Ken Lawrence Chamber Brase Bass Copy

[Mr Natural]

On ‎5‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 4:42 PM, Prostheta said:

Ergh. Does a barrier cream or topical/oral antihistamine help? I'd be dosing myself silly rather than wearing several layers. I run hot. T-shirts in winter or death. 

yeah- I am a t-shirt guy too. For whatever reason- I never seem to have an issue with cocobolo dust if its cold- I can get that stuff on me all day long- no issue- but it was hot, and my wifes car with hot engine was in the other bay- I was going to town with the sandpaper and working up a sweat and man it got on my forearms and I was fine until about 3am and woke up clawing my arms and neck. . I took a Benadryl and also applied cortisone cream- it helped- it went away pretty much the next day.

[Mr Natural]

so- I didn't really get to work on this any this weekend, but tonight after finishing up some house chores I whipped together this super expensive jig and routed the bridge saddle slot.

notice both the uber exotic indian rosewood and mahogany stop blocks. The red oak guide rails screwed thru the poplar shims all screwed to an lovely cut off of white MDF.

super deluxe clamping system

yeah its a ghetto jig but that is a perfectly flat bottom saddle slot. This is after 4 passes- a few more to go.

 

[ScottR]

What do you mean ghetto? Those are high end guides you are using there. And finishing only to the point of functionality is the height of efficiency. And a C-clamp is a perfect example of a tool designed to get the most from the simplest form required. And all the parts are modular; you can take them down and put them back together in an arrangement that fits another sized part.

And it worked!

SR

[Mr Natural]

slow going but some progress made

tuner hole guide made and trialed before fitting to actual head stock and drilling

bridge and tailpiece sanded to 250 grit, (glue surfaces at 80grit) wiped the glue surfaces with acetone a couple of times, I ended up tweaking the tailpiece after the fact- I ended up lowering the low e bass side a bit to increase downward pressure on the saddle. this will create some additional sanding one its connected to mate and blend the surfaces. I also plan on hitting those ugly ass screws with some a drop fill of black lacquer.

while I was getting the glue squeeze out around the bridge I somehow ended up folding that cloth I was using, and instead of covering the removed glue I ended up with glue on the outside of the cloth and smearing glue across the face of the bass- so- the drying dampness you see below is me cleaning up after myself- way to go slick.  

i love those first coats of oil.

 

[ScottR]

You've got one of the nicest colored poplar timbers I can recall seeing. Oiling poplar is not something you see every day....and it is going to look good!

SR

[Prostheta]

This is proving to be a real labour of love. Poplar is an easy wood to work, but difficult to make look stunning in most cases. This is definitely up there.

[Mr Natural]

thanks for the kind words guys- but I have a long way to go to making this look good. I am going for the warm hand rubbed look on this one. I see I have more sanding though as there are a few spots of glue still- damn- but- hey- bright side is I get to finally use the stew mac sanding stick I bought eons ago and maybe used once.

so- 3 coats of watco teak oil so far- its now starting to not soak in in places as you can see in the pic- one more coat- then wet sand/slurry fill tomorrow which may prove tough since there is both light and dark wood here.

without flash

with flash

 

[Mr Natural]

so the last coat of oil I put on last night is basically sitting on the top and just ever so tacky- I think this thing is finally done drinking it up- usually two coats gets it but this took four- so I applied some more oil and wet sanded with 400 grit that I had soaking in oil over night. I still used the better part of a half sheet of paper as it loaded quickly and I didn't want to introduce any scratches from clumped up oil. I also tried my best to "stay in the lines sanding" that is- sanded the darker parts and light parts separately- still- as you can see in the pic- there is dark dust slurry in the light areas and light dust slurry in the darker wood. I hope this slurry fills up the wood and I can move on.

I will let this dry for a couple of days since its so humid here right now and then probably wet sand with steel wool as I have done that in the past - it really leaves the wood as smooth as a baby's bottom. if this looks good after that- I may skip the poly all together (the fingerboard will still get poly though)- and wax the body and call it a day.

