Ford Posted November 24, 2004 Report Share Posted November 24, 2004 Last month I started work on my first couple of projects. Sorry that I'm just now getting around to posting pics, been busy! I bought a big old block of maple and a striped ebony fretboard. I found a local woodworking shop here that cut up and trued up 3 neck blanks and a body center section (see next 2 paragraphs), for $5! Plus he did it for my right then and there, even invited me in and started giving me advice about glueing and the likes! w00t! The First Project! For the first one I'll be restoring a junky pawn shop bass, infact, its the first insturment I ever bought. It was a real pice of crap, so I figure I wont feel to bad if I mess it up in process. I took it all appart, stripped off most of the finish and steamed off the frett board. The neck was warped really bad, so I'll be repairing that too. Pawn Shop Special 1 The body is plywood, so I ripped it in two, cut a good chunk out of the middle, and am about to glue in a center piece of maple that the neck, bridge and electronics will attach to. There was a GIANT swimming pool rout in that thing so I routed it all the way out and mirrored it over onto the other side of the body. My idea is to get it glued up, take it back to the woodworking shop and have them plane it down about half an inch, then I'll glue on a top and bottom wood. Pawn Shop Special 2 This sucker will be a hollow body frettless by the time I'm done. I have a beautiful Bocotte fingerboard ready for it and all. I'm also debating ripping the neck down the middle and laminating in that piece of walnut seen in the picture. That might be tricky, but I'm up for it. I'd like to get some suggestions on what to use as the top and bottom woods. Maple comes to my mind, but I'm a Rickenbacker nut. I want to get a really good punchy tone, almost Jaco-esque, but still with some jazzy warmth. Also, any finish ideas? I'm have no idea what I want yet. The second project! I want to build a PRS McCarty / Gibson LP Doublecut away style guitar. Maple top, Basswood bottom. I have already glued up a laminated neck blank (maple/walnut/maple), and have a purdy striped ebony fretboard. Silver Doublecutaway Left to Right: A yet to be glued up neck blank The current neck blank my Striped Ebony fretboard I mentioned this in another thread, but I'd like to get a raised ivy/vine pattern sanblasted into the top, paint it silver, then finish it with more of a matte than a gloss. Could be sharp looking, stlill planning though. Unfortunatly the neck blank didnt glue as well as I'd would have liked so today I'm gonna saw it back off, re-joint it, and try again. I have about a quarter inch of wiggle room. What do ya think? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SawDust_Junkie Posted November 24, 2004 Report Share Posted November 24, 2004 Hi Ford ! I really lke the idea you have for the bass, with the rout-out and laminating a top and bottom plate. It looks like it will really turn out nice if the work you have done so far is any indication ! The only thing I am not really sure about is your idea to have the wood shop plane it down for you. An odd shaped piece of wood like that seems to me like it would not lend itself to being planed very easily. Especially with the routed out sections. I would think that the planer knives might catch those sections and possibly rip it up with disasterous results. I would think that a thickness sander would be more suitable to accomplish what you want to do. But hey, I'm a newbie myself, so what do I know ! As far as the back plate, I would think that a Walnut or Koa or Mahogany back with a Maple top would gve a good balance of tone, but I am not much of a bass player and don't really know what woods are generally used for them. I think I have seen alot bass bodies for sale that are Walnut ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ford Posted November 25, 2004 Author Report Share Posted November 25, 2004 Fender, You may be right about the planer tearing up that body... I think he had a big sanding machine too... In my experience bass bodys are usually the dense harder woods. When I'm playing bass I like a good growing punchy tone with a good deal of hign end snap and pop. One thing I havent found a lot of information on the internet about is hollowbody/extreemly chanbered insturments, and what tops and bottoms do to sound... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ford Posted November 25, 2004 Author Report Share Posted November 25, 2004 Alright, I'm having some trouble. I cut one side of that neck laminate back appart with no trouble, but now I'm back to the same problem I had when I started glueing. The woods arent square with each other, and it seems that no matter what I do they are still not flat against each other. I have a router/router table with pattern and flush trim bits. I had been trying to use a big old metal ruler as a straight edge, but I'm starting to wonder if its really all that straight... Help!