My Current Guitar And Bass Projects

[manquesa]

Okay, I started a topic about this already in the "Solid Body Guiltar and Bass Chat" section, but now that i've finally started the build i'll post about it here.

Anyway, here's the original design again.

http://www.gb-bass.com/Bass/Model-1.jpg

As I said in the other thread, it was supposed to be just a bass build, then I made the template and I made it too small, so I decided to use that template to build a guitar version as well. I already have some swamp ash here for a guitar so I decided to go ahead and start work on the guitar while I wait on the wood for the bass build to arrive.

So, here's what i've gotten done so far.

The Wood and Template

After the rough cut on the bandsaw

Template used as guide for the flush cut routing

After the flush cut routing I made a few mistakes and had a few tear outs. So after the routing, I decided to forego the template and further shaped it freehand using a benchtop sander.

I then added a chamfer around most of the edge

Top View

I did all of this today, probably took about 2 or 3 hours at most. I think i'm going to make the chamfer a bit bigger and then I still need to do all the contouring to match the original deisign drawing. I still need to work on the horns as well, as they're very ugly right now. I'm not quite sure yet what electronics i'll use, but I think i'm going to make it a string through with a schaller roller bridge. All black hardware. Painted in a 2 tone trans red and trans black finish.

Once I get the wood in for the bass build, i'll post progress on that one as well.

[manquesa]

Okay, well I haven't done any more work on the guitar body yet, but I did get some more wood in.

Here's what I got!

I got the Curly Maple from Ebay that i'll be using for the bass body.

Then I went to the local WoodCraft store today here in Dallas to get a spokeshave. While there I picked up some really nice Walnut Burl veneer that i'll use for the top and back of the bass body. Plus I got plenty extra that i'll just have to put to use for another project in the future.

I also got a small plank of some really nice bloodwood that I plan on cutting into strips and using as wood binding for the ebony fingerboard that I plan on using for the guitar neck.

Man I can't wait for all this to come together.

I need to use the table saw in my dad's woodshed (about 2 1/2 hours from here) to cut the curly maple into the sizes I need though so i'll have to wait about a week or more before i'll get time to be able to go do that. So the bass will still be a little while before I can start on that.

[manquesa]

Small Update:

Okay, so I did a little bit more work on the body. I reapplied the 45 degree bevel on the outer edge of the body going with a bit larger of a bevel overall. I also carved out the contours of the oposing sides of the body, both on the front and the back using a spokeshave. The contouring is still not 100% yet though. It's kinda hard to see the coutours in the picture but i'm pleased with the results so far.

I also decided to cut off the ball shape at the end of the lower horn due to a slight mishap with the router when cutting the bevel. I'm really liking the new look now though.

Here's more of a straight down view

I also still need to shape the ball end of the upper horn. I haven't really touched that yet.

I think i'll order the wood and hardware needed to make the neck sometime this week so I can eventually get a neck made for this thing.

And i'm just needing to pick up one more large sheet of veneer (purpleheart veneer) that i'm going to use for the bass build and i'll be able to get started on that.

[Wigglez]

Looking good i like the body shape and that burled walnut veneer is gorgeous!

Keep up the good work

Wigglez

[Ben]

I also decided to cut off the ball shape at the end of the lower horn due to a slight mishap with the router when cutting the bevel. I'm really liking the new look now though.

Good decision! I was going to comment that it looked like it would snap off, then I looked at the pic in your post and it was already gone!

Looks better without it IMHO.

Nice design, nice wood and nice work so far!

[Campylobacter]

Looking very good! I like the design and the woods.

[manquesa]

Okay, been quite a while since i've updated this thread, but it has also been a while since i've had anything to update.

I finally got back to work on these.

I got started on the bass build.

Curly Maple Body, Purple Heart veneers on top and bottom of that, then Walnut Burl veneers on top and bottom of that

I decided to use a roundover bit in the router for the sides

Which would have been fine, but after adjusting the depth on the router, a combination of idiocy and impatience made me forget to tighten down the wingnut that locks the depth in place.

So this happened!!! The depth lowered as I was making a pass and a pretty big mistake now exists which I need to figure out what the hell i'm going to do to fix it.