[Mr Natural]

so @KempGuitars tru-oil masterpiece got me all worked up to move ahead with my hackjob here and see if I couldn't get a half decent result. . We had a sunny day (was supposed to rain- we missed it)- anyway- I plowed ahead and wet sanded with 0000 steel wool, wiped it down, and hung to dry. these pics are after 3 hrs of drying. I think I got the back pretty well filled, I am going to have to do the front over once I completely get the glue I missed around the neck and bridge (and tailpiece)- I want to have the back done so I don't have to worry about drying etc and can work on the front when I can sit down and really concentrate.. I am going to have to pull out my optivisors and sanding stick/mini chisels and heck maybe even the big ass card scraper I have and really be careful not to mess up the edges of the fingerboard, bridge and tailpiece.

should have make sure I got all that squeeze out. shoulda coulda woulda.  I thought I did. Eyes are not what they used to be I guess. Lesson (I already knew) learned again.

[Mr Natural]

;and an ugly shot- here is the glue around the neck- to the right- those spots- to the left- I am not convinced that is all glue there- I think part of it is glue- part of it is a light/white grain line, we will see this weekend.

I didn't use steel wool on this today like the back- no sense as I need this dry- and will be sanding back- reapplying oil etc. Also- I need to touch up the sound holes with cloth on steel rod or something to get in there and get the edges of the holes oiled

[Prostheta]

It looks like glue, yes. it shouldn't be difficult to spot sand and repair.

[Mr Natural]

as luck would have it, I just happened to be cleaning out some items in my garage, in hopes of getting it somewhere as neat as @mattharris75's and low and behold I had some old skiing stuff (a SWIX bag  that came with cross country skis I bought in 1989- it contained some wax, tools, file, and a couple of scrapers!- including a small card scraper!).  Pretty pathetic I had this all these years and had no idea. happy accident as I was going to go to Rockler or WoodCraft tomorrow- but those stores are about 45 miles from me and I hate driving down towards Atlanta.

started with a small chisel but started to get dips and more wood than I bargained for so- .perfect time for my new found scraper.  

and some wisdom from my avatar:

 

sourced from

http://www.eurotrib.com/story/2007/3/9/653/57005

 

 

[mattharris75]

Nice. I love using a scraper. Leaves such a great, smooth surface.

What part of the ATL metro are you in? Judging by your 'down to Atlanta' comment, I'm assuming at least Marietta or Alpharetta? Or are you further north?

[Mr Natural]

Matt- I am up 85- northeast of Mall of Georgia- in between Hamilton Mill and Chateau Elan exits. and still not far enough away from Atlanta 

[mattharris75]

Cool. I've spent some time, in the distant past, up at Road Atlanta. I was in Buford last year, which isn't too far from there, relatively speaking.  Used to visit my friends in Marietta a lot, which is practically on the other side of creation from you. But that part of Atlanta is just a three hour trip, door to door, for me.  And that may even be too close to Atlanta... 

[Mr Natural]

not a whole lot done this weekend, too many visiting family/friends/dead animals smoking over coals for extended periods of time to get a lot done.

started to carve a wood nut out of cocobolo, and found a scrap of the body wood to fashion a truss rod cover out of. slapped a coat of teak oil on it.

[Mr Natural]

I had waxed this prior to leaving on vacation June 30th. Plan was to buff it out when I got back. I just went upstairs to get it out of the closet its been resting in and do just that- and  low and behold the cocobolo is still spewing its venom. Amazing how much oil is in there- especially considering this wood I am using is at least 20 years old-and I drench/wipe with acetone over the course of a couple days before gluing.It sat in a hot and cold garage for what 3 years or whatever- and  I hit this again with acetone after final sanding prior to using the Teak Oil on it. I will rub off the wax and buff out that seeped out oil and let it sit a few more and see what happens before I wax that again..

[Prostheta]

Oils are going to be in that wood until they start crystalising, which I think it going to be in the order of decades. Maybe less with certain conditions, oxidation and general exposure. I've never studied this part of wood anatomy really, so I can't say anything other than that I'm not 100% surprised.

