Cigar Box Bass, Build #42, Trillian

But Korrigan, you say, surely that big headstock and heavy bass tuners combined with a tiny hollow cigar box is going to make that thing neck-dive like crazy…

Nope, a 34 ounce chunk of steel should help balance it out pretty well…

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What value pots and cap are you putting in?

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500k Dimarzio custom taper volume, 500k CF audio taper tone with generic .047 cap.

And I forgot to show you guys the pickup. It’s a quadrail humbucker, 18k ohms, hidden under the lid so as not to destroy the graphics on the box. It also has a series/split/parallel switch.

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Got’er done! :slight_smile:



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Wow!
It looks amazing!

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Nice job @Korrigan.
Impressive :+1:
Cheers Brian

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That is one sweet looking wee bass, you really have made it look class.
The matching headstock with contrasts just tie it in so nicely with the cigar box.
Hiding the pickup is genius, just smooths the look. I’ve seen many but none so bonnie very nice @Korrigan
Jamie

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still totally OK (from a 20+ year tube amp building guy :grin: ) ; twisting the wires is OK but really not needed. it’s not the case where it really matters.

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I’ve actually picked up radio stations with my guitars before. :smiley:

This pickup, because it’s a quad-coil, is still a humbucker when split so not as prone to RFI as a single coil so I’m not expecting it to happen but anything to help reduce RFI can’t hurt.

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That’s one very tidy build :sunglasses:
Congratulations :+1:

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That is…

Above and beyond

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yeah it happens :sweat_smile: twisting the wires help a bit (and again, still totally OK … to me it’s a “why not” approach … not the best one) but the real solution would be to shield the electronic cavity. graphite paint is the best solution in my opinion, but I’m pretty sure you know that, @Korrigan . avoid coax wires which doesn’t perform well with high-impedance signal such as what we have with a passive pickup.

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Shielding paint is quite expensive… and I’m a cheapskate. Even copper foil is too expensive in my opinion.

I use aluminum tape made for HVAC ducting. It’s $8 per roll. :slight_smile:

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Excellent work as always, @Korrigan . . . :+1:

Cheers, Joe

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Interesting, how well does it do compared to something more conductive?

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It’s not really a question of conductivity. Yes, copper is more conductive than aluminum but aluminum is more conductive than graphite paint. For the purpose of instrument shielding aluminum works great for absorbing (sending to ground) EMI and blocking RFI.

The only advantage to copper is that you can easily solder to it. But that isn’t really an advantage, in my opinion, since I don’t solder a ground wire to my shielding, I just make sure that the pots (which are grounded) are touching the shielding.

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