Sirena Instrumentos Musicales - Expositions and Aspirations Regarding Luthiery in Fillmore, CA

[Bruce Johnson]

I came up with that bridge design in 1992, to use on the first version of Banjozilla, when it was a 6-string. I wanted a maple floating bridge with adjustable metal saddles. I worked out that idea using cylindrical brass slugs sliding in horizontal holes in the maple. It was very simple to make and worked well. I went to a different design bridge when I converted Banjozilla to 4-string, but that early bridge is probably still in a box here somewhere.

I described the design idea to Jeremy and he took it from there. It looks good.

 

[Matt Liebenau]

I came up with that bridge design in 1992, to use on the first version of Banjozilla, when it was a 6-string. I wanted a maple floating bridge with adjustable metal saddles. I worked out that idea using cylindrical brass slugs sliding in horizontal holes in the maple. It was very simple to make and worked well. I went to a different design bridge when I converted Banjozilla to 4-string, but that early bridge is probably still in a box here somewhere.

I described the design idea to Jeremy and he took it from there. It looks good.

It looks like the round, brass saddles would be easyish to make with a hacksaw and round file to.

 

[Freekmagnet]

Alright, I worked on the tailpiece today. Once again, I did a terrible job of documenting the process - once I start going, it's hard to stop and take pictures!

Anyway, I sketched out the critical measurements/details on a piece of paper.

Using that piece of paper as a template, I cut the shape out on the bandsaw and drilled some holes. I used the vise to bend the ends.

Lastly, I cut a little moon out with a coping saw (my niece likes the moon). I used a half-round bastard file to shape the cut. I shaped the outer shape of the tailpiece on Mr. Bruce's knife belt sander. The tip is to shape the piece by pulling the sides in and arching the hole piece. It gives the piece a 3D look and adds strength and stiffness. From there, I filed the edges smooth and sanded the piece to 400. I used grey Scotchbrite to give it a brushed satin look.

Note the base added to the bridge - I cut that today out of a piece of maple. I realized today that the string spacing is a little too wide, so I'm going to have to re-cut the bridge. Fortunately, that part is not difficult to make. I think the tailpiece will be OK - if necessary, I'll widen the holes to allow the string to slide into place.

 

[Freekmagnet]

Fretted the neck yesterday. But first, I sprayed a few coats of amber mixed with Target EM9300 onto the fretboard. I took it to a matte sheen with a piece of Scotchbrite. I like to seal the FB before I fret so that the ceramic and stainless steel powder don't dirty the surface. It's hard to clean once the frets are in.

I cut the Jescar 47104 stainless wire to size and pressed the frets into the fretboard with the fret press.

I put the neck into my bench vise and trimmed the fret ends with my Starrett nippers. I cleaned up the edges of the frets with a file.

Next, I taped the FB and leveled the frets with a whetstone. The whetstone is the Melvin Hiscock method.

I crown the frets using one of those Hosco fishhook files. I really like these - they're relatively inexpensive, they make pretty quick work of the stainless fretwire, and they last forever. I don't like the diamond files. Fishhook files all the way!

And here it is!

I'm going to sand the old finish off of the neck - there's a lot dings in the clear coat and visible glue marks where they headstock was repaired. Once that's done, this guitar is ready to go to finish!

 

[MrBeta]

Very pretty fret board!

 

[NKBassman]

Mahogany neck?

 

[Freekmagnet]

Mahogany neck?

I believe so!

 

[KidAmnesia]

I drilled some holes on the drill press, cut out the shape, and cleaned it up on the edge sander. That left me with this:

Next, I went next door and cut a few slugs on with Mr. Bruce's mill.

And lastly, I cut slots into the tops of the slugs that angled up towards the break point on one end. This is what I ended up with:

An adjustable floating bridge!

Mr. Bruce told me about this design and pretty much talked me through it. Tomorrow, if I have time, I'll make the base for the bridge as well as the tailpiece. The tailpiece will basically be a piece of bent plate aluminum.

*A correction from my last post. The screws are 10-32, not 8-32.

I love how that bridge looks, but if the brass saddles are a pressure fit, are you not concerned with the possibility of them becoming loose (or the wood in between cracking) due to temperature and humidity changes?

 

[Freekmagnet]

I love how that bridge looks, but if the brass saddles are a pressure fit, are you not concerned with the possibility of them becoming loose (or the wood in between cracking) due to temperature and humidity changes?

I’m not too worried about it. The saddles are snug enough not to move unless you want them to, and the strings will hold the saddles in place. If the wood cracks, that part is easy to repair or replace.

 

[joover]

I like to seal the FB before I fret so that the ceramic and stainless steel powder don't dirty the surface. It's hard to clean once the frets are in.
...
I cut the Jescar 47104 stainless wire to size and pressed the frets into the fretboard with the fret press.