I didn't get much more work done on the guitar build, I only worked a bit on shaping the ball end of upper horn. You can't see it too well in this pic though.

I've changed my mind about a few things. First of all the guitar build is no longer going to be a guitar, now it's going to be a fretless 32" scale picolo bass. Changed it back to a bass build mainly because of the length of the upper horn, with a guitar fingerboard the upper horn will reach to about the 7th fret or so which I wouldn't like. Also instead of a 2 tone black and red finish, it's now just going to be red (stained with a tru oil finish). I'm going to use a bloodwood fingerboard which is very red but leave the curly maple neck uncolored. I'll put ash veneer on the headstock though and stain that red to match the body. Well, that's what I got worked out in my head right now anyway.

Also, as you can see i've decided to cut off the ball end of the lower horn on the walnut burl bass build same as the ash one. I liked the look of it cut off so much, that's now the design. Oh and the walnut burl bass will now be a 5-string with a Pau Ferro fingerboard.

[j. pierce]

I think some playing with you hand shaping tool of choice (files, scrapers, rasps, surforms, spokeshaves, sandpaper, dremel tool, whatever) and you can blend that "mistake" back in. Just change the curve or the roundover some until the obvious damage is gone. It will change the look slightly from what you may have planned, and you may have a hard time getting that continuous, even roundover like a router leaves (although on a bass like this, I think something a little more organic and flowing may be a better look.) Where exactly on the bass is that? Could the big dip from the router (I'm not sure if the bit of "shelf" preceding the dip is intentional or not) be worked into a forearm countour or tummy cut?

Other options would be to play around with a contour guage or something, and see if using another follower bit could cover up the obvious damage? Perhaps using a bevelled bit instead of a roundover, or using a cove bit or something. Again, this changes the look.

Another option, depending on how deep that mistake is, would be take in that rear bout by maybe a half-inch or something, then go over it again with the roundover, that would move the new roundover in enough it would take out the mistake. Again, changes the look, and how much depends on how much you have to take off to get the new pass with the roundover to take off the old mistakes.

[!!METAL MATT!!]

I say Take more meat out!! and keep that kinda shape and you could do something really cool with the Jack hell man the first thing I thought when I saw that was (Hey thats Kinda cool looking)

Its more fun when you can Make A goof but than turn it in to something way cooler in the long run

!!METAL MATT!!

[Jai_Guitars]

I like that body shape, def. more of a "bass" look but on a guitar I think it'll be really unique. Ya know I liked the ball ends on both horns, but it did seem really fragile so that would have been tough to work with. Still looks pretty good. Nice work!

[manquesa]

Okay, well I got some more time to work on this today. Here's the latest pics of the walnut burl bass body.

Front view

Close-up view showing off the purpleheart veneer under the walnut burl veneer

Close-up view of the upper horn

I applied a single coat of tru oil for the pictures. I still have a bit more shaping to do and a lot more sanding to do as well. Then of course i'll need to cut the neck pocket, pickup cavities, etc.

I managed to fix that previous routing mistake by just trimming that back end of the body and re-routing the roundover. It shortened the overall body length on an already relatively small bass body but it should be okay. It's kinda misproportioned now compared to the upper horn I think, but not too much.

I've also started preparing the neck blank which is cut from the same curly maple used for the body and has a center stripe consisting of purpleheart, then ash, then purpleheart veneers.

Edited June 15, 2006 by manquesa

[Campylobacter]

How thick are those veneers?

[manquesa]

How thick are those veneers?

Approximately 1/42" I think . Maybe 1/32" I don't remember and I ain't gonna try and measure it now.

[Campylobacter]

Approximately 1/42" I think . Maybe 1/32" I don't remember and I ain't gonna try and measure it now.

Ok, thanks.

[Robert Irizarry]

Really nice work! I like the original design as well.

A couple of questions:

1. How thick were the body blanks?

2. What size round over bit did you use?

Thanks!

[manquesa]

Really nice work! I like the original design as well.

A couple of questions:

1. How thick were the body blanks?

2. What size round over bit did you use?

Thanks!

Each body is about 1 1/8" thick (I like em thin) and the roundover bit I used is 1/2"

[manquesa]

Well I guess it's about time to revive this thread and update it.

