I’ve spent a lot of time today trying to make my bedroom habitable as, due to the rates of rent round here, it looks like I’ll be living with my parents for a while, or at least until I get some sort of inspiration about what to do with my life. I have no idea when that might be, could be a few hours, could be a few years – I hope it’s soon because I’m getting bored already.
The reason why I’ve not really posted anything in a while is because I couldn’t get my computer –in an attic bedroom*- to recognise the existence of the house wireless network. I managed to solve this problem with my usual method – that is, treat the router like a huffy child and just leave the thing alone until it decides to arbitrarily change its mind. Which worked.
But anyway, back to the making bedroom habitable thing. The obstacle to my bedroom being habitable is the fact that it was my brother’s room. I’m not saying that he has a lingering, powerful stench or anything, just that he has a lot of stuff. Due to the fact that this room is much bigger than my old room he never had to do the purging for storage space that I did – there are boxes of stuff in his cupboards that I was astonished to find are still sealed with removal company tape from when we moved here from Plumstead 9 years ago.
As a result of this general lack of order in Ed’s room the process of moving my stuff in is rather slow – for every box of my stuff I unpack there is an equal amount of Ed’s stuff that needs to be sorted through and either packed or thrown away. Most of it is, as it has been left behind, fairly obviously rubbish – just the detritus of someone living in the same place for many a year - I am, however, not very well equipped to be the judge of what, if anything, is worth keeping amongst the heaps.
There are, for example, things that I keep that don’t appear to have any particular value, train tickets, for example, whose only reason for preservation is a date on them, a date which only I know the significance of. Without Ed to tell me otherwise me I’m spending a lot of my time imagining the significance of many of the items I chuck and feeling bad for throwing them away.
Mind you, Ed isn’t nearly as weird as I am, he probably doesn’t attach such significance to pointless inanimate objects. I should finish this unpacking tomorrow and then I’ll actually feel like I’ve settled in and can start doing more constructive things – like getting off my arse and getting a job.
-Ben
*ugh. That line has reminded me of a line from Hugh Selwyn Mauberley – damn, the one thing I would most like to forget about my uni experience would be Ezra Pound’s god-awful poetry.
I last wrote when I had just finished shielding the cavities of the body with aluminium foil. I hadn’t got round to wiring the different sections to ground yet and I’ll admit that I had doubts as to whether or not the foil would be sufficient to shield the cavities from the sheer amount of electrical noise that my room seems to funnel into my instruments.
I managed to eventually find a shop in Canterbury that sold sandpaper (you just have to keep walking down Wincheap high street until you are practically in Ashford – it’s on the left and looks like a proper old fashioned hardware store) and finished sanding the finish off the body of the bass, leaving it a nice matt black rather than a cheap looking shiny thing.
The next day I got some wire and stripped all the shielding off it, cut it to the right length, and ran it through the wiring channels to the pickup cavities. I made sure that I had enough to stretch this wire along the length of the bottom of each cavity, maximising the chances of it making a decent connection to the entirety of the shielding foil around the pickups, and taped it down with electrical tape (I tried soldering it to the foil in one or two places but as far as I can tell it isn’t possible to make a secure connection to foil with solder, so I made doubly sure with tape – it appears to have worked.)
After this I turned my soldering iron to the other electronics, I ‘m not going to go into a huge amount of detail on the methodology of this part, but I feel I should point out that this – the double volume pot I was using – is very, very small. Like tinysmall. I started to wire up all the pots etc. with as much of the connecting and grounding wires as I could without actually putting them inside the control cavity, and once I’d done that I started to wire up the pickups and grounding wires to the pots and jack. After I’d loosely bolted in the volume and tone pots the hot output wire connecting the volume pot with the tone pot broke – evidently I made a slip when cutting off the shielding that didn’t show itself until I tried to bend it into the cavity. This meant that I had to unsolder and remove the aforementioned incredibly small and intricate double volume pot from the cavity and start that whole process again. I was, however, determined to be professional and so after merely uttering a simple ‘oh bollocks’ I gritted my teeth and set about that task.
I’m guessing that my concentration was impaired by my frustration because when doing a particularly intricate bit of desoldering my hand slipped and I burned the back of my middle finger on my right hand so badly that I screamed like a crazy man and spent a good few minutes holding my hand under the cold tap and loudly swearing at the world in general in the most colourful and unpleasant terms I could think of. As I write, about a week after I did it, I’m looking at the icky patch of scorched skin at the bottom of the hole in my finger where the burned and blistered surface has come off – kids, don’t solder angry; always curse the universe fully whenever you encounter a frustrating setback.
