Saturday, April 07, 2012
Back to work! <----Click the Title
The Deck of Nightmares is before me today, only the walking surface now of #2 or better (huh?!) redwood. The old rotten substructure has been rebuilt with pressure treated fir after demolishing the badly rotted and eroded underpinnings. The bloody trellis structure had backed completely away from the house fastenings too...and THAT was a bitch to fix. Finally accomplished two days ago after 2 weeks of rain delay. Then I started on the surface itself, cutting the 2"x6"x10' into suitable lengths and screwing them into the joists one by one. Hard on my injured shoulder from 10 months ago, yes, it still bothers me most days, a little, not a lot. After working hours lifting and tugging and leaning the shoulder gets weaker and more painful...so I quit and go home and collapse. The house is empty and very, very clean after Mannuel got finished scrubbing the floors and painted surfaces. Nice and ready to rent! On the water in Suisun, East view towards Mecca, sunrrom, large deck, 35 foot boat dock, yes you can fish from your own private deck/dock! 3 large bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms. Oh and theirs an indoor swimming pool and a hot tub, also indoors. Spa tub in the downstairs full bath. Tile floors downstairs, wood floors upstairs. Great neighbors, worth the rent themselves! Quiet and beautiful! A full-time summer home! 707-428-4787 and ask for Kelly, she does all this stuff, I only work here.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Thump, thump, thump...click on title to watch...
I've always had a hankering (is that an english word?) to learn the bass guitar. A certain couple of constraints have halted me each time I thought I'd go ahead with the learning. One: my hands are pretty small Two: I didn't have a bass or access to one. Items 3 to 10 didn't matter until the first 2 were dealt with. Seeing rather small individuals actively PLAYING the bloody things on Youtube as in the attached video. He has small hands too. Mine are way bigger. No excuse there. #3 was Incompetent. So once I got used to the idea I HAD to actually HAVR a bass and knowing the purchase of such a device was unlikely to happen any time soon. I decided a piece by piece approach would allow me to actaually MAKE one over a short time span. eBay to the rescue! After talking over this crazy idea with The Woodslug
he agreed, WE should do it! Build guitars, start with the bass. He already has a class making ukeleles! So with that I started in looking at every web site I could find while having a low level argument with The Slug about what form would these beasts take? He suggested, then insisted on the Fender P-Bass as a model as I in all my ignorance argued for our own form, and H/L original. Well as I went from one site to another researching I learned about the amount of raw hardware there was available to both build and repair a Fender Bass...it would be easier to start there and improve upon it if that was possible. So soon our mails were being supplamented by packages from a variety of sources with small screws, tuning keys, pickguards, volume controls, copper wire, plastic objects to make pickups from etc. etc. So now we have all the materials to go ahead and actually BUILD a working bass guitar! Then his Mum died, he disappeared into the south of California for a few weeks and came back with wood! Not just any wood...old Mahogany for the bodies! I meanwhile, seeing the finished product was getting further and further off from actuality began looking up old bodies and necks in which to mount my completed electronics sections to test. That led to H/L exp...exp for EXPERIMENTAL. Yes, one exists and, to me it has a nice form and a good, decent bass sound.
It is a Fender-stien, my style. I wound the pickups myself...quite a chore I'll tell you, a MILE of 42 guage enameled copper on the bobbin, all me! Two of them for this model of bass, each covers 2 strings with 4 magmentic poles. Got someone else's body...a half finished P-Bass body type in black.
Then a neck, a Mexican made one piece with the truss rod in place and operating...a plus! Many truss rods are discovered broken or stripped or rusted into a locked mess that no amount of torque will loosen. This one was GOOD to go! Got a set of Ernie Ball 45 - 105 wound strings. So cool!
She is a fine instrument, now for test by REAL bass men!
he agreed, WE should do it! Build guitars, start with the bass. He already has a class making ukeleles! So with that I started in looking at every web site I could find while having a low level argument with The Slug about what form would these beasts take? He suggested, then insisted on the Fender P-Bass as a model as I in all my ignorance argued for our own form, and H/L original. Well as I went from one site to another researching I learned about the amount of raw hardware there was available to both build and repair a Fender Bass...it would be easier to start there and improve upon it if that was possible. So soon our mails were being supplamented by packages from a variety of sources with small screws, tuning keys, pickguards, volume controls, copper wire, plastic objects to make pickups from etc. etc. So now we have all the materials to go ahead and actually BUILD a working bass guitar! Then his Mum died, he disappeared into the south of California for a few weeks and came back with wood! Not just any wood...old Mahogany for the bodies! I meanwhile, seeing the finished product was getting further and further off from actuality began looking up old bodies and necks in which to mount my completed electronics sections to test. That led to H/L exp...exp for EXPERIMENTAL. Yes, one exists and, to me it has a nice form and a good, decent bass sound.
It is a Fender-stien, my style. I wound the pickups myself...quite a chore I'll tell you, a MILE of 42 guage enameled copper on the bobbin, all me! Two of them for this model of bass, each covers 2 strings with 4 magmentic poles. Got someone else's body...a half finished P-Bass body type in black.
Then a neck, a Mexican made one piece with the truss rod in place and operating...a plus! Many truss rods are discovered broken or stripped or rusted into a locked mess that no amount of torque will loosen. This one was GOOD to go! Got a set of Ernie Ball 45 - 105 wound strings. So cool!
She is a fine instrument, now for test by REAL bass men!
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