I started on these builds way back in April, but I moved in August and it took me a while to finally get back to working on these.

Anyway, i've mostly been working on the Walnut Burl 5-String lately. Here's the latest pics of it's progress so far.

Whole Bass Front

Whole Bass Rear

Headstock Front

Headstock Back

It has a small volute as well.

Here's a closeup shot of the neck binding. The side dots are all over the place, I kinda messed that up, I need to figure something out to fix it.

Here's a shot showing the neck heel. It's hard to get a good picture of this, but i'm pretty pleased with how it turned out so far, it fits with the contours of the body very well.

It's hard to see in this pic as well, but I also need to clean up the pocket in the body for the truss rod's spoke wheel.

And lastly here's the bridge that i'll be using. It's a string through bridge, I still need to drill the holes for it through the body and install the string ferrules on the back side though.

There's also a chip in the walnut burl veneer on the back of the body at the top of the neck pocket that I need to fix. I think i'll just glue in a peice of left over veneer that I have there and then sand it down.

For the most part all of the shaping is done, I just have to a LOT of sanding now to smooth everything out and get everything looking much cleaner.

And unfortunately I won't be able to finish this one until I get the Tuner's and the Pickup that I need, but I can't afford to purchase that stuff right now, i'm just gonna have to wait till I get some more money saved up.

Oh yeah, that's a macassar ebony fingerboard on there, as soon as I figure out what i'm gonna do to fix the sloppy work on those side dots, i'll install the fretwire.

The body turned out to be pretty darn small, especially in comparison to that big ol 5-string neck. Mostly due to the routing mistake that I made which you can read about on pg 1 of this thread, but also I think the original design was made a bit small as well. I'll make a new body template with a bit bigger of a body for future builds. Just the lower half of the body is small, the top half witht the horns seems to be sized pretty well.

The headstock also turned out pretty small, that's what I get for freehanding it. I'll make a new template for that as well slightly increasing the size.

[scottyd]

I like it! Im glad to see some update on it. Little mistakes here and there only make us better. On those side dots, I think I would replace them with some oversize ones.

[westhemann]

i have not read the entire thread and i am not really familiar with you or your work manquesa..but you should think about getting a medium sized(about 6 " long) wood rasp with the half round on one side and flat on the other....it has two sizes of teeth,rough cut and fine cut,and it really works well on shaping the neck and eveything else once you learn how to use it.

i have never gotten the hang of drawknives of anytype,and i have a habit of cutting myself with them and bleeding on my guitars,so i just learned to use a rasp,and after getting the hang of it(long sweeping strokes and pay attention)i can shape a neck very quickly after rough cutting with the bandsaw.

i just notice in the picture of the side dots that you have a rather large divot in the back of your neck...i have done that before with a drawknife when i went the wrong direction and the knife turned into the grain...it takes a huge amount of sanding to get that out...if it can be taken out at all...it may be deeper than the minimum thickness of your neck.

on the neck i just finished i shaped the back with the rasp,sanded for about 30 minutes with 150 grit,then moved to 220 grit for about 10 minutes,and the shaping was done.

don't let it get you down though if you find the divot is too deep...everyone has their share of booboos...i just tried recently to backdrill the volute on the same neck i am talking about for a locking nut and i broke through into the truss rout...heartbreaking as the neck was already finished...but i ordered some hardwood dowels and glued them in the holes(3/8" holes 3/8" dowels) and put a veneer matching the body wood on the back of the headstock...same on te front of the headstock to make itlook right...and now it looks as if i planned it that way....

[manquesa]

I actually did use a rasp. Well, it's a set of chisels that double as rasps, the shafts of the chisels are rasps if that makes sense. I asked for a set of rasps one year for christmas and that's what I got. I used to use a small hand plane to shape the neck and i've tried a spokeshave but didn't like it. So for this neck I cut away what I could with the bandsaw first. Then for the general rounding off and countouring of the neck I used my benchtop belt sander. Got the idea for that after seeing it done in I think what was a Gibson shop video and it worked like a charm. I mostly just used the rasp for shaping the heel and the transition from the neck to the headstock.

