turning it intoo an electromagnet charging the alnico core untill the desired tone and loudness is reached about putting a sideload on the sanding stick : wat you could do if find a bearing that the sanding stick fits intoo then get a piece of mdf or other verry slippery non damaging board and drill a hole in the middle where the bearing can sink intoo mount this board with the bearing erfectly centered under the drillchuck to the drill table and hey presto you got a drill spindle thats supported on both ends as for the logo : maibe you can make the logo in copper mount it to a soldering iron and brand the logo intoo the pickup , then sand and oil or lackuer , could try it on a bit of scrap wood to see if it works th-cam.com/video/ks5zueaB0hw/w-d-xo.html
Indeed, the prototype pickup has 5000 winds per coil and a 12x3 neodymium magnet, they sound nice, but on the final design I've gone for 6000 winds and a 14x3 magnet, this increases the output more than you would expect and takes them from sounding nice to sounding fantastic. In my experience with alnico magnets I've never found ones that fit this design, and a lot of them just seem underpowered to me, but as you say you can charge them up, but that can be problematic to get them all even. I did think about some sort of bearing for the sanding stick, I also thought about simply mounting it horizontally in the lathe and running it between centers, if the drill press hadn't worked out nicely first time then I would've definitely tried out a few different options. Cheers
Top job! It's gonna be a beauty and realy cool. One question do I have: i myself have 12 basses and there is no more room to store in my house. You should have three or four times as much as I do. How does it work for you? And what is your wife thinking about that? 😂 Best greets from germany Rainer
Great question! I have lost count, I know there's 23 basses and 4 guitars in the studio but there's more stashed in the roof of the garage. We were lucky enough to buy a house with both a separate garage and a separate sleepout so I have both of those to play in, and Mrs Fanblade is perfectly happy for me to have that space. She gets the house and god forbid I should ever try to bring an instrument inside, I had to argue for a small space for hardcase storage and I'm allowed four of them. It's mad but there is method to the madness, I should do a whole video about this but the basic idea was that four years ago I made a list of every bass I'd ever wanted or thought I could learn something from owning. I had the space and just enough spare income that I could start to gather a collection where I could really do the research, take each bass, study it, take it to pieces, examine it, play it at a variety of shows through a variety of amps and really get a solid understanding of it's good and bad points. Then do that 23 more times. It's given me what I feel is a broader understanding of the fundamental whys and hows of every aspect of the instrument, certainly more than I used to and vastly more than I knew when I was just a player, and I know that you never stop learning, but I feel like the research phase of my luthiers journey is drawing to a close. There's only three basses left on the list for me to buy and I'm in no hurry, Ibanez ATK, Ibanez SR505, and Yamaha SBV-550. The Yamaha is a genuine oddity, but I already feel I have a pretty good understanding of why both the Ibanez models are so loved. I have four here that I've not made videos about yet, and another one on the way, but after that I'm going to focus on taking that knowledge and making the best basses it's possible to build by hand. That's the end goal, I'm just taking the long and expensive route😂 Again, great question, thanks for asking😁
I have thought of that, but it's a bit tricky to set up. I would need to reduce the size of the engraving to fit on the 12th fret, there's a complicated series of adjustable sliders for setting the ratio of pattern to cut size, but if you get the settings wrong it can skew the whole image sideways. It's currently centered but reducing the image size 5:2, I'm sure there's a way of changing that but I'd need to spend ages playing with it to really understand how all the levers are moving around their respective pivot points before I go shifting those points. I just went next door and had a quick look, there's 4 arms forming a moving rhomboid shape, with 2 arms having adjustable lengths, and the opposing sides extended for input and output. It looks very complicated but I'm sure it's just a couple of simple concepts that I've not quite grasped yet. I'd love to get it to a 1:1 ratio, that would make a lot of things far easier if I wouldn't have to scale them up and down all the time, I'd probably use that machine for a lot more than just headstocks. Cheers.
That's an ancient pantograph that I was lucky enough to find for sale locally, got it cheap because nobody else seemed to know what it was. I did a video about it a few years ago, I'll see if I can dig it up... ... Here we go: th-cam.com/video/OYdNqD5txMQ/w-d-xo.htmlsi=2Lq6e8-Qo42oaaVt&t=370
@@fanbladeinstruments thanks for the answer! i've heard of a pantograph but it looked so robust, almost like a milling machine, i've never seen one like that. I'm adding that to the dream tool list.