Do you add glue when installing frets into sealed fretboard?

 

[Freekmagnet]

Do you add glue when installing frets into sealed fretboard?

Yeah, I’ll put a drop of CA glue on each of the fret ends so it seeps down into the fret slot.

 

[Freekmagnet]

I worked on rebuilding the pickups for my niece's guitar this week. My original plan was to make paper bobbins, but after a couple of failures, I decided that it would be easier to do my usual thing and use PCBs. PCBs are easy to design and they're fairly cheap - at least cheap enough that the costs for this one-off set of pickups would offset my frustration. Anyway, the flanges came in the mail on Wednesday.

The problem was that I instinctively rounded the edges. Usually, when I make pickups, I round the edges of the core. This time, because of the structure of the pickup, the edges need to be square. Problem solved - I just put the flanges and filed the corners square! Each flange just took a few minutes to square off.

Next, I made the bobbin cores out of thick paper. I wrapped the paper around a wooden plug that get tapped out after I cast the coils in epoxy. This thick paper + PCB flange combo is surprisingly strong. I make the joints with CA glue. Once the CA cures, you'd really have to try and tear them apart.

I've posted pictures of my pickup winder a million times, but here it is again!

And here's some coils! The ones on the left are for the silver bass that has been sitting in the shop waiting for pickups. The coils on the right are for my niece.

Here's close-up of one of the coils after potting and before encapsulation. I have it sitting next to the original for comparison. You can see through the white plastic - notice how little wire there is on the original coil! I'm going to guess that there's maybe 3000 turns of #42 wire on the bobbin. I got just a smidge over 3K on the multimeter. I was able to fit a little over 8000 turns of #43 wire on the new bobbins. 9000 would have been nice, but my niece won't be playing heavy metal or anything. Either way, the new pickups will have way more kick than the old ones.

I made a quick temporary mold out of a couple of pieces of waxed MDF. I couldn't make my pour from above, so I drilled a hole in the side of the MDF to pour the epoxy.

Once I tapped the wooden core out of the center, I had this completed part. Special note: I wrapped the wooden core in packing tape beforehand so that the epoxy wouldn't stick to it.

And here's how the original metal core fits into the new coil:

My next job is to finish the pickups for the silver bass (I'll post progress tomorrow-ish). Then I have to make an iron core to fit inside this bobbin that will allow me to attach the ceramic magnets underneath. The last part(s) I'll have to make are the aluminum baseplates. I have some actual work rolling in, so I may have to put this project aside for a day or two.

 

[Freekmagnet]

More pickup work. Mr. Bruce had these mild steel keeper bars left over from another job that got cancelled, apparently. I needed something to extend the core of the pickup outside of the coil. The keepers were perfect to fit into the pole piece assembly.

Here's the core installed in the bobbin.

Here's the core + bobbin with the magnets attached. I had these small ceramic bars left over from another project.

Lastly, I fashioned a new baseplate out of aluminum. The original was steel, and I'm not sure that I want a magnetic base plate underneath the pickup. I think that the idea behind the original design was to direct some of the magnetic field upwards towards the strings, but I’m already kinda doing that with the new magnetic structure. I’m thinking that the additional steel will just darken the sound.

My baseplate is a little crude, but it will do the job. If I get bored, I might sand the bottom of it.

I'm fairly curious how this pickup will sound. It's basically a tall, underwound P90 with ceramic magnets and 43 AWG wire. I'm predicting a bright, focused, medium output pickup with a tight low end and small bump in the lower mids. We'll see!

 

[Freekmagnet]

Back to the silver bass for a minute. I finally got around to making the pickups just this week. I spent some time with the Funktronic Coil Genie.

I didn't get a shot of the coils, but they're pretty basic. 9500 turns of 42 AWG. Once that was done, I encapsulated them in epoxy.

Here's one fresh out of the mold.

I put the pickups in a vise and clean up the front shield. Pretty straightforward - I just sand the epoxy off with 120 and work my way down to 600. Finish it with Scotchbrite.

Next, I wired them up and installed the magnets. I'm using A5 bars. I also use solderless connectors that I make myself. The commercial ones always com with really crappy wire. I like the silicone-jacketed wire because it doesn't melt when I solder it to the pots.

Here's the bass all assembled! (I built the control panel a few months ago).

Here's a pic in my living room. I tried it out on my bass rig at home. Sounds pretty good - sounds like one of those old 60's basses. I'll keep playing it and see what I think. I'm not really a short scale fan, but I do like how the two pickups combined sounds. I'm used to the harder attack of ceramic magnet pickups, and these A5-powered coils sound a little soft to me. I could swap out the magnets pretty easily, so I might give that a try.

I do love how this bass looks! The design is simple, but it's one of my favorites that I've made.

