maull Posted May 22, 2012 Report Share Posted May 22, 2012 (edited) Specs: Neck: Maple/Bolivian Rosewood 5 piece laminate. Body: Maple body wings. Fretboard: Bolivian Rosewood board. Fretless design with NO visible fret markings (side dots will exist on the actual fret positions for 3, 5, 7, 9, 12, etc per normal). Hardware(going back and forth between black and gold): Schaller 463 bass bridge EMG-PJ Active Bass Pickup Set (eventually adding an on board pre-amp) Gotoh compact bass tuners Body and headstock design. Wood for neck laminate Neck glued up. Neck blank out of clamps Scarf joint being glued. My first oops. Router jumped away from me. I was expecting something like this to happen since this is my first build but was still a little ticked at myself. Edited May 22, 2012 by maull Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maull Posted May 22, 2012 Author Report Share Posted May 22, 2012 (edited) Ears glued on to head stock. Body wings laid out. Edited May 22, 2012 by maull Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maull Posted May 22, 2012 Author Report Share Posted May 22, 2012 (edited) Forum keeps chopping my posts...will update more when there is time. Edited May 22, 2012 by maull Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maull Posted May 22, 2012 Author Report Share Posted May 22, 2012 (edited) <p><p>Head routed to shape. Edited May 22, 2012 by maull Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maull Posted May 22, 2012 Author Report Share Posted May 22, 2012 (edited) ...forum is still preventing me from posting more pics. Edited May 22, 2012 by maull Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Breandan Posted May 22, 2012 Report Share Posted May 22, 2012 Looks great so far. Keep it coming! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeremyp Posted May 23, 2012 Report Share Posted May 23, 2012 I love the body and headstock shape on this! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maull Posted May 23, 2012 Author Report Share Posted May 23, 2012 Side profiles complete. Still need to thickness the neck and head. Rough cut of body wings completed. Inner horns routed to shape. Couldn't resist mocking it up a little. Spent a few hours building a router sled to profile the head and the back of the neck. Added a fillet above the truss rod channel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maull Posted May 23, 2012 Author Report Share Posted May 23, 2012 I love the body and headstock shape on this! Thanks but I can't take too much credit on the design. The body shape is very similar to the Warmoth Gecko and the headstock is based on the Ibanez SoundGear. Since this is my first "from scratch" build I decided to take elements from two basses I really liked. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted May 23, 2012 Report Share Posted May 23, 2012 That happens more than people are willing to admit Maull. It still takes an eye and a mind put together all the ingredients into a cohesive whole though. Just watch the direction you rout slots if you rout them full width as one way causes the router to bite in and away from the fence. Easy to patch in a few layered pieces of veneer in there to conform to the curve. PJ pickup config eh? I am halfway through a replica build which will have a PJ and I believe that it is worthwhile making sure that the J has sufficient output to match the P. Do the EMG PJ sets counter for this imbalance? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maull Posted May 23, 2012 Author Report Share Posted May 23, 2012 That happens more than people are willing to admit Maull. It still takes an eye and a mind put together all the ingredients into a cohesive whole though. Just watch the direction you rout slots if you rout them full width as one way causes the router to bite in and away from the fence. Easy to patch in a few layered pieces of veneer in there to conform to the curve. PJ pickup config eh? I am halfway through a replica build which will have a PJ and I believe that it is worthwhile making sure that the J has sufficient output to match the P. Do the EMG PJ sets counter for this imbalance? I am no electronics guru by any means. I don't have a solid technical answer for you, however my 2 main basses are a Ibanez SR800 with a PJ pickup config and a Schecter Studio 4 FL with soap bars. I much prefer the brightness and tone I get out of the PJ pickups compared to the mellower soap bars so I made this decision based on what I have read about this pickup set and my preferences. If anyone out there has anything to add experience-wise I am all ears. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maull Posted May 24, 2012 Author Report Share Posted May 24, 2012 (edited) Had a little router mishap tonight. I was trimming down the laminate on the headstock and tightening up the shape by a few 16ths of an inch when I got a little tear out on one of the ears. So I am sitting looking at this and thinking "I can fix this". I look around and just see sawdust everywhere. I am starting to feel a little bummed when my wife shows up. I tell her I can't find the piece that tore out and she looks at the sawdust covered floor. I start to say "You are never gonna find it in there..." when she reaches down and grabs something. She hands it to me and says "How about this?" Wouldn't you know she found half of the tear out. I eventually found the other half a few feet away and glued the pieces back in place. All clamped up. Finishing up the routing will have to wait until tomorrow when the glue dries thoroughly. Edited May 24, 2012 by maull Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maull Posted May 27, 2012 Author Report Share Posted May 27, 2012 (edited) Got a little more done yesterday. Side dots installed. Rounding the neck profile started. I really enjoyed this part. It took a while with the rasp but it was nice to work intuitively rather than to a strict spec or measurement.