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Bass number two (にばん): the blue growler


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I got in the shop for one day last week and used the time to get my pick guard cut out. In my head it was a super simple task, but it ended up being very tricky. Thin wood  (1/8" thick) + tricky lines = the router not being nice. I could see tear-out city happening so I ended up just getting things as close as I could with the band saw and then I rasped and sanded it to shape. Slow and steady, I eventually got there. At one point I'd mentally thrown in the towel on a wooden pick guard. We'll see.

Action shots...

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I also finally copied my neck template. Compared to the pick guard, that was a breeze. 

I've spend a significant amount of brain power outside of the shop pondering stain colors. The original plan is to do a blue stain on the ash body, potentially with a darker blue stain in the filler, and either a honey or charcoal stain on the pick guard and neck. But now I'wondering if I should reverse the body and pick guard. Decisions, decisions, decisions. I've made a horrible set of photo shop mock ups to play with. Here's what I'm talking about (colors are exaggerated for concept only - hopefully real-life won't be as fugly!).

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I hope to do some playing with dye next week to get a sense of what my real colors will look like. In the meantime, this week's goals are to get the fretboard glued and the neck outlined to prep for carving. 

 

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10 minutes ago, Prostheta said:

Not sure which (if either) scheme I prefer.

I hear ya. Hopefully real tests will give me some better ideas. 

I have also burned considerable brain power debating having the truss rod access be on the heal or headstock.  Heal access is more traditional and seems stronger, but headstock is much more accessible. Probably gonna go headstock. 

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In my opinion, it depends on how that places the acting length. If it's adjusted at the heel, the acting length goes through a thicker portion of the neck (the heel) which is less effective. That is, unless it uses a long adjuster. It doesn't make too much difference if any, however that's how I like to see things; direct use for purpose. The spoke wheels with an adjustment slot between frets is a nice way of avoid head adjustment whilst placing the acting length and central point where it's needed. Worth considering for a future idea, maybe?

The thing I don't like about flat Fender-style headstocks is that the adjustment at the head end isn't as accessible as it is on tiltbacks where there's usually plenty of room. Hunting between the strings is a PITA.

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I'm glad to hear that for every little detail I obsess over, there are others that have thought about it more. :)

My shop time this week was eaten up by the mind-boggling process of renewing vehicle registration, insurance, and all of that here in Japan. I'd like to say next week will be different, but the bureaucrats still have more steps for me to complete before our cars turn into pumpkins on July 23. 

So instead, let me share these photos of some very unusual Atlantansia basses I came across at a shop here recently. 

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They also make a 1 string fretless model. 

 

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He sounds like a very interesting guy. The round pickups are an interesting concept - it allows for scaling the number of strings without having to make a bunch of different pickups, similar to a 1-string bridge. Some of the models allow for the pickups to be moved and rotated, as well, to get different sounds. 

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You know what? I'm not entirely convinced as to whether he is a little insane or simply just  "a Japanese inventor". Certainly, those things seem to go hand in hand. Many aesthetic aspects of his basses are a little ugly or maybe inelegant, however as an engineer he is definitely very very capable and has plenty of ideas. Have a look at his Facebook page....

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  • 2 weeks later...

The good news is that I made it through the insanity that is the Japanese vehicle registration process and am good for two more years. It culminated in a day spent driving each car to the vehicle inspection office where I shuffled a series of papers and tax stamps around a series of buildings and lines to get things stamped, filed, and scanned. Midway through the process I realized that I was the only person waiting in line not wearing mechanic's coveralls which means that either:

  1. People in Japan don mechanic's outfits while doing car related things 
  2. People in Japan outsource the crazy vehicle registration process to their mechanics

My guess is #2, though given Japan's love for cosplay, #1 isn't out of the question. 

The bad news is no shop time for me this month. I'm now heading into several weeks of travel, so I'll pick things up again in August. I don't want anybody to think I've dropped off the planet! I will be back with some progress in a few weeks. 

In the meantime, my neck wood is getting some extra time to dry and settle, which isn't going to hurt. And I'll be lurking in other build threads...

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  • 4 weeks later...

I'm back at it! I finally got through all of the summer madness and should be able to maintain a steady pace on this project at least through the next few weeks. We can chalk it up to another month drying time for my wood. (In full disclosure, I've been lurking all of the other active threads.) 