 

[JIO]

Back to the silver bass for a minute. I finally got around to making the pickups just this week. I spent some time with the Funktronic Coil Genie.

I didn't get a shot of the coils, but they're pretty basic. 9500 turns of 42 AWG. Once that was done, I encapsulated them in epoxy.

Here's one fresh out of the mold.

I put the pickups in a vise and clean up the front shield. Pretty straightforward - I just sand the epoxy off with 120 and work my way down to 600. Finish it with Scotchbrite.

Next, I wired them up and installed the magnets. I'm using A5 bars. I also use solderless connectors that I make myself. The commercial ones always com with really crappy wire. I like the silicone-jacketed wire because it doesn't melt when I solder it to the pots.

Here's the bass all assembled! (I built the control panel a few months ago).

Here's a pic in my living room. I tried it out on my bass rig at home. Sounds pretty good - sounds like one of those old 60's basses. I'll keep playing it and see what I think. I'm not really a short scale fan, but I do like how the two pickups combined sounds. I'm used to the harder attack of ceramic magnet pickups, and these A5-powered coils sound a little soft to me. I could swap out the magnets pretty easily, so I might give that a try.

I do love how this bass looks! The design is simple, but it's one of my favorites that I've made.

Also love it - I'm currently restoring a '60s Egmond Rambler (24 fret short-scale) from Holland. Similar vibe - yours is right up there.

 

[Freekmagnet]

Also love it - I'm currently restoring a '60s Egmond Rambler (24 fret short-scale) from Holland. Similar vibe - yours is right up there.

Thx/Cool! Sounds like a fun project.

Yeah this bass looks super-cool. Plays and sounds good. I’m just consistently underwhelmed by the whole short scale vibe. There’s a couple out there I do like - I love those old Kay K162 basses and those Supro pocket basses.

I’m going to keep playing it and see if I can grok the whole 30” thing.

 

[JIO]

Thx/Cool! Sounds like a fun project.

Yeah this bass looks super-cool. Plays and sounds good. I’m just consistently underwhelmed by the whole short scale vibe. There’s a couple out there I do like - I love those old Kay K162 basses and those Supro pocket basses.

I’m going to keep playing it and see if I can grok the whole 30” thing.

I have a number of ss basses solid & hollo-body. I have gigged my Teisco Del Rey EB200 and rehearsed with others but I usually play 34" scale at rehearsal, jam-sessions, recording & live. They all play/sound great and have such character - granted, they are all vintage. I hope you'll discover what (your bass)/they offer and can enjoy playing them. (ss)

 

[JIO]

When you say, it sounds like those '60s basses", exactly what are you hearing to say that? Are your pu's hot? I've found '60s Teisco bass pu's to be hot/somewhat raw. Love um' for their trebly/mid plunk, but my Del Rey can get pretty dubb-ie/phat - you'd never know it was a ss hearing it. Slap on a set of nice (LaBella) flat-wounds and away you go!

 

[Freekmagnet]

When you say, it sounds like those '60s basses", exactly what are you hearing to say that? Are your pu's hot? I've found '60s Teisco bass pu's to be hot/somewhat raw. Love um' for their trebly/mid plunk, but my Del Rey can get pretty dubb-ie/phat - you'd never know it was a ss hearing it. Slap on a set of nice (LaBella) flat-wounds and away you go!

The pickups are fairly mid-output single coils. I’d say that they sound pretty raw, but not super-aggressive. Not super bright, but they have a bit of mid-range snarl. Open, but not unfocused.

I have LaBellas on it now. I don’t really bother with any other flatwounds.

 

[MCF]

Back to the silver bass for a minute. I finally got around to making the pickups just this week. I spent some time with the Funktronic Coil Genie.

I didn't get a shot of the coils, but they're pretty basic. 9500 turns of 42 AWG. Once that was done, I encapsulated them in epoxy.

Here's one fresh out of the mold.

I put the pickups in a vise and clean up the front shield. Pretty straightforward - I just sand the epoxy off with 120 and work my way down to 600. Finish it with Scotchbrite.

Next, I wired them up and installed the magnets. I'm using A5 bars. I also use solderless connectors that I make myself. The commercial ones always com with really crappy wire. I like the silicone-jacketed wire because it doesn't melt when I solder it to the pots.

Here's the bass all assembled! (I built the control panel a few months ago).

Here's a pic in my living room. I tried it out on my bass rig at home. Sounds pretty good - sounds like one of those old 60's basses. I'll keep playing it and see what I think. I'm not really a short scale fan, but I do like how the two pickups combined sounds. I'm used to the harder attack of ceramic magnet pickups, and these A5-powered coils sound a little soft to me. I could swap out the magnets pretty easily, so I might give that a try.

I do love how this bass looks! The design is simple, but it's one of my favorites that I've made.

Damn Jeremy. That looks sweet!