MIMF

Thanks, Christ. The pickups are not the same tone of yellow as the body and the knobs, but they're close enough. I could have wound the pickups with standard size coils and used matching yellow covers, but then the pickups wouldn't have sounded the same. I'm quite happy with the way they are. I prom...

Thanks, Freeman. That Kahler looks interesting, but I already have a couple of Floyd Rose type trems in stock. I think I'll use them before purchasing new ones. I believe it's good to learn to install and set up all the most common types of trems, They're the most likely ones clients will want to ge...

Neodymium magnets work nicely for me. I've also used different types of AlNiCos and ceramics and I like them all for different reasons. It's good to have a variety of magnets for varying sound palettes, such as having cupboard full of spices in the kitchen for diffrerent flavours. By the way, I just...

Thank you for your replies, folks. My break angle may bee just a bit too low for a roller bridge, it might be wise to use a regular t-o-m. It's my first build with a Bigsby type trem, so I still have a lot to learn. I also have another unfinished project that will have a Floyd Rose type trem, and I ...

That's a beautiful guitar!
Is that a roller bridge you've used or a standard tune-o-matic? I'm building a semi-hollow six-stringer with a Bigsby type trem and a roller t-o-m bridge - and the 011-series strings keep jumping off the roller grooves when I pick them.

Thanks, Jason. Yes, I've wound the pickups with AWG42 wire. The slugs are made of 5 mm steel bar and the 5 mm diameter magnets are 3 mm /"1/8 thick. The coils are taller than usual, so I don't lose much high end even when overwinding them. And personally I prefer a little gutsier tone with more...

005_Alligatrix_Stinger_body_back.jpg 006_Alligatrix_Stinger_neck_joint.jpg 007_Alligatrix_Stinger_headstock_back.jpg 009_Alligatrix_Stinger_body_front_detail.jpg There are also more than 100 work-in-progress shots from the workshop. I'll post them after I've selected the ones I think are the best. ...

After my long break I have activated myself and started working on several unfinished builds. A few weeks ago I finished a bolt-on neck solid body six-stringer. The model Alligatrix is of my own design, if not necessarily totally unique. Its structure is rather strattish and the "25.6 scale is ...

The final wet sanding was done with 800, 1200, 1500, 2000 and 2500 grit papers. The lacquer was then polished to a mirrorlike shine with a compressed air driven random orbital sander, a polishing sponge and Farécla compounds. The tricky parts were polished with a buffer wheel attached to a drill ext...

The following steps are new coats of clearcoat and wet sanding between them, like there's no end to it. The neck was sprayed 4 times and the body received 5 layers of lacquer. And an equal number of wet sandings. 055_Intermediate_wet_sanding_of_body.jpg 059_Intermediate_wet_sanding_of_neck.jpg 057_S...

The silver paint is half thinner and it dries very quickly, so I could move on to spraying the transparent blue tint. I use the Color Tone liquid tints from StewMac. It took me long time to find good transparent tints and now I'm sticking to these ones. They dissolve almost in any solvent, give a be...

Initially I had thought of making the Saltire cross with 12x24 mm pieces of MOP, but to get an even cross I ended up using celluloid binding instead. As celluloid dissolves in acetone, it's easy to glue strips of binding together. I just taped the strips side by side and applied generous amounts of ...

033_Sanding_body.jpg 036_Setting_intonation.jpg Having found the bass just short of the paint job finished, that's where I proceeded next. I disassembled the instrument and started painting. The first step was a coat of primer, followed by acrylic putty to fill all dents and uneven spots - and then...

029_Drilling_pickup_wire_channel.jpg The main decorative element of the bass was the diagonal white cross against a blue background, as in the Scottish banner, the Saltire. I decided to make the cross 12 mm wide using two strips of 6 mm wide white pearloid binding glued together. I routed the 1.5 m...

I promised to post work-in-progress pics of the Saltire Bass. Here they come.

Thank you, Jason & Beate. It truly is good to be back in the saddle. Next week I'll continue working on some of the unfinished projects. I assembled one build with an H-S-S pickup constellation already and test-played it before taking it apart for the paint job. I was quite pleased with the soun...