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Not a lot done recently as I've had other priorities - unpacking stuff from the UK including my Spector bass which has had two tuners shunted with sufficient force to sheer off the tuner screw heads. More on that later. This week I reduced the neck heel width of the fluoro caster by half a mm on each side but when I test fitted the neck to the body, I could tell just by looking that the neck wasn't centred and checking alignment confirmed it. I'm still cautiously sanding back the shoulders of the heel on one side to get it centred better. Nearly done...and then I need to fit the bandsaw with a new blade and set it up so I can finish off the control cover plate. And I'm also going to test spray some 2K clear just to see how well it absorbs minor dings and imperfections in the undercoat. Regarding the Spector, I also discovered a neat way to get out sheered off, headless tuner screws from the tuner holes in my spector. I bought a metal tube implement normally used by potters to make very precise holes in wet clay, usually in teapots for straining the water as it's being poured. They're made from very thin stainless steel but the perfect size to fit around the screw snugly. So I inserted one in a drill bit and once the tube was around the screw, just pushed to the right depth. The bonus was when I pulled out the tube, the screw came with it and it left a very compact hole that could be easily backfilled with wood chips, sawdust and plugged. Just need to get my hands on some replacement Schaller M4 machineheads as the lookalike spares I have needed bigger holes.

This does not necessarily answer the question but: headphones, including good expensive headphones colour the sound. That's good, that's on purpose, and that's part of their selling point. I have the Sony wh1000xm3 and I love them. Lovely warm sound, the bass guitar in songs can be heard very clearly, though maybe a bit at the expenses of the drum sometimes, and it can get boomy. Now, when I play instruments - mainly the bass - I do not want any of that. I want headphones to give me a flat response, with minimal to no alteration of frequencies. Sames as a sound engineer would do. The sound is already coloured by amps and pedals that are designed to enhance my instrument specifically. If I go through headphones that alter the sound, I end up making choices in terms of amps/pedals settings in response to that, which I guess would not give me the sound I have in mind in other contexts. So in that sense I do nof find the expensive sony to be good. And I find some cheaper ArsTechnica I have to be better. So, flat response, clarity and detail even at high volumes would be my idea of headphones for a musician. I can imagine somebody triying to make headphones to make the guitar sound "better" but what's the advantage of that? Headphones are meant for practice and learning about tone. And how do you define "better" anyway?

Short snappy update as I come to the end of a consolidation phase... bigger & newer things to come in the next week or so.