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Five-string Chambered Warwick Infinity Bass


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Depends on the application. Most consumer-grade epoxies like that will do the jobs stated, but are too thick for things like filling voids and coating fretless boards. A couple i've used in the past set slightly plastic also, which is fine for laying in CF rods I guess. Pound for pound, this gear is cheaper plus it's of a low viscosity and will fill the voids in my Maple very easily without much persuasion.

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Umm.

It makes yachts not sink. Does that help? Epoxy is fantastic at mechanical bonds. Then again - look at the weak link in the chain. MDF will rip straight off. Quick answer - yes. At thicknesses of around 1-2mm or thereabouts. The MDF will fail before the epoxy.

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Depends on the application. Most consumer-grade epoxies like that will do the jobs stated, but are too thick for things like filling voids and coating fretless boards. A couple i've used in the past set slightly plastic also, which is fine for laying in CF rods I guess. Pound for pound, this gear is cheaper plus it's of a low viscosity and will fill the voids in my Maple very easily without much persuasion.

Thats basically the only problems I've had with it....that its too thick to fill holes and small gaps, and its a bitch to sand. It really takes forever to sand level, and its gets annoying quick. Maybe I'll order some of this stuff soon and give it a try

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From the tests i've done with it so far on scrap, it seems extremely forgiving in terms of ratios of resin to hardener, and flows pretty much like single cream whilst open. Bubbles seem easier to flow out. The exothermic heat is crazy! Definitely not going to mix up huge batches! The cured product seems nice and clear with only a slight blushing of the surface, which will come out with sanding and polishing anyway. In thicknesses of over 4mm, it becomes extremely difficult to bend and isn't brittle. This feels like fun stuff to be using for the burled Maple, and should make for an excellent fretless board coating. I suspect that a higher ratio of hardener to resin might make a tougher and "glassier" surface.

Laying in the CF this morning....

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  • 2 weeks later...

Alrighty then. The Walnut fretless has had two CF rods epoxied in, the truss rod channel routed (adjustment at headstock) and the neck taper dialled in. The sides and mating faces with the neck were trued to 90° and glued (with locating pins made from snipped drawing pins/pushpins) as opposed to cutting in the 2° neck angle, gluing on the top and then the sides. No ideas why my logic went this way. Really.

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The back has been radiused with an 18mm roundover and yes - not all of the sides have been cut away. Reason? When the top goes on, it'll be epoxied rather than stuck with Titebond. I'd rather create a masking tape lip "under" the remaining outside Walnut to catch squeezeout than to clean it off (and out of) the Walnut back. A small wing will need glueing onto the side of the headstock. Such a pain when my bandsaw blade broke....stupid crap welds....stupid crap artificial lighting in the photos....sorry....

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It was down to the length, yes. I decided to add the reinforcement to the body end of the neck as opposed to the headstock end for some misguided reasoning that it would introduce a little more "lift" in the nut area, or a slightly accentuated amount of relief. It probably makes no difference really!

Can anyone see the ears that I glued onto the headstock?

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Hilarious :-D

Would those be the famous endangered Elephant ear tuners?

In other news, I shaped in the profile of the neck at the base of the volute with the spindle sander and at the heel with a rasp (no room to get the spindle sander in). I've rasped and spokeshaved (spokeshorn?) the profiles together very roughly, and am leaving the neck to re-acclimate to it's new shape for a few days. If there is significant movement I'll need to reprofile the fingerboard glueing face of the neck. English Walnut isn't all that straight grained generally, so I am taking baby steps with it, and letting it do what it will. The roundover has been completed on the back, and the front just needs a little more work. I used a V-groove router bit with a 30mm diameter bushing in an Ibanez Iceman-size swimming pool cavity template to create the outline of the cavity cover. Thankfully a lot smaller than an Iceman with the bushing! Scoring around the groove with an old bandsaw blade fragment popped out a perfectly grain-matched cover. I then glued in some scrap Walnut as tabs to contain Neodymium magnets for the cover. I'll epoxy some nail heads or whatever to the rear of the cover this week I reckon. Time to pull out the belt sander and make a nice bridge at some point too...most likely a laminate of Ebony and Ziricote.

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Any comments on the relative advantages of different materials in wooden fretless bass bridges, and whether or not I should consider glueing it or having string pressure locate it?

Edited by Prostheta
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  • 1 month later...

I actually take a great deal of satisfaction in these completely outrageous bunk techniques. Little pressure in the right places goes a long way towards making a nice tight clean pinstripe. Fourth piece in the f-hole at the moment, and all is going swimmingly. Will post a picture of the completed f-hole once it's cleaned up - that should allay fear from the total horrorshow in the last picture ;-)

Oh yes - having trouble sourcing Hipshot Triple Lock Down bridges as Thomann have disco'ed them. Daaaaaym. They have three in stock - now who wants a three-string bass I ask you?

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Believe me - I was in panic mode yesterday double-checking measurements and drilling tuner, control, jack and ferrule locations before getting everything together! Sam arrived just a couple of seconds after I had caught my breath X'D

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