Could you or anyone else please give me suggestions on options for electronics for a similar build that i can buy as i do not trust myself to make pickups. Buitiful job tho.
Because of the haphazard way the wires are connected I have to glue the coils down, the only way to get the dead one out would be to dissolve the glue with acetone which would also dissolve the acrylic base plate, meaning I'd have to remove all the coils, but one drop of acetone on the coils themselves would strip the enamel coating and fill the coil with shorts, it's not a salvageable unit at that point, way easier to simply start again. Cheers
Certainly is, I usually do a big spiel about it and how to apply it and safety stuff and blah blah blah. I haven't put that in for a while actually, I should probably open the next video with it so newer subscribers can get to grips with the fact that it's all three things: cheap, fast, and good, but it's also a toxic minefield and can be hell to get right. Yeah, I'll do an updated superglue rant in the next episode, cheers.
As a know-nothing-about-building kind of guy Imma just throw out the wuestion here no matter how dumb it seems. If the strings are in an arch, why are the coils in the pickup not also arched so preserve the distance between string and coil?
Not a dumb question at all, totally valid, in fact I stumbled across this design when I was trying to make a pickup for an upright bass, with a really tight 4" radius, and the separate coils allowed me to arch them properly. It's vastly easier to build a pickup with a flat profile though, angling them adds a whole other level to the design process as you have to aim the center of each coil assembly at each string, and suddenly your 10" fingerboard radius takes on another dimension through the depth of the pickup so the magnets are sitting on a 9.2" radius. It takes some working out. I wouldn't have thought that it would make a noticeable difference between a 10" and a 14" radius to set the coils flat, and possibly it make more difference than I realized. But that's not all that's going on here, as the coils are individually handwound there may be other factors at play, I try to get them all the same but if one randomly outputs a little quieter then that's a different problem. The solution to both of those problems is trimpots, you can balance the volume of each string, set it and forget it, and go play some music on it. Thank you for the excellent question😁
Little more satisfying in these build videos than when the freshly sanded body/top takes on that first drink of CA glue... watching the colour and grain pop like that always makes me smile!
Really cool that you make your own pickups. The bass is looking great!
I'm really taken by the design here, that body shape and F hole placement is just very satisfying to look at. also the clean look of the wooden pickup will be the cherry on top. as far as your pickup disaster, I've learned from LOTS of mistakes, ALWAYS take your time and spend the money to get it PERFECT or you'll be offended by it for ever.
Yep, there are no prizes for being the fastest to screw it up. The actual problem is that the time I get to spend in the garage is finite, so I always feel pressure to accomplish as much as I can when I'm in there, and that doesn't always work out how I'd like. I need to spend more time in there. I haven't sharpened my hand planes for a couple of years now.
And I'm actually making it harder for myself by videoing everything, I'm not just cutting a piece of wood and drilling some holes in it, I'm also thinking about camera angles, audio, lighting, focus, continuity, etc. When I tackle these projects I'm pulling 14 hour days to get them finished and one little mistake can utterly derail a very carefully planned schedule, as we've seen here. But I wouldn't have it any other way, I love making the videos as much as I love building the basses. I just need unlimited time and money so I can do both properly🤣
@@fanbladeinstruments well thanks to my health going bad, i have nothing but time, and so little energy to use it. so be mindfull of the cost of the greener grass.
Cracking progress, the grain is looking really good. I like the headstock logo, a polished pewter one inset would look nice, mebbe add to that vintage look too.
That top looks stunning with the stain!
If you ever do get into making these commercially, I think I need to get one!
That is the end goal, I'm giving myself another 5 years to seriously hone my skills but I want to be ready to produce basses for sale at some stage after that. It's all still experimenting, even at this point, but every bass is getting better and I always learn heaps from every build, thanks.
Awesome building. Beautiful piece!
Loving the progress made, good vid! Amazing drumstick sander invention, a true musician's tool! Hahaha
If you look carefully in the next video, the handle of my fretting mallet is also a drumstick😉
Lovely looking wood. Did I miss the trussrod access?
Great stuff Geoff.
Ahh, yes, I always seem to forget to cut that through the veneer🤣 It'll need to happen at some stage, I should probably do that sooner rather than later actually, yes.Cheers
Absolutely love the spindle sander! :)
Love to see the builds back!
