A Guitar And Gear Support Forum

Posted: **Thu May 28, 2020 3:10 pm**

another thread that was good at last site.
--------------------------------

I'm going to be Tru Oiling some new necks, Just a few coats to keep moisture penetration down.

Posted: **Sat May 30, 2020 1:54 am**

My nephew gave me the body and tuning hardware for a 1984 Ibanez Roadstar II bass—I had helped him buy it 2 or 3 years ago, and then he broke the truss rod nut about a year ago. Since a replacement, if you could find one, was over $250 at the time, he gave up on it, having been told that replacement necks wouldn't fit …

My wife said I should get a neck for my upcoming birthday, and I really wanted a maple board with a skunk stripe. All the less expensive ones were either rosewood or maple sans stripe, but I finally lucked out and scored an Ursa 2 neck form Rondo. I had been wanting a Precision neck, but they weren't available in my budget, plus I wanted the extra fret as on a Jazz bass.
It fits like a glove, I had only to cut away a minuscule sliver from the pickguard where it overhung the mouth of the pocket on one side.
Sharp fret ends were easily and quickly disposed of with my FretGuru file (nice tool, worth the $$). The tuner holes were a lot bigger than the Ibanez, but a friend who builds his own fretted instruments suggested wrapping the outside of the bushings with the adhesive aluminum tape they use on ductwork. Well, it must have taken 8-10 feet of the stuff, but it works great, nice snug fit.

Today I picked up a 4-pack of small Husky trigger clamps for $10 from Home Despot, which will make drilling for neck screws a lot easier than great big C-clamps.
Have a set of DR "Pure Blues" 45-105's to go on it, then we'll see if I need to get a StewMac full pocket shim or not.
After throwing on a set of Straplocks (and hopefully selling the original arrowhead buttons), I'll be set to go, except for designing a decal for the head. Not sure what to call it, been toying with some combination or reference to Ursa and Roadstar. "Road Bear" and "Bearstar" seemed pretty lame, am now thinking of "Starbass 84", a pun on Starbase as in Jean-Luc Picard … I don't know, any good ideas, anyone?

Posted: **Sat May 30, 2020 10:03 am**

Looks cool!

Posted: **Sat May 30, 2020 11:41 am**

I saved the original chrome covers and wound a low output pair of replacements ( 6.8k). I'm trying A2 in the bridge and A3 in the neck. All new electronics. The fishing line trick has worked great in the past, but it was a real bitch on this one.

Posted: **Sat May 30, 2020 2:13 pm**

$5 for a tap, drill bit and stainless set screws. Locking bridge for $20 total. Gotta get shorter set screws.
[img.][/img]

Posted: **Tue Jun 02, 2020 4:37 pm**

Woops. didn't know you have this one running already. I made a dupli on the other threading. you guys may need to erase that. Happy bee.....!

Posted: **Tue Jun 02, 2020 7:55 pm**

I gave this one a little attention over the weekend. I replaced the original 2 point trem with a Wilkinson. While I was at it, I put in a set of Duncan Designed pickups from a Squier Deluxe and a black pickguard.

Posted: **Tue Jun 02, 2020 9:59 pm**

t100d wrote: ↑Sat May 30, 2020 1:54 am My nephew gave me the body and tuning hardware for a 1984 Ibanez Roadstar II bass—I had helped him buy it 2 or 3 years ago, and then he broke the truss rod nut about a year ago. Since a replacement, if you could find one, was over $250 at the time, he gave up on it, having been told that replacement necks wouldn't fit …

My wife said I should get a neck for my upcoming birthday, and I really wanted a maple board with a skunk stripe. All the less expensive ones were either rosewood or maple sans stripe, but I finally lucked out and scored an Ursa 2 neck form Rondo. I had been wanting a Precision neck, but they weren't available in my budget, plus I wanted the extra fret as on a Jazz bass.
It fits like a glove, I had only to cut away a minuscule sliver from the pickguard where it overhung the mouth of the pocket on one side.
Sharp fret ends were easily and quickly disposed of with my FretGuru file (nice tool, worth the $$). The tuner holes were a lot bigger than the Ibanez, but a friend who builds his own fretted instruments suggested wrapping the outside of the bushings with the adhesive aluminum tape they use on ductwork. Well, it must have taken 8-10 feet of the stuff, but it works great, nice snug fit.