One big problem that I’d been putting off for as long as possible was the fact that I don’t really know what the bridge pickup on my fretless is – I bought the bass from a pawn shop in Plymouth in 2006 and my research on the internet have told me that A. the bass was manufactured sometime between 1985 and 1994 (personal speculation based on various insubstantial details causes me to think that it was probably made in the late 1980s) and B. that the bridge pickup - along with the two on/off switches for the two pickups – was added in by someone else at some stage in the bass’s history. Further investigation poking around with it has told me that the pickup is unusual and probably quite expensive – the adjustable polepieces and split coil humbucking design suggesting that it is most likely a DiMarzio ‘Model J’. Being unable to find any wiring diagrams for a DiMarzio pickup of indeterminate age, however, I had to deduce the significance of the four different coloured wires myself. Through devilish cunning I managed to get it down to a 50/50 split - either the white was hot and the black was ground, or it was the inverse. I decided to go with the most logical option – the first – and wired it all up. The work on the neck not yet being finished I was unable to test the wiring properly (by playing the thing) – only to plug it in and poke the pickups with a knife to confirm that they were all connected up and making some sort of sound. As far as I could tell, it worked – which was a bit of a shock.
After I’d finished the neck refinishing, which took two days because it kept raining and forcing me inside, I reassembled my bass and set it up. Once the strings were on and the bass plugged in I discovered that the pickups were wired out of phase – I wasn’t even remotely surprised, there was a 50/50 chance of this happening and it would be difficult to remedy if it was wrong, therefore, according to Murphy’s law there was only one way things were ever going to go down, I knew this when wiring it up, but I also knew that if I changed my mind and rewired it before I could test it then that would turn out to be the wrong way.
Rewiring the pickup turned out to not be as traumatising a process as I had envisaged and the whole thing was up and running within about 10 minutes of the problem being discovered. When plugged in and with the amp turned up the shielding is so good that I actually have to press the bass's front against the side of my poweramp before the thing makes any noise at all.
I now have a very tasty fretless to match my very tasty fretted, the pickups have a growly bite to them that I've never heard on a passive instrument that cost less than £400 and the newly finished neck is beautifully silkysmooth. On top of that it looks badass with its new matt finish, I tihnk you'll agree. Huzzah.
Now I just have to learn to play it properly.
Materials Needed
- 1 Pot of superglue (I found that about 20g was sufficient, although more might be a good idea) I used only the finest Wilkinson’s £1.50 a pot stuff.
- 1 large packet of disposable gloves (you don’t want to become permanently attached to your bass, and will probably need to change gloves often)
- lots of sandpaper, from about 250-300 grit to the stuff that is essentially rough toilet paper
- a washing-up scouring sponge
Methodology
You’ll need to do this outside. Remove the nut (try very hard not to damage it) they are normally only lightly glued in – if at all – so it shouldn’t be too hard, just ping it off with a screwdriver or something. Mask off the body of the bass (if the neck is still attached to the bass, I just unbolted the neck because I needed to anyway) to prevent scuffing the finish, that is, if you actually care. And mask off the back of the neck – this is more important, the back of the neck is a surface you are constantly touching and sliding your thumb up and down – if it has imperfections they will get annoying fast.
Sand down the fretboard, preferably with some sort of sanding block to keep things level and smooth out imperfections but if you have very flat hands, or just can’t be arsed to find a suitable blocky type thing, then just use your hands. After it is sanded smooth and clear of any serious imperfections, scrub the bejeasus out of it with a wet scouring sponge a couple of times, drying it in between with a cloth – this is to get all the dust off it before you apply the first coat.
Put on the gloves, then get some sandpaper that you’ve already used and splurge a 50p sized blob of superglue onto the back of it. Spread this evenly over the surface of the fretboard, splurging on more if needed. Now leave to dry – you’ll be doing that a lot so I suggest listening to something to keep you entertained, I found that the radio series of the Mighty Boosh and The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy work especially well for this purpose.
When it is dry add another coat, then wait for that coat to dry. If you don’t think that it looks sufficiently well covered then add a third coat, but that one isn’t essential. If no third coat is desired then wait a long time, longer than seems sensible, to make sure that the glue is completely dry (don’t touch it to check, it’ll leave marks) and sand it down with light sandpaper. The reason for the extra long wait is that if you start sanding it down when not all of the glue is completely dry then the white sanding residue will stick to the still wet parts and you will end up with misty looking discoloured sections of finish. After you’ve sanded it fairly smooth get out the sponge and scrub it down before you add another set of coats.
Repeat this process a few more times, enough to give you, say, at least six layers of glue in total. Then lightly sand it smooth with fine sandpaper and polish it with the scrubbing side of the sponge and some cloth.