<br /> Rounding pretty much finished. I still have a few spots to tweak but will work on that tomorrow. Edited May 27, 2012 by maull Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maull Posted May 28, 2012 Author Report Share Posted May 28, 2012 Did a little smoothing to the head and neck looking for defects or areas to tweak a little bit. Body all clamped up. I routed a 1" deep slot in the lower wing to accomodate the wiring and drilled a hole from that slot to where the control cavity will be prior to gluing up. There will still be a bit more work on the neck to heel transition and general tweaking done to the neck once the body comes out of clamps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
verhoevenc Posted May 28, 2012 Report Share Posted May 28, 2012 You can easily afford to carve the heel more. You don't need a gradually sloping heel like that for support. Your neck will be plenty strong enough with a more aggressive heel carve, and will also afford better higher fret access. Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maull Posted May 29, 2012 Author Report Share Posted May 29, 2012 You can easily afford to carve the heel more. You don't need a gradually sloping heel like that for support. Your neck will be plenty strong enough with a more aggressive heel carve, and will also afford better higher fret access. Chris I was kind of thinking the same thing. Thanks for the input though, as this is exactly the kind of thing I was hoping to get out of posting this build. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crazygtr Posted May 29, 2012 Report Share Posted May 29, 2012 Did a little smoothing to the head and neck looking for defects or areas to tweak a little bit. Body all clamped up. I routed a 1" deep slot in the lower wing to accomodate the wiring and drilled a hole from that slot to where the control cavity will be prior to gluing up. There will still be a bit more work on the neck to heel transition and general tweaking done to the neck once the body comes out of clamps. Nice build, and nice VTX. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maull Posted May 29, 2012 Author Report Share Posted May 29, 2012 Nice build, and nice VTX. Thanks on both accounts. The only downside to this guitar building obsession is that I haven't ridden the bike very much in the last few weeks. I have kind of it blocked in with all by tools. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Juntunen Guitars Posted May 29, 2012 Report Share Posted May 29, 2012 Did you put a neck angle in this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maull Posted May 30, 2012 Author Report Share Posted May 30, 2012 No, no neck angle. I was debating in whether or not I should recess the bridge a little bit. I planned on mocking it up and seeing if I could achieve the action I wanted first. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted May 30, 2012 Report Share Posted May 30, 2012 I hope the geometry works out for you. My first bass ended up going to the trash because I did not plan it around the neck angle first and foremost. No neck angle means deep set pickups and a recessed bridge or the fretboard sitting high relative to the face of the body. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maull Posted May 31, 2012 Author Report Share Posted May 31, 2012 I decided that I will be recessing the bridge. Live and learn I guess. It would suck to lose all the work I have done so far but if it doesn't turn out correctly the wood is the cheapest part of this build. Body routed out to shape. Need to start ordering more parts so I can keep going. Last pass with the router left me with a little tear out. I am pretty sure my router bit is starting to dull a little. Thankfully this will be taken care of when I round the back edge over. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maull Posted June 2, 2012 Author Report Share Posted June 2, 2012 Tuner holes drilled out. Back rounded, heel to body transition smoothed out, belly carve sketched in. Belly carve sanded to 280 grit to look for defects. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maull Posted June 13, 2012 Author Report Share Posted June 13, 2012 Control knob holes drilled. Input jack recess started. Drill bit wandered when drilling the actual input jack hole. It has since been fixed by gluing in a dowel and redrilling. Bridge mounted and strung up to see how much of a recess I will need. Control cavity and battery box routed out. Still have to route for the control cavity cover. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maull Posted June 15, 2012 Author Report Share Posted June 15, 2012 A couple minor additions. Routed the shelf for the cavity cover. Cut the cover to size. Not perfect which kinda ticked me off since I used the same template as I did for the body but not excruciatingly bad either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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