Today I picked up a 4-pack of small Husky trigger clamps for $10 from Home Despot, which will make drilling for neck screws a lot easier than great big C-clamps.
Have a set of DR "Pure Blues" 45-105's to go on it, then we'll see if I need to get a StewMac full pocket shim or not.
After throwing on a set of Straplocks (and hopefully selling the original arrowhead buttons), I'll be set to go, except for designing a decal for the head. Not sure what to call it, been toying with some combination or reference to Ursa and Roadstar. "Road Bear" and "Bearstar" seemed pretty lame, am now thinking of "Starbass 84", a pun on Starbase as in Jean-Luc Picard … I don't know, any good ideas, anyone?

bass.jpeg

That neck looks like it was meant to be there.

Posted: **Tue Jun 02, 2020 10:43 pm**

Taking these inductors apart, (pain), wound enough turns to get to the magical 500mh. (wah build) 38awg. Only thing, tighter the 2 halves are to each other, the higher the inductance. Factory (1968) made them with a pin through the middle, and a push type of nut on top. So the tighter the nut the higher the value goes. I ordered some 2mm screws and nuts, so in theory i can slightly adjust the value by how tight it is. Too tight will crack the ferrite, which is a type of metal that basically shatters. I found some surplus ones and bought a few from some guy in Greece. Experimenti.

Posted: **Tue Jun 02, 2020 11:22 pm**

Let's see, what's on my work bench?
Honestly... Still my explorer after all these years, plus the Jackson, and the 12 string. I'll update with pics later, but I guess if I were to make a list it would help lol.

Explorer
- Frets need leveled and polished
- Bridge ground needs to be moved back inside the body, I had to rig it up one day and haven't got around to fixing it.
- I'll definitely have to intonate it.

Jackson
- Needs a locking nut.
- Could probably use some new saddles.
- Needs an output jack.

Globe Dove 12
- Needs tuners that can support strings at tension.
- Needs a nut.
- Needs a set of the little string retention pins.
- Full setup.

Bonus
Samick strat needs a nut, but that's pretty much it, I wouldn't mind rewiring or upgrading the whole electronics section of it, but it's pretty solid as it is.

It's been a while since the last time I gave everything a good tune-up though so I guess I should get around to that sometime too.

Posted: **Thu Jun 04, 2020 9:04 pm**

What's on my bench?

Wood, glue, fasteners, and MDF: The dreams stuff is made of.

Also about 12 guitar bodies of various shapes and sizes which are sitting there because I've lost all motivation to work on them. All they need is prep work for finishing and the paint/stain that follows... and it's set aside.

Sitting in the "currently being worked on" spot, I'm finally building myself an arcade games cabinet for my office. S'gonna be nice.

Posted: **Fri Jun 05, 2020 7:01 pm**

On my dining room table, I mean workbench, is my recently purchased Gretsch G5222 Electromatic Double Jet. I bought some GuitarFetish GF'Trons and silver pickup rings. I wanted to buy a set of Gretsch HS Filter'Trons but I can't really spend that much right now so the GF pickups will have to do. I'm also removing the pickguard, too.

Here she is ready for surgery.

Ahh, that looks better.

So of course, for me, working on guitars often means running into problems. (Why can't it always go smoothly?!) Here's my first one: this guitar is chambered and I guess that means the factory putting a 1/2"+ deep channel under the pickups. I tried adding foam into the channel but the wood on the sides above the channel is still too low for the screws that came with the pickups, which are vintage-style and screw into the body, rather than hanging from the PU rings. Ugh...

I figure I'll have to go find some small, flat scraps of wood and glue them next to the channel. Anyone Have any other ideas?

Posted: **Sat Jun 06, 2020 10:48 am**

RiverDog wrote: ↑Fri Jun 05, 2020 7:01 pm
I figure I'll have to go find some small, flat scraps of wood and glue them next to the channel. Anyone Have any other ideas?

Anyone?

Posted: **Sat Jun 06, 2020 10:55 am**

Go (if allowed in your area) to a decent hardware/fastener store and get longer versions of the same screws? Less permanent than gluing in wood.

Posted: **Sat Jun 06, 2020 11:47 am**

Rollin Hand wrote: ↑Sat Jun 06, 2020 10:55 am Go (if allowed in your area) to a decent hardware/fastener store and get longer versions of the same screws? Less permanent than gluing in wood.

