svartberg Posted September 23, 2008 Report Share Posted September 23, 2008 (edited) i realy like the guitar, its awesome... BUT the wing is a bit too big for me! everything else is just the way i like it, i'd say an A not A+ just because that wing Edited September 23, 2008 by svartberg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narcissism Posted October 8, 2008 Author Report Share Posted October 8, 2008 I finally gained some balls and "dug in." I don't really have any powertools for sanding anymore because of the move to VT, but i can make due with what i have, and i can make the instrument more "personal" by using hand tools. I did all this contouring using a chisel/file, a hammer, and various grits of sand paper ranging from 60 to 400. I lost my 600 sheet which kinda sucks, but i'm going to go over the entire body with all the grits one more time before I finish it anyway. So here's my contouring work: and some progress pix Doing this makes me want to do a lot more to the body, but i'm going to hold off for a few days and see what else i can think up. I really don't want to overdo it, since i'm kinda freehanding the contours. The color contrast on the sanded part is due to the wipe down i did with lemon oil to protect the wood from moisture during the move. This bass is going to be VERY red when i put the poly on it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narcissism Posted October 10, 2008 Author Report Share Posted October 10, 2008 Feel free to comment guys I take criticism very well! Good, bad, ugly, i can take it! This is a learning experience for me, as well as a way for me to fight my dyslexia. So if you have comments on this, but don't want to post because you're afraid of hurting my feelings or stirring up tension between you and myself, don't worry about it! I LOVE FEEDBACK! For example: Svartberg, I really don't know which wing you're talking about, but i'm going to assume you're talking about the bottom one. Basically, i know that wing doesn't work for everyone, but right now i know it works for me, so i'm pretty sure i'm not going to change it. However, contour lines may come into effect, and they may end up making it look smaller which will be more appealing to other viewers. Black labb, the strat input jack idea sounds great! Only the place where i want to put the controls is a little out of the way. However, i have a crazy idea for creating a control cavity, pickup wire route, and a side input jack all in one shot. I flubbed the part where you're supposed to rout a channel for the pickup wires to go to the control cavity. The channel got full of glue and doesn't really seem like an option anymore. Anyone have ideas for that? I didn't see anything in the neckthrough tutorials, as most of them involve a laminate top. Perhaps there is a tool that i don't know about? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narcissism Posted December 8, 2008 Author Report Share Posted December 8, 2008 Been a little while, but i managed to make a deal with my lady about the guitar. I drove her somewhere, and in return, she's not going to bother me for the entire week about working on the bass. So here's some progress! Today i did some routing work. I decided to start working on the control cavity, as i haven't even planned that out very well. I spent a few days reading up, and learning how deep to make the cut so i could get the knobs to poke through, but make sure that the router bit didn't poke through, lol. So here's the basic idea: I was also having this idea with sideways knobs, like on Maverick Guitars. I could potentially do this, but i'm far too lazy, and i have a show this saturday and i'd like the thing to be in at least playable condition. I need to have two basses for the show because we're doing different tunings. There was also an issue with the contouring. I had to do the contouring before i did any routing, that way, i wouldn't sand into the control cavity. I was having a little trouble coming up with a good shape, since this is such a unique design and i'm not the most creative person in the world. so I sat down with a piece of paper and basically just doodled on it until good contour lines came out. I think this came out pretty good! So you could say, She's getting curves. And she's even sprouting knobs! Tuners and knobs are on their way here from Warmoth, i've got my jackplacement decided, and i've installed the strap buttons(hooks) which make this bass a very well balanced bass! It'll be better once the hardware is installed! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narcissism Posted January 18, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 18, 2009 I was feeling ambitious today, so I decided to work on the headstock a little bit. I had already carved it out, installed hardware and used the bass for a show, because i needed a 5 string. So there's been a headstock on this thing for a while. I just never mentioned it as everyone here's probably seen a KL headstock before. As you can see, there's a bit of tearout around the peg holes. The cool thing is that this headstock is going to have a nice little laminate to cover up those tearouts. I went to work on cutting that out today, and dying it with the new dye that came in. Here it is on the headstock. I also did some work on the body with the wood dye, but I'll hold those pictures until the project is done, as it looks like complete crap without Poly on it. Instead, i'll give you a shot of the practice piece: I tried out some of those grain popping techniques found in the finishing section of the forum. I gotta say, its not as easy as I thought it was. Lots of trial and error on my part, but I feel I did a pretty good job on the bass. Now, if this -9F weather would crank up to 65 or 70, I could go outside and finish this. See ya in April! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck_Chill-Out Posted January 19, 2009 Report Share Posted January 19, 2009 I like the style of your bass. Its curvy, yet sharp. (if that makes any sense). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narcissism Posted March 14, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 14, 2009 Its been warm enough, and there's been plenty of progress on the color of this thing, so I feel like I can show you some of what I've done. They're bad pictures because they're all taken at night and the lighting is from a CFL bulb. So yeah, these pics don't do the bass any justice. I'll have nice ones when its all done. I used some dye from stewmac to get my results. When the body was initially prepped with water, it was a lot easier to see what my results were going to look like. I started out by using the balled up t-shirt method, but ended up just going with a paintbrush. I gotta say, I'm a lot happier with the paint brush method. using sandpaper helped clean it up and look like a better fade. Here's the body with some of the dye on it after it dried out: I started adding poly later on. I did the first coat when it was about 35F out, so it came out pretty cloudy. Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of it, but I was pretty unhappy with the result anyway. Since it was the first coat, I wasn't too worried about sanding through with the 600 grit, as long as the dyed areas didn't get affected, which they didn't. Here's the 2nd coat done at 45F: As you can kinda see, there's no cloudiness at all, but the importance of a dust free environment shows. When I sand with 600 grit, any particles of dust get swept away, but when I do my final coat, Its going to be in a dust free atmosphere, as the final coat will be pretty thick. I'm planning on putting 7 coats of poly on this thing. There are 4 right now. after about the 3rd one, I noticed that it was really starting to look like there was a piece of glass covering it. I'm pretty excited about the results! The headstock and neck each have one coat of poly over them. The headstock is looking ugly, so I'm going to hold off for a bit until I figure out what I want to do with it. The neck came out pretty sweet though. I'd like to put one or two more coats of poly on it before I show off any pics though. When I do this, btw, I do about a week between coats. The reasoning behind that isn't because of the timing. Heck, i'd do it every 3 days if i could. Unfortunately New England weather likes to change daily. So the following week after it was 50F, it would be down to -9F or some crap like that. Its a long process, but I'm glad I'm taking my time! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted March 14, 2009 Report Share Posted March 14, 2009 That actually does look pretty badass now. I wasn't convinced at first, but hey - in this case, the proof of the pudding is in the polyurethane. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j. pierce Posted March 15, 2009 Report Share Posted March 15, 2009 Looking nice. I know what mean about the weather here - always makes spraying an adventure, even in the summer. I'm getting tired of the teasing warm weather. If it's going to get this warm, it ought to stay this warm! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narcissism Posted March 15, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 15, 2009 Hmm, I didn't know anyone else here was from Burlington. I heard that there were a few people in town that build guitars, and I was wondering if they were on the forum. Cool! Currently, my applicator of choice is a brush. I'd get a spray system, but there's no room here, I'll probably never use it, its not cheap, and overall the brush is working pretty well. I do like my little redneck ways of doing things for now. Sure, a grinder would speed up that whole contouring process, a band saw would allow me to make a body without blade drift marks, and a table saw would allow me to make my own neck; but you know what? The fact that I've been doing this entire project with hand tools gives me a pretty good feeling of accomplishment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j. pierce Posted March 15, 2009 Report Share Posted March 15, 2009 Well, this bass stands out enough, if I ever see it on stage, I'll remember to say hello! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narcissism Posted March 16, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 16, 2009 Today I decided "Hey, 5 coats of poly is enough to start sanding away that grain texture that's on the poly!" So now I've sanded through in a few spots. The dye fixed it, but let it be known that 5 coats of brushed on poly is not enough I would have used grain filler, but I really want it to be clean and clear, and I like the natural black mahogany grain. I guess epoxy would have worked, but at least the spot I sanded is nice and smooth now. I'll try again at 8 coats. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narcissism Posted April 26, 2009 Author Report Share Posted April 26, 2009 (edited) The front of the bass is finally level as of last week. So this week (now that its supposidly fully cured) I've taped off the front and i'm ready to do the side and back. I made sure that the poly around the edges was exposed just a little bit so I can bond it and sand it flush when the time comes. I sprayed on a few more coats of black laquer, which responds well to the poly that I've been using. Obviously i'm lightly sanding with 600 between coats. After the coats dried (2 days later) I applied a coat of poly to the entire thing, including the neck and back of the headstock. The difference is pretty sweet! The first coat is definately absorbed by the wood, and this second coat definately shows up a lot better. I'm probably going to add just one more thin coat to the neck and headstock, and 2 or 3 more to the body before I take the tape off and sand it all nice and level. Then I'll attempt to inlay the headstock... any suggestions for a first time easy inlay? possibly something crushed into a paste and glued into a cavity and then sanded level? After the headstock is inlayed, I'll poly that and i'll be done! Edited April 26, 2009 by Narcissism Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narcissism Posted May 31, 2009 Author Report Share Posted May 31, 2009 Last week i made some more progress! Here's my inlay on the headstock, and how I did that: Its a pretty crude way to make an inlay, but I don't have a dremel, and this gave me the exact results I wanted. Exact-O blades do the trick sometimes! I then filled the cavity I carved out with my gold fill stuff. I'm going to call this material a secret I used this material, because I don't posess a steady enough hand to make an inlay without shattering it. The results after scraping were exactly what I wanted! I didn't take any pictures of the process, but I did drill out some string holes for the bridge. Now its a strings through body bass, and there's gold furriels in the back. I'm pretty happy with the furriels, because they came out mostly straight! Not bad for a hand drill! Basically its all done now. I just gotta save up for strings, and clean it up for photos Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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