What I can say however, is just how we really don't need to add oil to wood in order to "nourish" it. The entire furniture polish industry was built on the false idea of wood needing "nourishment". At the most we need to look after the surface and ensure it doesn't get too dry or too wet. Beyond that, the wood is fine.

That Coco will keep sweating for a couple of seasons, likely. That's part of the beauty of working with a living material, and how organic they can be in service.

[Mr Natural]

so its finally been remotely cool enough (below 90 degrees F) around here to where I ventured out to the garage to try and finish up the last couple items on this project. the wife started up with honey dos before I could get far- but- at least I got something done this weekend on it. 

I didnt have any pre-made saddles, so instead of ordering one- just made one. start off by measuring width of saddle slot- incase it grew any while cutting it. (the whitish stuff you see on the edge of the slot (and all over the body and bridge) is wax) I havent buffed it yet)

i often use corian as saddle and nut material (this one will get a cocobolo nut though)-  for saddles I start off with the large size freebie sample of "white jasmine" from local home depot. cut off a length

I have never been able to sand these things flat by hand- typically pressure is uneven- they sell a nice tool at stew mac but I am not sure I would get my value out of it- so I rig up a thicknessing jig on my drill with a drum sander. first I make sure the cut corian is thicker than I need

then I push it thru my "jig". While this does not get the blank perfectly flat. it gets it close enough to where 10 strokes or so on 80 grit paper that is laid out against a flat surface will take out any bumps- and you can dial in the thickness with 250 grit while polishing it at the same time. In the pic below- the block of wood clamped to the fence keeps the blank tight against the table- I use the walnut block with holes in it to push the saddle thru- and the black mark on the top of the blank shows me the length of the saddle slot (plus some extra to round the ends)

 

 

 

 

[ScottR]

Clever.

SR

[Prostheta]

Get yourself two pieces of aluminium or steel, drill them through and add four skateboard bearings. That's all you need to match that StewMac thing.

[Mr Natural]

9 hours ago, Prostheta said:

Get yourself two pieces of aluminium or steel, drill them through and add four skateboard bearings. That's all you need to match that StewMac thing.

but like left overs you turn into a meal, I used whatever I had laying around. 

steel/aluminum/skateboard bearings would have required a purchase on my part. I like going ghetto.

[Mr Natural]

so- this one has been sitting out in the garage for a bit- it was too hot out there to work, but I left this out there "bleeding" the oil from that heel. Then one day Pearl the wonder dog, was being let out by my wife to do her business on a leash, and said wonder dog spotted a lizard- or gecko- -whatever they are.  The little 3-6 inch things. 

Now-Pearl's favorite activity in the world is hunting lizards.  So- when she spotted this one on the garage floor- she went for it. long story short the bass took a nice tumble from workbench (it was on a flip up extension on one of my benches)- to the floor, and split the headstock along the grain in two places and a nice dent in the tip and side of the headstock. 

Luckily- it landed on the headstock- and the body ended up on a piece of patio furniture (we had to bring in all our deck and underdeck furniture due to IRMA into the garage (I am getting a new roof by the way- woot)

So- it sat, and sat and I finally dealt with it. here is the result. Sorry about the lousy phone pic- my dslr is currently touring Canada with a relative who asked to borrow it. 

can you tell where the splits were? I sanded it reasonably back to "shape" its a bit off I know- but- considering it had two splits going towards that top tuner hole. I say I got lucky. This is a beater anyway made from homedepot wood- but still-- that sort of sucked, and at this point in my life- I would prefer to avoid guitar repair during guitar building (especially during guitar finishing. i just dont have a ton of free time to deal with repairs. Such is building I guess for a hack like me. 

So lets see- this has had a snapped truss rod repair, steamed out dents in the front, split the headstock, and repaired, and I still havent strung it up yet. Some things are cursed. 

 

[Prostheta]

Did she get the gecko then? 

[Prostheta]

....totally joking of course

Wow, excellent save. Really. Thankfully it wasn't the worst of breaks to have to repair, and you did it properly. A bit of experience gained and the bass now has some history to it in addition to the fives years and five thousand beers it took you to get to this point.