Sharkfin

eSGEe said:
we always see the flaws in our work others miss----sign of a true artist
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Well, i avoid making photographs of them :)
It is the precision in the details where it lacks. In case of that bass i should actually remove the finish on the back, cure a few spots and the make a new and more even shellac finish. I think this will happen some time. And that bass need more electronics, at least a kill switch.
 
Still nothing to show. But to tell. It is now the time the instrument needs to break in, to find its tone. And it is developing nicely. Despite the really old strings which show a lot of wearing from the frets. And which i took of of my EB-3 because the had become too dull. Daddario halfrounds.
Despit of that (the Daddario halfrounds are the worst halfrounds i know, inferior to SIT silencers and GHS brite flats): good attack, musical tone, surprisingly good overtones. Sustain forever, even through the headphones.

I actually would liek to put GHS pressure wounds on it, but unfortuately these are 5-10 mm too short :-(
 
I agree on the D'addarrio Halfs--- felt like GRIT and sticker bushes.....horrible--
I was impressed with the TAPE wounds though
29400

They have a nice "roundwound" texture (but less) and not as STICKY as the halfrounds----but not as DEAD as say RotoSound Nylons -- which are a material silk feel and "fat" under the fingers to me like a fabric-- the D'Addarios are slippery more ;like a round wound -- but brighter
 
Finally i had to repair the Priavera - the neck came off. Which means improve the surfaces of the neck joint, reglue, insert 4 wooden dowels for safety, and hide their ends:

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After removin the springs from the bridge there was suffient space to adjust the intonation - well almost: the E-String has to be tuned at the 7th fret in order to distribute the error.
 
BTW: same shape, Mahogany body instead of Walnut, more wildly shaped top, and thinline? And maybe 5 string (shortscale!) fanned frets?

This evening i practised on that bass. Nice, makes fun, now that most of my build errors are corrected.
 
So the Sharkfin need some refinement: despite of the compensation coil, the bass was really noisy,sensitive especially against high frequency electric fields. As soon as we switchend on the party light in our rehearsal room i could not play without a noise gate.
Finally i found a source of shielding tube to cover the 2 wire connection and a role of copper foil for an affordable price. Et voilà, the noise is almost gone; i can even touch the computer mouse without causing hum. WITHOUT any compensation coil.

After shielding the wires.

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Adding four neodymium magnets:

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Shielded pickup. Note the gap which will block eddy currents around the coil that would change the sound. Already covered with Tesafilm.

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Cover electric cavity with copper foil - overlapping pieces still need to be soldered.

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Last Summer i had played that bass in an electrically strongly disturbed environment, together with the Primavera. It turned out that all that shielding effort was insufficient - the bass was as noisy as all the other single coil basses (i.e. mostly Jazz basses). The Primavera with its stacked humbucker remained silent und usable.
So i did a quick discussion with my favorite pickup maker. Et voila, here is the result: Neodymium magnets, 9.3 kOhms. Still Telecaster neck sized windings...
I actually got two, the other one already fully shielded

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bea said:
Last Summer i had played that bass in an electrically strongly disturbed environment, together with the Primavera. It turned out that all that shielding effort was insufficient - the bass was as noisy as all the other single coil basses (i.e. mostly Jazz basses). The Primavera with its stacked humbucker remained silent und usable.
So i did a quick discussion with my favorite pickup maker. Et voila, here is the result: Neodymium magnets, 9.3 kOhms. Still Telecaster neck sized windings...
I actually got two, the other one already fully shielded

View attachment 96579
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Cool! That is similar to what Gibson did with their Boomerang pickups that were put in the Flying V2 models of '79 to about '83. You get the bite of the Telecaster, and humbucking for noise reduction. Hope that stays nice and quiet for your purposes.
 
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In addition to the pickup the internal wiring of the bass has been changed. One On-Off-On micro switch (the old one) still does Shortcut-nothing-15 nF parallel, a new 2nd one adds 1.5nF-nothing-2.2nF. Which enables You to select 15nF-16.5nF-17.2 nF in the dark voiced more, and all 3 sound remarkably and surprisingly different.

More important the brightly voiced modes: PU as is and paralleled with either 1.5 or 2.2 nF. Which, of course, will bring the treble resonance down a little bit.

To my surprise, through my headphones, and through a short 3 m cable into an equalizer (Harley Benton BEQ-1, apparently a clone of the Boss BEQ-7), the 1.5 nF mode sounds brighter than the mode with the highest resonance frequency. Maybe the cap shifts te sound really well into the range of maximum sensitivity of the ear. Whch might be really nice for my playing style in the sting project to which that bass is dedicated.
 
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