Last week I got in on Friday and got the truss rod channel cut and fingerboard glued on. It felt great to be back at it. I really like the feeling of satisfaction that comes with a truss rod fitting snuggly in it's channel. Simple stuff, but really one of those strangely enjoyable things. 

Anyway, some pics...

Getting things measured and ready for the cut. I use a router table and fence to do the channel, so I needed to leave the board squared off.

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The truss rod happy in it's new home:

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I used some little pins to hold the fingerboard in place while glueing (one of many tricks I learned here):

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My glue-up station:

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Using every clamp I could:

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Celebrating my return to the shop (Japan's jumping on the IPA band wagon):

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Up this week:

- holes for tuners

- rough cut headstock outline

- thinning headstock

- rounding transition between fingerboard and headstock

- rough cut the rest of the neck

- routing neck outline

I've got to to some color tests of my blue stain as well to figure out my finish plan. The forecast calls for rain all week, but if I get a clear afternoon I'll sneak that in as well. 

 

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Hey Aaron, its been a while!

I totally agree about the truss rod fitting bit too. For me it's a high sense of validation coming from engineering the work. Everything has its place very specifically. When it translates to the real item, it's just great. Can't fault it.

I was thinking of making up a bunch of those screw clamps a while back, however the threads are half left-hand, and half right-hand. I thought of something else to waste my time with instead. :D

DId you notice any movement in the wood at all? You should consider saving the waste off either side, and laminating them up with a contrasting wood in the centre to make another neck blank. It might be too short for a full neck, but long enough that you can scarf on a headstock. :thumb:

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12 hours ago, Prostheta said:

DId you notice any movement in the wood at all? You should consider saving the waste off either side, and laminating them up with a contrasting wood in the centre to make another neck blank. It might be too short for a full neck, but long enough that you can scarf on a headstock. :thumb:

I didn't notice any movement, so hopefully we're good.

I was cracking jokes with my guitarists last weekend that I was going to make a guitar out of the scraps from this bass. They didn't find it funny, but that is exactly my plan. 

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Oh man, I am an idiot. I've been so concerned about letting the neck dry, but I left the body in the back of my car over the weekend. Typhoon Chanthu rolls into town, temps and humidity go nuts. Yesterday, I pulled out the body and found a split in the join on the bridge end of the body. Yuck! :( 

Here's what it looks like (maybe not as bad as it looks - the split goes about an inch and then transitions into my center line)::

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Here's the view from the back:

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After sitting indoors overnight, things came back together. Here's what it looks like now:

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And from the back:

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The join in the upper part of the body is holding good. I don't think there's a high risk of the bass spontaneously falling into two pieces, and hopefully finishing the body will make the wood move less. At worst there is that risk, and at best, there's gonna be a line. 

I won't make this stupid mistake again. 

Some thoughts on what to do:

  1. Try to get some wood glue in there to mask the line and maybe provide a little more adhesion. 
  2. Pack it with CA glue and ash saw dust 
  3. Put in wood filler
  4. Route a line from the end of the bass to the pickup and glue in a matching piece (either all the way through or 1/2" deep
  5. Start over with a new body

Additionally, I might need to get creative with finishing. My plan is to put a blue stain on the body - maybe I do some sort of blue burst and darken the edges to hide this split.

Ideas? Tips? Help!

Thanks,

Aaron

 

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6 hours ago, a2k said:

Some thoughts on what to do:

  1. Try to get some wood glue in there to mask the line and maybe provide a little more adhesion. 
  2. Pack it with CA glue and ash saw dust 
  3. Put in wood filler
  4. Route a line from the end of the bass to the pickup and glue in a matching piece (either all the way through or 1/2" deep
  5. Start over with a new body

 

The glueline opened up because the wood shifted in an extreme of heat and humidity. If the body won't be in those conditions again, then that crack shouldn't re-appear. It still exists though and is now a structural defect in the the glueline.

1. When wood moves like that, it does so with more force than the additional glue will be able to withstand. Since there is already glue in the crack, adhesion will be poorer than that of the original seam.

2. Sawdust and wood creates a composite which has different properties to that of the natural wood. As the wood moves, the composite will not....or at the very least it will move differently. This will telegraph itself through a finish as the wood naturally moves, and it will. The crack in the seam will still not be fixed.