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maiden69 Posted November 25, 2004 Report Share Posted November 25, 2004 I just have my body planned yesterday after the fostner bit that I used ripped a piece from the pup cavity, it was on a 20" planner and it ran nice with no problem. The only thing that the shop were you go might say is that they usualy want all the finish out of the body before planning, they don't want to take any chances on the cutters from the planner. Other than that it should be fine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ford Posted June 20, 2005 Author Report Share Posted June 20, 2005 Has it really been 6 months?!? Right. --:Guitar #1:------------------------------------------------- For the guitar, I'm going back to my origional Fender Jaguar design, but with a PRS style head. I've been working on the neck recently. I did a scarf joint, getting an 13 degree angle on the head. The glue line came out pretty good for my first try dispite the ulser I developed trying to clamp the stupid thing, it kept slipping around. I got it all planed down, and went to route the truss rod chanel... heh... muh... The router bit worked its way loose (apparently you can't rout out 1/4" at a time, ya live ya learn) and tore really deep into the wood, almost all the way through the neck. Plus before I figured out what had happened, I started back in on the chanel with the bit way too high and took a bit of a nibble out of the face of the head. That was a little agrivating... I was able to sand some 1/4" wide bits of walnut to the shape of the two points where the router went deep and glued them in. Hopefully it'll work. Also, the route is like 1/8" off center, another agrivation, but between the fretboard and a trus rod cover it should be out of sight. Sigh. Pic 1: The route from hell Pt. 1 Also, my jig slipped at the heel of the neck, and the router routed where it wasnt suppose to... I'm thinking I can salvage that with, again, some cleverly sanded walnut (or spruce) Pic 2: The route from hell Pt. 2 Does anyone have any ideas of how I can fix this? I'm thinking about routing out 1/4" into the side of the ruined chanel and filling it back in with scrap maple. Today I CAREFULLY planed down some more walnut and glued it to the side of the head. I'm sortta going for a Rickenbacker Dakota look. Pic 3: Happy walnut for me. --:Bass #1:------------------------------------------------- The Bocote fretboard is attached and the fret marker slots are cut. That part was easy enough. I also filled the old screw holes in the heel with a dowel rod, sawdust and glue. I still need to sand off the rest of the old finish, as well as some nicks and dings. Pic 1: Neck #1 Pic 2: Neck #2 Pic 3: Holes Filled As for the body, I took it to the wood shop and they sent it through their giant thickness sander, so that worked out nicely. I got two spruce accoustic guitar tops to use as the top and bottom woods for this bass. I dont feel I did a good job glueing the bookmatched spruce halves. If I was thinking at the time I would have cut them back appart and tried again. Also, when I glued the back on the the body core, I must have used too much glue, there is a definate glue line, but again, there isnt much I can do at this point. The gap between the body core and the spruce bottom around the edges are from the origional bass's rounded body. I'll be rounding the edges again, so that should take care of that gap. Pic 4: Lots o' Glue Pic 5: Glue Line You can see a penciled in curved line towards the neck side of the center maple block. I'll rout out about a third or so of that maple from the curved line down to the horizontal line (where the wings meet the center block at the bottom). This way the entire top of the bass will be free to resonate with a 90% hollow body. I'm debating cutting a sound hole. Does anyone think this will add to the tone or would it just be a cosmetic thing? Thats if for now! -Ford Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mickguard Posted June 20, 2005 Report Share Posted June 20, 2005 I'm debating cutting a sound hole. Does anyone think this will add to the tone or would it just be a cosmetic thing? -Ford ← I vote for cosmetic, but you never know... I have a question--if the body is 90% hollow, are you going to have a problem with it being neck heavy? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ford Posted June 20, 2005 Author Report Share Posted June 20, 2005 Eh.... Probably. The maple core has some weight to it. This was a real POS bass though, I have no idea what the neck is made out of, but it doesn't weigh anything. When I bought it like 8 years ago, the neck was badly warped. Origionally I thought I'd just steam the fretboard off and plane the neck flat and glue it back together. The body is literally plyboard. Its wonderful. Good stuff! -Ford Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heavydoom Posted June 20, 2005 Report Share Posted June 20, 2005 plyboard body? would that be any good? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ford Posted June 20, 2005 Author Report Share Posted June 20, 2005 No, plyboard bad... maple good. -Ford Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ford Posted June 21, 2005 Author Report Share Posted June 21, 2005 (edited) I sanded for like four hours today to get the other side of the head square so I could glue the walnut on. It was a pain in the butt and I got really mad at one point, but I got it done! Unfortunately, the maple on that side of the head is 1/8" smaller now. Its not terribly noticable, but you can tell its not straight. Someone remind me that its ok to make mistakes the first time... Tomorrow I'll cut as much of the extra walnut off with a handsaw as I can, and clean the rest up on my router table. Wish me luck! I made this little jig thing to get things sanded square. Lookie! For the bass, all I did today was get a drill out and CAREFULLY drill about a million holes in the center maple block. Tomorrow if I have time I'll go back and rout it clean. This way the top wood will be free to resonate. Lots of Holes! I had the idea of drilling progressively smaller holes in a spiral shape in the top as a sound hole. Could be cool. Maybe with a LED behind it? Eh? -Ford *Fixed links... Edited June 21, 2005 by Ford Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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