I do want to try out one of those dragon tooth rasps that StewMac sells one of these days.

Anyway, that large divot isn't really that large and it will be gone soon. Though the majority of the shaping is done, I do need to thin down the neck just a little bit more. Everything is in a farily rough cut state right now, I now need to spend a LOT of time hand sanding to clean everything up and get it all looking good and more smoothed out.

I'll post more pics as it progresses.

Oh, and I have also accidently cut into a neck before all the way into the truss rod, but mine wasn't easily salvagable, it was more in the middle of the neck. That neck is now trashed and new one will be made. Eh, live and learn.

Edited December 29, 2006 by manquesa

[ElysianGuitars]

the volute doesn't seem like it would do much, as its not under the nut, in other words not at the point where the angle is, so its not at the weak point in the neck... and i understand this is your design, but i feel the body is way way too small, it looks like a travel guitar, only not, because the fretboard is so huge and the scale so long...

Edited December 30, 2006 by ElysianGuitars

[RAI6]

Maybe a little more like this?

Looks a little more balanced, I think.....

[manquesa]

the volute doesn't seem like it would do much, as its not under the nut, in other words not at the point where the angle is, so its not at the weak point in the neck... and i understand this is your design, but i feel the body is way way too small, it looks like a travel guitar, only not, because the fretboard is so huge and the scale so long...

Yeah I realize the volute isn't directly under the nut where it should be. But i'm not really concerned with that at all and i'm defintely not worried about the structural integrity because of it either. It's not really much of a volute anyway, not even sure it should be called that, it's comes together as a small point really and is more there for looks than anything else. Though I will say in future builds I do intend to do more of a traditional style volute than what this one is.

And as far as the body, I fully agree with you on that though I don't think i'd go so far as to refer to it as a travel guitar but I did bring up that same point about the body being too small in one of my previous posts. Like I said, partly due to a stupid idiotic routing mistake and having to remove about 1 inch off the majority of the lower half of the body to fix it and due to the original design being slightly too small to begin with as well, this is how it turned out. The upper half of the body I believe is an appropriate size, just the lower half is small, it's a decent size for a guitar though. It does however look much better when turned on its side in the playing position versus the upright position that it's in in these pics.

I do appreciate the feedback and am open to more suggestions or critique or what have you. This is basically my prototype design and i'll be wanting to address whatever issues there are that need to be addressed for future builds. Yeah it's my design but it's still being refined and there is definitely still room for improvement. I have no problem admitting that.

Maybe a little more like this?

Looks a little more balanced, I think.....

Ooh that's just fat!. And not Phat, but Fat. Maybe that but longer, it's gotta maintain a bit of sexiness. My thinking when designing this body was to make it sexy kinda like the body of a sexy woman. With it just blown up like that it loses all of it's sexiness me thinks. I will increase the overal body size for future builds I promise, but i'll do it in a way that retains that curviness that I was going for. Thanks though, I do appreciate the effort!

Edited December 30, 2006 by manquesa

[manquesa]

Okay, I keep switching back and forth between these two projects. I've been working on the Swamp Ash 4-String Piccolo bass as of late.

I recently got the Stew Mac template router bits and used those to route out the pickup cavities. However, the darn bearings on the bit ended up riding up the shaft of the bit while routing even with the plastic sleeve on it to prevent that and the routes got really screwed up. Both pickup cavities it did the same thing. So after thinking about how to fix it for a while I finally decided to make faux pickup rings out of maple to hide the bad routing and it actually turned out pretty good. I figured out why the bearing kept riding up on the bit, the plastic sleeves were cut at a bit of an angle when I cut them to length and when spinning in the router those angles were squared off which ended up shortening the length of the plastic sleeve. Live and learn.

Anyway, here's the result.

And with the pickups and hardware just set in place - Body with hardware

Now I just need to route the neck pocket and control cavity, and install the bridge and string through ferrules. Then I can sand and finish the body. I just ordered some new fingerboard wood for the neck, should arrive sometime early next week. I'm hoping to have this done by the end of this month, or at least the first week of next month, depending on my ability to avoid more mistakes.

[Jon]

Mistakes = Opportunity. Great work man.