That’s the one everyone here was worried might be an issue with the G. When I cut the headstock, I made provisions for the tuners on the other side but forgot about supporting the G string. However, when I took it to Terry today he said that there’s more than enough support, which made me feel a lot better.
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Did this for the Gibson copy. Certainly worked great for that and was a lot less stress than widening cavities for me especially after the f up I made of the P bass body!
Looks good @athosmr2003 . Very classy
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Sorry I made you worry about that!
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It was a legitimate concern, so I’m glad you brought it up…that way I could bring it up to Terry
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It’s more work than it looked like, but my Squier Jaguar is now upgraded with an EMG MMHZ pickup and it sounds great.
Challenges I ran into
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The new pots wouldn’t fit in the cavity, I had to enlarge it with a Dremel
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The EMG plastic connector wouldn’t fit through the hole, easy job for the Dremel to enlarge it
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The pickguard would not fit over the pickup cover for the new pickup. Another job for the Dremel
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The pickguard and control panel fitment is not quite right. Probably due to the fitment over the pickup. I will fix it with the Dremel at some point. It works now, but is tight.
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The EMG pickup does not come with knobs for the new pots or foam/springs for the pickup. I bout a set of foam from Amazon; sill need to get knobs.
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The strings said they would fit up to 32" scale and they don’t. I had to use long scale strings
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I have fret buzz a little bit. Won’t worry about it today - the neck hasn’t been under tension for 9 or 10 days while waiting for stuff to come in, hoping that now it has strings on it, the neck will settle. I’ve seen that before.
It sounds really good though. Pretty happy.
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Sounds good. Congratulations on finishing her.
How easy was the pick guard mod? I’m finding it hard work using the dremel as accurately as I’d like to
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It was easy. I used one of the sanding heads, and just followed the contour a bit. Used low speed and a light touch. It’s a little rough in one spot, but will do better next time. And that’s what this bass is for anyway, trying out new skills.
Accuracy by hand is a challenge. I might look into the plunge router attachment or rotary table attachment next time and just make a jig.
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I will say once I got past the connector challenge with the hole, wiring up the EMG pickup with no soldering was super easy, and the directions were clear, detailed, and we’ll illustrated.
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The no foam/ springs seems to be a feature of a lot of the higher end pickups. Really annoying when you’re ready to go ahead and do the job and you don’t happen to have anything to hand.
On the other hand I bought cheapo Chinese humbuckers and they came with both!
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Oh yes, especially with a dremel or a real die grinder, where the weight of the motor is always moving the bit around.
I prefer the plunge router over a dremel, although they’re big and unwieldy as well on a confined space like a bass body. My favorite for finer work is a little hand router. I have a small Makita, like this one: Palm router/laminate trimmer and it’s great. It takes 1/4" shank router bits and is absolutely great for this. I’m going to try to rout my project bass tomorrow, so I’ll post some pictures.
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I never bought anything from them, but fat bass tone makes “what’s in the box” videos for most of there stuff, which is helpful. Learned the Seymour Duncan PJ pickups I ordered for my Player Jag do come with foam. Ordered some anyway, just in case
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I find putting the Dremel in a vice and moving the piece is easier for accuracy.
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Might try one of these
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@mac , the most important thing is to avoid climb cutting in wood when hand routing. You want the cutter blade to bite into the material so that it scoops the chip away from the workpiece, not along it.
If you look at the system from the top, the bit is rotating clockwise. So, if the workpiece to be milled is to the north (to use map coords) of your bit, you want to move the tool north and east. That way the cutting edge underbites the material and evacuates the chip away from it. If you go the other way (west in this coord system) the tool climbs (hence climb cutting) over the material and launches itself uncontrollably off the workpiece.
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Thanks for that @MC-Canadastan . It is something I’m very new to and to be honest a little apprehensive about.
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20% off at Stew Mac…
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Which strings are pictured here?
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