Lowe Shop Notes

[BTL]

Yes, the transportation plan worked out swimmingly and we had a blast at Summer NAMM!

I posted and tagged a bunch of photos in a public album on Facebook.

I'll curate and create a few collages for forum posting as well.

[BTL]

Oh, yeah...this happened, too:

[Dave W]

Publicity from Premier Guitar is great, that really ought to help your business.

[BTL]

Thank you!

[gearHed289]

That's great Brad! Congrats on the exposure. Guitar sounds great.

[BTL]

Thanks...it's easy to see I'm pretty excited.

Along those lines, here's another video from NAMM:

[Rob]

WOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOO

[Dave W]

More good publicity for you, although the Premier Guitar video will probably see much more circulation.

[BTL]

Agreed...that may be more of a symbiotic relationship.

I posted and tagged a bunch of photos in a public album on Facebook.

I'll curate and create a few collages for forum posting as well.

I decided to skip the collages and just post a few photos directly.

Here's the Lowe Custom Guitars NAMM crew...Joe, Susan, and me.



The Premier Guitar interview.



Most of the ebassist crew.



The rest of the ebassist crew.



Brian Swerdfeger, VP of R&D at Fender and head of the Custom Shop.



Jonathan Moody of GHS.



Jeff Babicz of Babicz Full Contact Hardware.



Curtis Novak of Curtis Novak Pickups.



Doug Kauer, in absentia.

[Dave W]

Was Jeff Babicz trying too woo you away from Hipshot? 

[BTL]

Sort of?

Apparently they make saddles that will work with my bridge plates.

It's definitely worth looking into.

[BTL]

I have been working on a number of guitar-centric projects, but not a lot that was build related. That said, I just completed a conversion neck and string-through bridge install on a Lindert replica P body. The history of this bass is documented here.

https://www.talkbass.com/threads/geos-bass-body-weight-reduction-program.1358552/

This was a fun project to take on, and I had a great time adding my own touch to this collaboration.

You have to love the benefits of standardization. This particular neck already had threaded inserts installed, so I was a little concerned I might need to plug and re-drill the neck mounting holes to get everything to line up. Note the locating pins in the first frame. I needed to widen the pocket about 0.08", but once I did that everything fit together perfectly.

I have installed string-through ferrules in finished bodies more than a dozen times, and it's always a little nerve-wracking. The proof is in the pudding, I guess.

The new bridge was installed using three of the original mounting holes. The rest are covered by the plate and are not visible. If we chose not to add the string-through ferrules, this would have been a 100% reversible modification.



Here she is, fully assembled.

[BTL]

I have a new series of builds in the pipeline, including a fiver or two.

A few years back, I worked with Lindy Fralin on a prototype of the pickup that ultimately became the Fralin Big Single, and that's what I used in the first Ridler bass.

It's a sidewinder-style pickup that has the bobbins aligned horizontally and a steel blade that runs through the center. A bar magnet rests on the blade in-between the two bobbins and acts as a narrow sensing aperture, like a single-coil, but with hum canceling properties.

I have always wanted to offer this pickup in five string format, but struggled with how to fabricate the bobbins. After spit-balling one Friday afternoon with Lindy first, then Dan Rocha later on, we had an Occam's razor event. Why not just cut the ends off two Fralin bobbins and glue them together to make one longer one?

With a razor saw, some blue tape, a blade for a jig, and some CA adhesive, I now have a bobbin that will work for string spacing up to 3". I went to the local Metal Supermarket and had 30 blades cut for $20, and we're ready to fabricate.

[BTL]

Working on the photo setup in anticipation of the website refresh. It's a process, but isn't everything?

[Dave W]

I'm always interested in sidewinder designs and how they sound.