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Camphor and Alder Single Cut Bass


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By the way, I alluded early in the thread that, last year, I had done a very unusual project that had forced me to re-evaluate what was critical and what wasn't in a build.  This was the resulting bass:

P2Qo6ePl.jpg

vMUfqqEl.jpg

Over the next couple of days, I will see if I can kick off a thread explaining how this one came about and the fairly unique design and construction considerations.  It had every chance at a number of stages of just falling to bits, but is regularly shipped around and played in Europe and Africa and hasn't....yet.  It is actually constructed with very similar build concepts.  The difference is that this one is 1" thick and made of wood that resembles balsa in parts!!!! 

Edited by Andyjr1515
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Actually, I've never had problems glueing Wengé with Titebond. I think that with it being such a hard coarse wood, there is less opportunity to compress mating surfaces together. Softer woods like Mahoganies can be pressed together so much that under clamping pressure any slight surface variations just disappear. I have trouble finding gluelines in Khaya for example.

I wouldn't say that it is difficult to glue, more that it is "unforgiving".

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5 hours ago, Prostheta said:

Actually, I've never had problems glueing Wengé with Titebond. I think that with it being such a hard coarse wood, there is less opportunity to compress mating surfaces together. Softer woods like Mahoganies can be pressed together so much that under clamping pressure any slight surface variations just disappear. I have trouble finding gluelines in Khaya for example.

I wouldn't say that it is difficult to glue, more that it is "unforgiving".

Yes - a better turn of phrase, Prostheta.   The good news with the veneer I'm using is that it is open- grained enough for the glue to intermingle with the fibres.  The 'less forgiving' bit is the oiliness of the wood itself.  Nowhere as bad as, say, cocbolo, but less forgiving than some.

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"Unforgiving" is kindly polite given how painful Wengé splinters are, and their tendency to go septic. :lol:

It's just such a hard wood. Whenever it comes off a planer or jointer, you can clearly see the individual blade swipes. That never fills me with confidence, especially when the trailing blade partially burnishes it as it passes over. I'm likely just obsessive over this because I see problems where they usually don't need to exist. Better safe than sorry. Nothing a quick pass with a sanding block or through a thickness sander can't solve. That opens the surface fibres up nicely to let the glue do its job.

That is a bit of an unusual bass in places. I look forward to seeing exactly why....it looks like a thick neck, so I expect that it sounds mighty!

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3 minutes ago, Prostheta said:

"Unforgiving" is kindly polite given how painful Wengé splinters are, and their tendency to go septic. :lol:

It's just such a hard wood. Whenever it comes off a planer or jointer, you can clearly see the individual blade swipes. That never fills me with confidence, especially when the trailing blade partially burnishes it as it passes over. I'm likely just obsessive over this because I see problems where they usually don't need to exist. Better safe than sorry. Nothing a quick pass with a sanding block or through a thickness sander can't solve. That opens the surface fibres up nicely to let the glue do its job.

That is a bit of an unusual bass in places. I look forward to seeing exactly why....it looks like a thick neck, so I expect that it sounds mighty!

Yes - I'm very careful about splinters for this wood!

The other bass - yes...quite a thick neck....long story which I will relate when I kick off the thread about that build.  That said, it actually is only 25mm ... it is a bit of an illusion because the body is ridiculously thin :lol:  

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Back to the present build, I caught a bit of dry between the rain showers and managed to slim the 'real' fretboard down by 1.5mm and get a 12" radius on it:

HxlZ83Il.jpg 

GDgjlmol.jpg

 

This is rough sanded but fully radiused.  It will be rechecked for straightness and fine sanded once it's been glued onto the neck.

Tomorrow, I will be checking all the heights and angles and, all going well, possibly gluing the neck into the body.

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Back to the ongoing build...

I double and triple checked the projected action height with the radiused fretboard and finally glued the neck in:

quiivYgl.jpg

 

The other thing I was able to do was firm up on the headstock shape with the guy I'm building it for.  He was after a medium-length, ebony-plated non-symmetric design that reflected the vibe of the body.