3. Same as 2. It reacts differently to the wood and will telegraph. Some fillers are more forgiving than others, however I avoid them as a rule. Unless I'm using them watered down as a pore filler....

4. Excessive surgery which will be even more difficult to hide scars with. I'll get back to this point.

5. This one can be recovered.

 

Splits are a pain, because they can continue to develop further into the wood or through the seam. The simplest solution is to cut straight through that seam using either a bandsaw or tablesaw. Doing so accurately to remove as little material as possible with the kerf and subsequent re-jointing should mean that it can be glued back up potentially with no aftereffects in anything other than the shape.

The options here are to glue in matching/contrasting material to replace that which was removed, or to alter the design of the body to compensate for the change in outline, heel, etc.

Personally, if you're bursting this one then patching in a thin strip is fine. It should be less noticeable front and back than the end grain....however a burst will hide that anyway. Factor in the pickguard coverage, and that makes it even more attractive as a solution. It all depends on whether you have a thin matching strip.

To produce that strip, you can take a large piece and joint one side, glue it to one half. Then trim the patch back until it is of the correct size, then glue on the other half. The priorities are keeping both halves of the body straight through the patch and keeping the seam as clean and closed as possible. Aiming for zero gluelines (correct clamping pressure, perfect jointing) should make this a challenging but very achievable fix.

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10 minutes ago, Prostheta said:

The simplest solution is to cut straight through that seam using either a bandsaw or tablesaw. Doing so accurately to remove as little material as possible with the kerf and subsequent re-jointing should mean that it can be glued back up potentially with no aftereffects in anything other than the shape.

Just making sure I understand - are you suggesting cutting the body in half along the glue line and then either:

1. inserting a thin strip to account for the kerf

2. just glue it back knowing the shape is changed a little (and then adjusting the pickup cavity and neck pocket accordingly)

 

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Either or. You know your confidence and capabilities with the gear to hand, so whichever suits the end purposes or is most within your skill set really. Neither are 100% ideal for obvious reasons!

I mean, there are other ways of structurally repairing this or at least attempts to mitigate further movement however they can quickly get very hair-brained. Things like angled cross dowelling or mechanical fasteners to cinch both halves together under the bridge. That would only prevent having to split the body back up, and would give no realistic guarantee. Plus are batshit crazy.

I work from a perspective of no half measures for understandable reasons. Short of starting over, those two are the closest approximations to guarantees that you'll get. Everything else is only on the table when those two options are simply not possible right now.

To put it another way; splitting and reglueing are the only methods that will put you back to the point you were at before the crack happened. Everything else is working on the symptom and not the problem.

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6 hours ago, Prostheta said:

Is that option even on the table? :lol:

I reserve the right to scrap and start over anything at any point - this is the only thing keeping me from being paralyzed with the fear of not getting something right. :thumb:

The split has now completely disappeared. You wouldn't know it's there if I hadn't already told you. I woke up this morning ready to cut the body in half, but I think I'm going to let it sit until next week and figure out what I'm going to do. I know it's ill-advised, but I might not sweat it, knowing that I can always crank out another body if I need to. 

Meanwhile, progress has not stopped! The neck looks like a neck now. Here are some action shots:

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I had to go over to the auto shop to use their larger drill bits for the tuner holes. Gotta order my own - those car guys cover EVERYTHING with grease.

Here are the 'scraps' that will likely become a guitar neck in my next project. I just had a vision of a double-neck guitar/bass. 

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Slow and steady with the router. 

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The final outline of the neck...

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Fits great in the pocket (subject to change if the body gets cut in half next week).

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All of the wood parts together. It's gonna be interesting to see how quilted maple, flame maple, birdseye maple, and ash all look together. 

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Today I'm going to thin the headstock, get the headstock transition done, and potentially install some fret markets. 

 

Edited by a2k
typo - I probably should proofread before hitting save.
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Right or wrong I'd be tempted to force some titebond into that split next time it opened up and then clamp it up tight. There is no mechanical stress on that joint trying to pull it apart, just humidity exchange. And sealing it will eliminate most of that problem. the worst thing that can happen is you'll have the exact same options you do now.

SR

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