Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Good bass festival

I would love to see some photos of a certain jumbo acoustic in process....

That is one classy looking trio,love the black and chrome hardware combo,and the fretless is way cool.

My Blackstar looks gorgeous!! Awesome if it was on my doorstep tomorrow for my birthday!

Blackstar wrote:My Blackstar looks gorgeous!! Awesome if it was on my doorstep tomorrow for my birthday!

Happy Birthday tomorrow, Ron. That is quite some birthday present.

Paul,

Nice Aqua bass, I'm smitten!! Very cool foto of the various basses!! I bet I know who owns the Blackstar in transition!! The completed Blackstar looks fantastic!! I can't wait till mine looks like that!!

Thanks for the "sneak peek"!!

Sepp

This thread is awesome!

amazing work-- and I'm only through the first 15 pages. looking foreward to the rest.

any chance you still have the pictures that expired early on in the thread? I'm drooling over the three or so that still show up and can't stand that the process shots are gone...

this is my new desktop.

clsatt wrote:amazing work-- and I'm only through the first 15 pages. looking foreward to the rest.

Seen all pages I can promise the next about 75 pages are a pure joy, too.

Stunning and outstanding masterpieces all around!

Here's the second version of Tim Rock's 380/12L piezo conversion.

After seeing the photos of the first version last month, Tim and I agreed that a couple of additions were needed. First, we thought that the lack of shading on the top left it too plain-looking, and much could be gained by shading the top. Also, we both thought that plain white binding on the headstock would sort of tie everything together like Lebowski's rug.

So, I attempted to rout the headstock for binding with all of its paint and clearcoat intact. This works about 50% of the time, but in this case there were some paint chips, which necessitated stripping the headstock back to raw wood and redoing the paint after the binding was completed.

From the front:



And the back:



You can see the scarf joint where I grafted the custom-made 12-string headstock to the original 6-string neck. This is glued with CA glue and is stronger than the wood itself!

Here's the headstock bound and painted:



Here are some shots of the body in its second, shaded, version. You can see here how the inlays "pop" much better visually with a dark gradient behind them.









This was the first sunny morning I've seen in awhile, so pics were taken as soon as the sun came over the hill opposite. Lurvely winter sunlight!

jingle_jangle wrote:Here are some shots of the body in its second, shaded, version. You can see here how the inlays "pop" much better visually with a dark gradient behind them.

Nice whimsical inlays!

jingle_jangle wrote:So, I attempted to rout the headstock for binding with all of its paint and clearcoat intact. This works about 50% of the time, but in this case there were some paint chips, which necessitated stripping the headstock back to raw wood and redoing the paint after the binding was completed....

Paul, can you do the same to a body already with binding to accommodate checkered binding?

jingle_jangle wrote:This was the first sunny morning I've seen in awhile, so pics were taken as soon as the sun came over the hill opposite. Lurvely winter sunlight!

I dislike winter sun. Reminds me that my windows and kitchen are way too filthy.

To add checkerboard to a plain white-bound body, I have to remove the white binding, rout an extra rabbet for the checkerboard, and then install the checkerboard and either re-install the old white binding, or install new white binding.

This most often requires a refinish. If the instrument is MG or JG, I can sometimes get by with a touch-up only. Not much difference in price, though.

Best time to do this is as part of a complete refin or restoration!

Wow, I like the white contrast on the body cut out openings! I have said that I'm not a fan of gold hardware but on this project, it looks stunning! I can't imagine another color that would have looked better. OK, there, I said it!!

Now Paul, how about some fotos of some thing, oh I don't know..... Jetglo!! On a bass perhaps, with no binding and little tiny fret markers??

Sepp