This is the design we've agreed on:

jz0DayMl.jpg

 

What I have tried to do is give a passing nod to the shape of the body, and also use the cut-out - exposing the mahogany and walnut - to balance the colour impact between the body and the head.

In proportion terms, this is how it will sit:

RPQlCdtl.jpg

 

I will be able to make progress on the headstock indoors with much of next week forecast to be raining most of the time!

I'm also starting to get my head round the covers.  My customer wants pickup covers.  Originally, he was talking ebony, but I think that might be too much black (even with the fretboard shortened and shaped as planned) so I am going to see if my extremely small and cheap bandsaw is capable of cutting a sliver of camphor offcut accurately.  If it can, it would look a LOT better because they are going to be pretty big covers, covering a P-pickup an' all...

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9 minutes ago, psikoT said:

Do you know any good tutorial about making pickup covers?... or can you share the process maybe?

To be honest, psikoT, I've never done it before.  

I've done a bit of research and - as they will be wood covers - the accepted wisdom appears to be that it makes no magnetic difference, but if they are too thick, they will restrict how close the pickups can get to the strings.  Mine are intended to be 2mm maximum, so shouldn't be a big problem.

Probably best leave it that if it works, I'll post how I did it :rolleyes:   

Anyone else use covers? 

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Do you want me to prioritise a tutorial for this? This is entirely how the whole ProjectGuitar.com/member relationship works....you guys tell us what you want to see written up and we'll start working on a way to produce something. Wooden pickup covers would be a fun subject. There are any number of ways of going about it though, whether it be from a solid block or making a laminated "box".

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27 minutes ago, Prostheta said:

Do you want me to prioritise a tutorial for this? This is entirely how the whole ProjectGuitar.com/member relationship works....you guys tell us what you want to see written up and we'll start working on a way to produce something. Wooden pickup covers would be a fun subject. There are any number of ways of going about it though, whether it be from a solid block or making a laminated "box".

Well that would be great!  I haven't fully decided yet, but probably going to go the solid block route if me and the customer opt for a matching camphor cover, although I'm assuming most folk would go laminated?

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38 minutes ago, Prostheta said:

Do you want me to prioritise a tutorial for this? This is entirely how the whole ProjectGuitar.com/member relationship works....you guys tell us what you want to see written up and we'll start working on a way to produce something. Wooden pickup covers would be a fun subject. There are any number of ways of going about it though, whether it be from a solid block or making a laminated "box".

That would be great, if you have time and the expertise... ^^  but I just was curious,.. I didn't even googled it, cause I'm not really in a need, so no worries. :)  custom pickup covers is something I always wanted to make, but never tried... so never researched.

Thanks very much for the offer!

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13 minutes ago, Prostheta said:

Well, it depends on how thick the outer walls will end up being. The problem is short grain in two of the side walls. Like I said, there are a number of ways of going about it so it's a balance of many things to get the result you need.

Yes - I had a similar conundrum with an electric violin I had a go at...this became part 'laminate' (actually - a ring of mahogany) and part carve.  But, of course, the sides even at their thinnest were thicker here:

_MG_3613_zpsefd8ce30.jpg

_MG_3604_zps724d3b0f.jpg

 

 

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Well - tried the covers.  

I actually have combined two requirements from the guy I'm building it for - light as possible without neck dive, covered pickups.

To take a bit more wood and weight out, I have 'squared up' the 'P' neck pickup chamber and made the 'J' bridge chamber the same size.  It has an advantage that is ever he wants to fit a pair of super-triple-gargantuan-flipper buckers in the future, it'll be a doddle ;)

My aim on the covers was to try them using the small amount of camphor offcut left from the top - and if I messed up, to do them instead in ebony.

The camphor still has the demarcation veneer glued on.  I won't need that extra height but left it on for the machining process.  I went for free-hand rout using my small router base, aiming to get down to below 2mm thickness with 5mm sides, and then cut them out with a fine pull-saw.