Reattach the neck to the body of the bass (if you took it off) and begin the process of setting it up. You might need to raise the height of the nut slightly if it was really close to the surface of the fretboard before; I did this by cutting a small piece of cardboard and placing it underneath the nut to raise it slightly. There are some that would argue that this technique would decrease the sustain of the instrument and, if you actually buy into that crap, then feel free to just buy a new nut made of fossilised angel shit or whatever they are saying gives you the best sound at the moment, and cut it to the right height.
Tune up and check the neck for buzzy spots, if you find one then get the light sandpaper and the sanding block and do some more levelling on the fretboard under the affected string. Once it's all playing smoothly get your groove on and play until your fingers hurt.
I wrote this for my own benefit (hence the rather patronising tone - I don't have a very high opinion of my own intelligence) but I figured I may as well put it up on here, seeing as it might be of interest to someone somewhere, if only as corroboration of the effectiveness of this method as written up by others in more detail than me.
Things Needed:
1 Tube of Contact cement
A large pack of disposable gloves (they get sticky and you have to change them periodically)
Shielding Foil or Kitchen foil (the thick stuff for preference)
1 Roll painters tape (masking tape will do)
1 Sharp knife
1 Pointy Biro
Methodology
If you are shielding pickup cavities which aren’t covered by a pickguard then use the masking tape to cover the surface of the instrument around the edges of the cavities. If you are shielding a control cavity covered by a metal plate on the front of an instrument (like a stingray or a telecaster) then mask the body around the control plate before you take it off. This is important as it prevents you getting glue and foil stuck anywhere visible.
Unscrew and desolder everything (and I mean everything, even the bridge - leave the neck on if you want though, and the strap buttons - they don’t really have anything to do with this) - you’ll need all the cavities clear of wires and objects that will get in the way – if you aren’t replacing the wiring as well then try, as far as is possible, to keep the pots, jack, and capacitors wired together when you take them out of the body (it’ll save time later) only desolder the bridge ground and pickup wires.
Once everything is out of the cavities lightly sand and then clean them as well as you can, try and make the surfaces as smooth and clean as possible.
Cut strips of foil to whatever width seems appropriate for the cavities you are dealing with, make sure that you have a good number of them ready before you start messing around with the glue otherwise you’ll have to cut them whilst all sticky.
You’ll want to do this next part either outside or somewhere fairly well ventilated - it won’t kill you to do it inside, but it will make you feel kinda woozy by the end of the job.
Put on the gloves (you really can’t do this job without them, I tried - it went horribly wrong and the skin on my fingers went all manky) and wrap your glue spreading finger inside something like a plastic bag or some paper and start spreading the glue evenly over the inside of the cavities, try and avoid getting any in screw holes.
Use the same technique to cover one side of a few of the foil strips. Pause for a minute or two to allow the glue to get its sticky on (the longer you wait, the stickier it gets – better for neatly plonking it on, but if you do it earlier you can slide the foil around to get it into the right place) then, without the bits of bag (or old gloves, or paper, or whatever you chose to use) on your fingers, start sticking in the foil, trying to get as little glue on your fingertips as possible. Ignore screw holes, wiring channels, holes for potentiometers etc - you can poke those holes through with a pen or something later on (if you can find them, try and remember roughly where they were - you can feel for them though if you forget).
This part is very boring and time consuming – just get comfy and sit around sticking the strips into the cavities until the whole cavity is covered with as few gaps as you can possibly manage. Change your gloves whenever the gloves become stickier than the surfaces you are trying to stick the foil to. Listen to some music by all means, but don’t watch TV, you need to be looking intently at what you are doing the whole time. You’ll want to take breaks from this every now and then, as your eyes will get tired focusing intently on the work and your brain will get confused by the fumes.
If you are putting foil into a control cavity with a plastic backing plate then try and get the foil to overlap the edges of the cavity into the bevelled (or countersunk, or chamfered, I have no idea what to call it – I’m not a carpenter) part under where the cover would be, complete the shielding of this cavity by covering the inside of the cover plate with foil so that it touches the parts on the bevelled section.
Once you have finished lining the cavities give yourself a manly handshake in appreciation of a job well done and go off for a while to get some fresh air and make the glue induced hallucinations go away. If you have been shielding cavities not covered by a pickguard or by a metal control plate then come back after about half an hour (after the glue has set fairly well) and cut around the inside edge of the masked part with a very sharp knife (very sharp!) and peel off the tape, taking the excess foil (and, as long as you've cut the edges properly, only the excess foil)
Now part one is done - I would write how to do the next part (wiring all the different sections of shielding foil to ground) but I’ve not actually done that bit yet.
-Ben
