The Bassist and Guitarist thread

[Cycleops]

For all you P bass and Donald ‘Duck’ Dunn fans out here ( I count myself among them), here’s a video you might find interesting :

View: https://youtu.be/23nupCWfeyw

Donald’s son Jeff goes through all of his father’s basses. Lots of interesting stuff.

 

[Salad Dodger]

Move over, green uke. There's a new kid in town!
After 5 years and a lot of gigs and rehearsals, my green ukulele is showing its age. There are some electrical gremlins, and the first 4 frets are really badly worn. I could get it all fixed up ( and I might eventually do so) but with some important gigs coming up I have treated myself to the black uke. It arrived yesterday. I did a bit of fettling to improve intonation and will give it a try out at rehearsal tonight. All being well, it will make its first gig appearance a week from today......

 

[winjim]

Move over, green uke. There's a new kid in town!
After 5 years and a lot of gigs and rehearsals, my green ukulele is showing its age. There are some electrical gremlins, and the first 4 frets are really badly worn. I could get it all fixed up ( and I might eventually do so) but with some important gigs coming up I have treated myself to the black uke. It arrived yesterday. I did a bit of fettling to improve intonation and will give it a try out at rehearsal tonight. All being well, it will make its first gig appearance a week from today......

Oh now those are cute.

 

[winjim]

Exciting box has arrived so I'm taking everything out for a quick once over.



Body: actually a bit disappointing. I've seen people building these straight out of the box but if you want it to look any good at all then the body is definitely going to need some attention. Whatever filler / sealant they've put on is pretty uneven and there are a couple of minor dents. The routing is pretty scruffy and needs tidying up really. As a bare minimum you'd want to sand it back and get an even coat of sealant on there. As childcare commitments have got the better of me I'm probably going to eschew the paint job for now and just throw the thing together but it would be nice if it was a little more presentable straight away.








Neck: A bit tidier with a more even finish. I wouldn't feel the need to do anything to the wood. Nice to run your hand up and down and the frets don't feel too jagged at the edges but not quite perfect. Lots of dust on the fretboard and the frets do feel rough, they'll want a clean at least, if not a polish. I'm also a bit concerned about that nut, it looks very low down to me with rather shallow grooves.









Heel / neck joint: Laminated wood here on the neck. Fits in to the body with a tiny bit of play, I was hoping for it to be snugger and I think ideally you might shim it but I'll probably just screw it and hope for the best.

 

[winjim]

Hardware: As you'd expect, pretty cheap feeling but looks like it's all there. The bridge is clearly made of cheese. I've seen one guitar where the bridge pins were loose in the body so I tried them and they look like they'll knock in OK. Got a few hex keys and a cheap and nasty lead. Set of horrible strings which I'll probably throw in the bin.





Electrics: Again, pretty cheap feeling, nothing special. Can't see any model number or marking on the pickups. Looks like all the connectors are there so should be easy, although I've seen one which was wired up wrongly so I'm going to check it prior to the build.


Overall, you get what you pay for and this is a cheap guitar. I think for my purposes, which is as a learning tool for building with a 7yo and a cheapo guitar to get thrashed around, not looked after it's fine, even if I wish the finish on the body was better out of the box. If I was building one for myself and wanted to make it good, I'd probably buy the body and neck, maybe even a better quality set, and then spec the hardware and electrics myself. It would end up costing quite a bit more than £75 but you'd get a properly personalised guitar.

I've got next Weds and Thurs scheduled for the build so I've got till then to get some prep work done. Clean up the fretboard and polish the frets, check the wiring, maybe see if I've got time to tidy the body up at all. Read through the instructions and make sure I've got all the tools I need so there are no surprises although it looks fairly simple. Hopefully by the end of next week my daughter will be making a racket with it.

 

[MontyVeda]

The nut does look low but the grooves can be shallow. The only way to fettle that would be to replace it, i think.

 

[winjim]

The nut does look low but the grooves can be shallow. The only way to fettle that would be to replace it, i think.

See what it's like when it's strung I guess. It might be that I can sort it out with neck relief and a high action. I'm not expecting the frets to be level so a low action's probably not going to be possible anyway.

 

[MontyVeda]

See what it's like when it's strung I guess. It might be that I can sort it out with neck relief and a high action. I'm not expecting the frets to be level so a low action's probably not going to be possible anyway.

I was gonna mention that too... kits tend to be thrown together with a view that the buyer will do all the finishing ...but i figured you knew that

 

[winjim]

I was gonna mention that too... kits tend to be thrown together with a view that the buyer will do all the finishing ...but i figured you knew that

Yeah there might come a point in the future where I take the thing apart and rebuild it all properly or it might just get trashed. Right now I just need it to make a noise. It's not like I'm gonna be teaching the 7yo anything more complicated than power chords. Her favourite band at the moment is IDLES which is all simple bass riffing so if I can get her doing some of that we're onto a winner.

 

[Cycleops]

Playing an instrument is not only satisfying but actually good for your brain you'll be glad to know.

View: https://youtu.be/R0JKCYZ8hng

 

[DRM]

Yeah there might come a point in the future where I take the thing apart and rebuild it all properly or it might just get trashed. Right now I just need it to make a noise. It's not like I'm gonna be teaching the 7yo anything more complicated than power chords. Her favourite band at the moment is IDLES which is all simple bass riffing so if I can get her doing some of that we're onto a winner.

Mine should be here soon, had the email that DHL have picked it up

 

[winjim]

Mine should be here soon, had the email that DHL have picked it up

Nice. It'll be interesting to compare them.

 

[DRM]

Yes, I’m not rushing it though, would like to get a good finish on it, and set it up properly, it’ll be interesting to see how it compares in the flesh so to speak, didn’t expect the strings to be much cop so I ordered some Ernie Balls (9-42) for it, I’ll use the supplied ones for set up purposes, I’ve decided on a Surf Green painted body and a caramel neck, hopefully it’ll be here tomorrow or Saturday

 

[MontyVeda]

...
Body: actually a bit disappointing. I've seen people building these straight out of the box but if you want it to look any good at all then the body is definitely going to need some attention. Whatever filler / sealant they've put on is pretty uneven and there are a couple of minor dents. ...

I managed to put a little yet noticeable scrape in the back of my bass the screwdriver slipped when giving the neck a trial fitting ...however, a drop of water in the dent brought it up from being about 0.5mm deep to something barely noticeable (it takes a bit of time to soak in and swell the fibres). Another drop of water in it yesterday and I can't see it at all today

 

[winjim]

I managed to put a little yet noticeable scrape in the back of my bass the screwdriver slipped when giving the neck a trial fitting ...however, a drop of water in the dent brought it up from being about 0.5mm deep to something barely noticeable (it takes a bit of time to soak in and swell the fibres). Another drop of water in it yesterday and I can't see it at all today

That's lucky. I've heard about that method but never used it. Fortunately I'm not too bothered about tiny dents.

First major problem though, I'm just tidying up the rough edges of the routing and drilling on the body and thought I'd better check it. The routing for the neck pickup isn't quite deep enough so the adjustment screws are bottoming out. I need to drill the wood out just a couple of mm. Annoyingly my Dremel is bust so I'll have to use my crappy Black and Decker cordless. Also the channel for the wiring is a bit ragged so the connector won't quite fit through it and I'll have to drill it out a bit. A rat's tail file would do the job so maybe I'll pick one up tomorrow. Screw holes don't line up on the back cover which doesn't matter but I do hope the important ones are in the right place.