That looks fantastic! After asking about it in the comments of a previous videos a few months back I have started experimenting with a superglue finish, for the moment only on the fingerboard of a fretless guitar I'm modding, like you said it's both very rewarding and a toxic minefield, the learning process was made much quicker thanks in part to your videos.
Thank you, happy to help. It's amazing stuff if you can be bothered solving a few of the problems, you can get really great results, good luck and carry on😁
That is going to be one great looking bass!
I am starting to worry as I am not seeing any new videos and I thought Geoff was in a -relative- hurry to finish this project. I hope he is ok!
Just a bit time-poor for the hobbies at the moment, didn't finish in the window I'd set aside for it and so it dragged out, but we got there in the end, Thanks😁
@@fanbladeinstruments I saw it! Truly beautiful! What do you do with all these basses? :)
might be a better option though that probably involve a bit of trail and error
thats to either vary the amount of windings per coil / the thickness or the wire / the strength of the magnet inside it
magnet strength might be hard to replicate but can be done when using alnoco , these can be demagnitized and magnitized , possibly while there cast in resin even though im not sure if you can do it without affecting the other magnets
thinking about it you might be able to de/ magnitize the different magnet cores by running current through each induvidual coil temporarily turning it intoo an electromagnet charging the alnico core untill the desired tone and loudness is reached
about putting a sideload on the sanding stick : wat you could do if find a bearing that the sanding stick fits intoo then get a piece of mdf or other verry slippery non damaging board and drill a hole in the middle where the bearing can sink intoo
mount this board with the bearing erfectly centered under the drillchuck to the drill table and hey presto you got a drill spindle thats supported on both ends
as for the logo : maibe you can make the logo in copper mount it to a soldering iron and brand the logo intoo the pickup , then sand and oil or lackuer , could try it on a bit of scrap wood to see if it works
th-cam.com/video/ks5zueaB0hw/w-d-xo.html
Indeed, the prototype pickup has 5000 winds per coil and a 12x3 neodymium magnet, they sound nice, but on the final design I've gone for 6000 winds and a 14x3 magnet, this increases the output more than you would expect and takes them from sounding nice to sounding fantastic. In my experience with alnico magnets I've never found ones that fit this design, and a lot of them just seem underpowered to me, but as you say you can charge them up, but that can be problematic to get them all even.
I did think about some sort of bearing for the sanding stick, I also thought about simply mounting it horizontally in the lathe and running it between centers, if the drill press hadn't worked out nicely first time then I would've definitely tried out a few different options. Cheers
Top job! It's gonna be a beauty and realy cool. One question do I have: i myself have 12 basses and there is no more room to store in my house. You should have three or four times as much as I do. How does it work for you? And what is your wife thinking about that? 😂
Best greets from germany
Rainer
Great question! I have lost count, I know there's 23 basses and 4 guitars in the studio but there's more stashed in the roof of the garage. We were lucky enough to buy a house with both a separate garage and a separate sleepout so I have both of those to play in, and Mrs Fanblade is perfectly happy for me to have that space. She gets the house and god forbid I should ever try to bring an instrument inside, I had to argue for a small space for hardcase storage and I'm allowed four of them.
It's mad but there is method to the madness, I should do a whole video about this but the basic idea was that four years ago I made a list of every bass I'd ever wanted or thought I could learn something from owning. I had the space and just enough spare income that I could start to gather a collection where I could really do the research, take each bass, study it, take it to pieces, examine it, play it at a variety of shows through a variety of amps and really get a solid understanding of it's good and bad points. Then do that 23 more times.
It's given me what I feel is a broader understanding of the fundamental whys and hows of every aspect of the instrument, certainly more than I used to and vastly more than I knew when I was just a player, and I know that you never stop learning, but I feel like the research phase of my luthiers journey is drawing to a close. There's only three basses left on the list for me to buy and I'm in no hurry, Ibanez ATK, Ibanez SR505, and Yamaha SBV-550. The Yamaha is a genuine oddity, but I already feel I have a pretty good understanding of why both the Ibanez models are so loved.