 Here is is during the rout process:

0N2xzhgl.jpg

 

I then cut them out and did an initial sanding just to square them up and get the broad profile.  I will slightly taper the sides and dome the top sides a tough - and of course take the veneer off and sand the backs to bring their height down - but at least I now know I don't have to get the ebony out!  The final thickness is 1.5mm which I'm pleased and relieved about:

P8biCr0l.jpg 

 

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Finished the scary stuff - the parts of the build where you can go to fantastic project to firewood in one easy slip of a router.

Yes! Finished all the main routing work.

Used a template and guide bush for the control chamber:

BsbsCQNl.jpg 

...then, when I ran out of travel, carried on with a bearing guided trimmer:

kur4V0Zl.jpg

 

Ignore the black clamp marks - they will disappear when I do the finish sanding.  Something seemed to act as paint stripper on the clamps at some stage...;)

Also routed the chamber for the battery holder:

UCjwDSxl.jpg

 

I'll do the finish sanding and the carving of the neck and heel, before I route the rebate for the control chamber cover to fit into.  But that means I can now get on with my favourite bit...the finish carving and shaping...

 

Andy

 

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40 minutes ago, Prostheta said:

Do you produce sawdust? The lack of it freaks me out. I thought @psikoT was bad enough for sweeping and scrubbing the work area clean prior to shooting the pop shots!

:lol:

Actually, I must be the only guy in the district who has to vacuum his outside patio!  And sometimes the grass...

But today, the heavens were smiling on me because it was blowing an absolute gale.  I suspect my neighbour may already be plotting his revenge...

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Gales are not entirely our favourite topic right now. We've got gale-force winds screwing with our fun, alternating scrubbing our locales of pesky overhead electrical cables whilst simultaneously dumping everybody else's leaves they didn't rake up into ours. Most inconvenient.

One thing I have to say is that neighbours are not too much of a problem in Finland if you live outside of the city regions. By that point a neighbour within a km is a bother; one that is too close for privacy. haha

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A couple of small but important jobs done today.

First, I capped the truss-rod.  I wrapped it in plumbers PTFE tape and then capped it with a spare strip of rosewood binding I had left over from one of my other builds.

Next, I finished the main shape sanding for the body.  Still got to do some filling and final sanding, but this is basically how the body will be front and back:

k5L7lrol.jpg:

XpbmEHil.jpg

I'll be filling the camphor with z-poxy and then flattening it back down ready for the finishing.  After the z-poxy has been sanded back down, I will be attaching the fretboard and starting the neck and heel carve. 

 

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6 minutes ago, Prostheta said:

Filling it? I guess it's more levelling than void management?

Yes - the camphor is very 'open end grain' in places.  I'm probably going for z-poxy this time because I don't want the fills to sink, as they tend to do with other clear 'grain fillers' I've used in the past.  The method I usually use, is to create a sanding slurry with the oil or varnish - but this still has the tendency to sink.  This is fine when it's a defined lengthways grain, but the camphor is patchy with this end-grain

I'm doing some samples with each method to check before I commit.

This is one of the samples before any filling or finishing:

8WaIhzal.jpg 

 

This is the same sample after z-poxy, scraped off while 'wet' to just leave the epoxy in the grain itself , then light sanding after curing and single coat of tru-oil:

myRiLXgl.jpg

 

Going to do a slurry-fill tomorrow to see how that compares.

 

What is your preferred clear fill?

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Did you cut the top edge of your neck to match the curve of the camphor top? That must be what you did.....the pic almost looks like you routed a neck width channel in the camphor with only a veneer thickness covering the neck. Must be an optical collusion.:P

FWIW, I did a finishing experiment several years back, finishing one side of a spalted pecan board with Zpoxy and the other with Tru oil. I wanted to see how each pore filled and then polished up. (Very nicely). Then a couple of years later one of the guys here, Demonx- stated that he had done some filling with Zpoxy and it ended up sinking in the pores. So I dug out my experimental board and sure enough, mine had too. Granted it was two or three years later that I checked and it was not so much that it couldn't be re-leveled safely, but it did indeed shrink......eventually.

SR

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