My Neckthrough Bass

[truerussian558]

So after a long drawn out (almost 1 year) finish of my first guitar (a strat), it was a pretty bad failure, THe finish job is a POS, the pickup routes are extremely sloppy, the pickguard barely fits, the nut is improperly cut, the neck is too high, and there is some electronics problem (i dont want to take it apart to fix, it as it is a pain to put back together), There are one or two high frets, BUT at least it plays. At least at par with my Cheap strat knockoff.

But, considering it was not only my first attempt at a guitar, but also my first (precision) wood working experience, and I decided to do everything myself. The fact that it is playable is a surprise

Anyway, with all my new earned wisdom I'm giving it another shot, This is (its about 40-50% complete) a 35" fretless four string bass. It is neckthrough contruction, the neck is maple(1")-mahoganny(.75")-maple(1") and the wings are mahoganny.

here is a picture of the blank wood, prior to cutting

Since then, I,

Cut and glued the neck

Cut the wings

Routed the wings flush to the template(I use a scroll saw, so no precision cuts in 1.5" wood)

Glued Wings to Neck Blank

Rounded the edges

Routed control cavity

routed truss rod cavity

Routed pickup cavity

Tapered the neck (again, because I have a scroll saw, I used a router and a piece of wood as a guide to taper the neck

So now for some recent pictures

Front of guitar, no pickup holes routed yet, and the neck isnt tapered

Front of guitar with pickup routes (neck is tapered at this point)

Back of guitar , with the control cavity visible, I've yet to route the slight indent for the cavity cover(and I'm contemplating whether I should)

The (very rough cut) headstock, I'm still working out the design, so it isnt fully cut yet (I had a very awesome design that I've gone and lost), This is the part of the guitar I've spent almost no time on (besides gluing the extra strips of maple) so its pretty rough right now

So, now that you see that, Comments will be appreciated, and questions welcomed

BUT, First, for some of my questions.

I've had a slight kink, in the routes of my two pickup cavities. On the neck pickup (I forget if its called Jazz, or precision), One of the connecting walls (sepperating the two pickups) got torn off during routing, Since thats probably a horrible explanation a picture is in order.

So my question is what I should do with it, my idea is to straighten that part out, and make it similiar on the other side of the route.

And I totally messed up on bridge route, The story behind this is that when I was routing with a template, I decided to do a couple of shallow cuts, but when I started routing I completely forgot it was shallow, so I wnet straight for the template (with the ball bearing being about an inch higher than it) the result I'm sure you can imagine. Its not too bad, since I caught myself early, and it was pretty shallow, but I still need some advice as to how I should fix the slip up

So that, folks, is my project. Once Again I welcome all questions, and await your comments

[Darkside]

Not sure as to what I am looking at in the pictures but, what I do to fix a chipped or major dent in wood: I take the saw dust from the same wood and mix it with a glue until its like putty and fabricate it to replace whats missing, I over fill or fabricate as to sand it after drying. Note: if you are staining try to add the anticipated stain color to the saw dust...for the glue usally doesn't take stain well -Darkside

[Druss]

Thats going to be a nice fret less bass. How are you going to Finnish the fretboard? If I was doing a fret less I think I'd have to do the fretboard like scottyd did his.

The headstock is real close to the design I'm going to use except for the point in the center of the cutout, people are going to think I copied you. Good luck....

[erikbojerik]

The neck is the precision, the bridge is the jazz.

For the neck (precision) pickup, you need to find the piece that jumped out and glue it back into place. If that's no longer an option, then yeah you might want to make them both the same.

For the bridge (jazz) pickup, I think the best way to go is to cut and sand a small piece of your top wood that fits the slip-up as closely as possible, then glue it in.

The last-resort option is to cover the whole works with a pickguard.

[skibum5545]

I'd say to use this incident as an inspiration...

...for some custom wood pickup covers!

Rout rectangles around your current pickup routs, and build yourself some nicely matched--or pleasingly contrasting--wooden boxes to fit into the new routs. Make sure your screw holes through the covers line up with where the pickups need to be underneath them, and voila! You've got a custom option on your instrument rarely seen even in the highest end basses!

Either way, this is looking great so far and I look forward to seeing it completed.

[truerussian558]

Some updates. Over the past week I did some work, I got my order from LMI, so my guitar progressed forward

I've:

Installed the truss rod

Atatched the fretboard

Installed the veneer frets

Roughly Radiused the fretboard (still some more sanding to do to bring it to final shape)

Rough carved the neck

Started carving the neck to body join area

So some more pictures

The Guitar from the front, showing the Fretboard, some frets are darker because of the sanding i've done (i radiused the fretboard), so theres some dust thats discoloring them

The neck to body join area, showing what I've gotten done on the carving, I've only worked on it today, so theres not that much, you can also see part of the neck countour

SO once again, All question and comments are welcome

Edited March 20, 2006 by truerussian558

[truerussian558]

I guess not to many people really like my bass...

Still I want to keep my project up to date

I've (since the last post) :

Finished carving the neck to body joint

Cut out the headstock (still needs a lot of work though)

Evened out the stump at the edge of the neckthrough blank (at the end of the body)

Done a whole ton of sanding to get rid of the majority of Scratches

Once I again, I present... Pictures

The front of the guitar, with some miniral spirits wiped on to get rid of the dust, and to see how it will look finished (thus get rid of any blemishes) It looks a lot better in person (compared to the previous photos) than the picture shows

The back of the guitar, the Spirits are starting to dry though,

I'm fairly happy with how this is going, I have a few more things left, mainly Finalize the headstock (and sand it flat), and buy the hardware(for a test fit), before giving it a final sanding and I'm off to finish it, which By the way, I'm planing to give it a french polish, It gives lets me use my hands more, and take care of every little detail perfectly (otherwise I would have to use spray cans)

A quick question though, Is spray on shelac a decent grain filler? It says so on the can, but I wanted to make sure

Edited March 27, 2006 by truerussian558

[xtjdx]

I like the general design of the bass. However, I think that the upper horn needs some more work in its aesthetic, and the lower horn needs to flow a bit better in the center (round it a bit deeper in and it would probably look a lot better. The headstock looks a bit weird to me. But if you like the design and it plays well, then more power to you!