I have four here that I've not made videos about yet, and another one on the way, but after that I'm going to focus on taking that knowledge and making the best basses it's possible to build by hand. That's the end goal, I'm just taking the long and expensive route😂 Again, great question, thanks for asking😁
I'm surprised you haven't rigged up a way to use the duplicator to do your 12th fret inlay the same way you do your headstocks.
I have thought of that, but it's a bit tricky to set up. I would need to reduce the size of the engraving to fit on the 12th fret, there's a complicated series of adjustable sliders for setting the ratio of pattern to cut size, but if you get the settings wrong it can skew the whole image sideways. It's currently centered but reducing the image size 5:2, I'm sure there's a way of changing that but I'd need to spend ages playing with it to really understand how all the levers are moving around their respective pivot points before I go shifting those points.
I just went next door and had a quick look, there's 4 arms forming a moving rhomboid shape, with 2 arms having adjustable lengths, and the opposing sides extended for input and output. It looks very complicated but I'm sure it's just a couple of simple concepts that I've not quite grasped yet. I'd love to get it to a 1:1 ratio, that would make a lot of things far easier if I wouldn't have to scale them up and down all the time, I'd probably use that machine for a lot more than just headstocks. Cheers.
what was that you were using to cut that headstock inlay? super impressive work
That's an ancient pantograph that I was lucky enough to find for sale locally, got it cheap because nobody else seemed to know what it was. I did a video about it a few years ago, I'll see if I can dig it up...
...
Here we go:
th-cam.com/video/OYdNqD5txMQ/w-d-xo.htmlsi=2Lq6e8-Qo42oaaVt&t=370
@@fanbladeinstruments thanks for the answer! i've heard of a pantograph but it looked so robust, almost like a milling machine, i've never seen one like that. I'm adding that to the dream tool list.
Could you or anyone else please give me suggestions on options for electronics for a similar build that i can buy as i do not trust myself to make pickups. Buitiful job tho.
Why not replacing the dead coil only leaving the rest as is?
Because of the haphazard way the wires are connected I have to glue the coils down, the only way to get the dead one out would be to dissolve the glue with acetone which would also dissolve the acrylic base plate, meaning I'd have to remove all the coils, but one drop of acetone on the coils themselves would strip the enamel coating and fill the coil with shorts, it's not a salvageable unit at that point, way easier to simply start again. Cheers
@@fanbladeinstruments oh god... that makes sense now 👍
Beautiful work. Is that a super glue finish??
Certainly is, I usually do a big spiel about it and how to apply it and safety stuff and blah blah blah. I haven't put that in for a while actually, I should probably open the next video with it so newer subscribers can get to grips with the fact that it's all three things: cheap, fast, and good, but it's also a toxic minefield and can be hell to get right. Yeah, I'll do an updated superglue rant in the next episode, cheers.
Looks Great, I'm working on a similar build... ;)
Sorry about the day lost, but at least it's looking great!
18:34 Adolf Loos would agree with you 100%
Drink up because the world is about to end :)
The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t.😉
As a know-nothing-about-building kind of guy Imma just throw out the wuestion here no matter how dumb it seems.
If the strings are in an arch, why are the coils in the pickup not also arched so preserve the distance between string and coil?
Not a dumb question at all, totally valid, in fact I stumbled across this design when I was trying to make a pickup for an upright bass, with a really tight 4" radius, and the separate coils allowed me to arch them properly. It's vastly easier to build a pickup with a flat profile though, angling them adds a whole other level to the design process as you have to aim the center of each coil assembly at each string, and suddenly your 10" fingerboard radius takes on another dimension through the depth of the pickup so the magnets are sitting on a 9.2" radius. It takes some working out.
I wouldn't have thought that it would make a noticeable difference between a 10" and a 14" radius to set the coils flat, and possibly it make more difference than I realized. But that's not all that's going on here, as the coils are individually handwound there may be other factors at play, I try to get them all the same but if one randomly outputs a little quieter then that's a different problem.
The solution to both of those problems is trimpots, you can balance the volume of each string, set it and forget it, and go play some music on it. Thank you for the excellent question😁
Your answers are as excellent as your videos. Thank you for explaining it to me.
Security Towel? Don't Panic? You reading Douglas Adams?
I just discovered the audiobooks as read by Stephen Fry😁 Though I'd drop a couple of references to see if anyone would notice, nicely spotted, cheers
@@fanbladeinstruments Ha! I'm re-reading the Ultimate Collection! Just started book 4