Thanks for the reply. I thought about that. I haven't been successful when trying to find P-90 mounting screws, which I think are the same, in the past but I'll swing by Lowe's later today and take a look.

Posted: **Sat Jun 06, 2020 1:38 pm**

Lowes or a fastener place -- they will often have bins of exactly what you need for 15 cents per. Take the screw and measure it. From painful experience, I lnow this beats guesing..

Posted: **Sat Jun 06, 2020 8:59 pm**

This is where my new Alder body is at. It gets an allparts 7.25" radius neck. It was still a slab 2 weeks ago.
It gets a 2-7/32 bridge and widest of the new allparts necks. It looks like it will be okay without string rolloff, but I dont know for sure yet.
Just got new nut. Still dont have jack plate.
Tiger PG with Klein Epic 1959 pickups go here. I love these pickups and am hoping the new body will be well with these pups.

Posted: **Sun Jun 07, 2020 7:01 am**

RiverDog wrote: ↑Sat Jun 06, 2020 11:47 am
Rollin Hand wrote: ↑Sat Jun 06, 2020 10:55 am Go (if allowed in your area) to a decent hardware/fastener store and get longer versions of the same screws? Less permanent than gluing in wood.
Thanks for the reply. I thought about that. I haven't been successful when trying to find P-90 mounting screws, which I think are the same, in the past but I'll swing by Lowe's later today and take a look.

If your local bog box store has that kind of fastener selection, consider yourself lucky. I like to direct mount pickups (no, I don't know why), and finding wood screws that are thin enough, yet long enough is a pain. Your best bets are Amazon (for which you'll need the specs to find) and small town mom and pop Ace or True Value hardware store chains. There is also a hobby store called Hobby Town that sometimes carries them.

When I do find them, I buy 'em out.

Posted: **Sun Jun 07, 2020 12:07 pm**

rrobbone wrote: ↑Sun Jun 07, 2020 7:01 am
RiverDog wrote: ↑Sat Jun 06, 2020 11:47 am
Rollin Hand wrote: ↑Sat Jun 06, 2020 10:55 am Go (if allowed in your area) to a decent hardware/fastener store and get longer versions of the same screws? Less permanent than gluing in wood.
Thanks for the reply. I thought about that. I haven't been successful when trying to find P-90 mounting screws, which I think are the same, in the past but I'll swing by Lowe's later today and take a look.
If your local bog box store has that kind of fastener selection, consider yourself lucky. I like to direct mount pickups (no, I don't know why), and finding wood screws that are thin enough, yet long enough is a pain. Your best bets are Amazon (for which you'll need the specs to find) and small town mom and pop Ace or True Value hardware store chains. There is also a hobby store called Hobby Town that sometimes carries them.

When I do find them, I buy 'em out.

Thanks man. I did a brief look online but didn't find any. I ended up buying some wooden shims at Lowe's which I'm going to glue in today, which the existing screws will go into.

Posted: **Sun Jun 07, 2020 10:32 pm**

Actually, I need to revise my workbench with the more prominent projects of leveling and making a driveway at my property and leveling a build site lol.

...and then I need to make a work bench because as it stands I just put stuff wherever I can

Posted: **Sun Jun 07, 2020 10:47 pm**

I got this one up and running for a friend of my daughter. I flipped the nut and strung it up lefty, opened up the chiseled out humbucker route so the pickup isn’t wedged in there and fixed some dodgy wiring.

Posted: **Mon Jun 08, 2020 9:39 pm**

Just got done gutting and cleaning my old PC and putting all of its innards into a new case, along with 16GB of some nice new RAM and a Corsair 240 liquid cooling AIO.

Posted: **Fri Jun 12, 2020 2:45 pm**

1/4" x 1/8" x 2 1/4"

Posted: **Fri Jun 12, 2020 3:16 pm**

mozz wrote: ↑Fri Jun 12, 2020 2:45 pm 1/4" x 1/8" x 2 1/4"

20200612_130533.jpg

Hmmmm . . . let me take a wild guess: Maple spacers for vintage PAF type humbuckers. Am I close?

Posted: **Fri Jun 12, 2020 3:27 pm**

Yes in fact they do keep the slugs pressed up against the magnet edge with the correct amount of pressure. No piece of plastic can do that.

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