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"Fish On" Fretless Bass Project


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have been working hard against the clock in my head... thinking I'd like to move on to new projects in the new year... but alas... I don't think I'll make it.  spent most of my day today jacking around with boiling water and 1/8" strips of veneer.  needs a lot of clean up yet but baby steps.

did not anticipate it being this hard to get veneer to conform to those tight turns!  

 

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so... would love some first impressions on this next part... "TAKE IT TO THE BRIDGE"!

this is revision 1.9... this is the 3rd one I've built and for better or worse I think I'm sticking w it.  first one was horribly mismatched to the rest of the design... completely started over.  then second one was just too thick and clunky.  Still feels awful thick but I need 1/4" thickness for some square nuts/grub screws to be able to adjust/lock fwd/rev motion... and 1/4" to bury the studs... so 1/2" it is.  According to my measurements this should be just a hair low with the studs burried.  anywho... 

I've bought an artec piezo and a big fat bone saddle blank that should fit in here... going to be a challenge to retrofit a channel for that!  

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Decorative designs are out of my comfort zone. I mean I cannot do them myself (nor do I feel urge to attempt) but I can appreciate when some one does them well. Like I said before I feel you have an extraordinary skill to make all those shapes go together. To me the bridge looks like a perfect fit. 

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21 minutes ago, henrim said:

Decorative designs are out of my comfort zone. I mean I cannot do them myself (nor do I feel urge to attempt) but I can appreciate when some one does them well. Like I said before I feel you have an extraordinary skill to make all those shapes go together. To me the bridge looks like a perfect fit. 

well thank you.  I'm going to keep my first design hidden!  it was very plain and just did not look good... so I basically took the shape of the upper horn and shrank it and then mirrored it.

thank you for taking the time Henrim.... very much appreciate it.

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  • 3 weeks later...
31 minutes ago, ScottR said:

Damn, there are a lot of details involved here. You've done a excellent job of keeping them tied together and harmonious.

Looks great and I love the bridge!

SR

thank you Scott.  very much appreciate it.  

I've made quite a bit of progress in the last two weekends... at the point where it's all about sanding/fitting.  lot of manual labor for sure... and it's beating me up!  

"fading fast.... got to hold on.... only chance for survival........ finish the guitar!"

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54 minutes ago, henrim said:

Immaculate work. Those truss rod covers are so sweet!  

thank you sir. wasn't sure if that detail was going to come across... and it's a simple little thing... but it turned out better than I hoped.  thanks for noticing.

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3 hours ago, ScottR said:

I don't know if I never picked up on the fact that there are two of these in progress, or if I used to know and forgot while it was on the shelf. Either way, doubly impressive.

SR

I've sort of resolved myself to needing to build a prototype... one that can live or die w/o too much pain afa spensive wood... I try out all my stuff first on that one so that if it goes really south I can chalk it up to experience.

so the oak one - I almost gave up on it a few times because the carve needed a lot of work and the top was thinner so I burned through it - hence the creative carve on the bottom edge.  I've somehow managed a guitar despite an awful lot of "never done it before"... and it turns out it's gonna look pretty noice so I'm very lucky!

thank you for noticing!

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so literally working on this in my spare time for the last 2 weeks... milled oak, purpleheart, mahog and maple down to .22 thick for the dome... milled purpleheart, maple and ebony down to .88+- for the letters... several issues with trying to mill two letters at a time and how close they are to each other so had to rework... then the inevitable snap of a letter or two while I try to get them into the pocket using giant sausage fingers... then wearing out my hands sanding them down to flush... it's a real trial but I feel like I'm getting slightly better at it anyway!

bass (acoustic), treble (acoustic), volume (acoustic), tone (magnetic), volume (magnetic)... p or z for piezo was too big!

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6 minutes ago, Bizman62 said:

That's insane!

And your photo shooting skills have improved. 👍

thank you biz, really appreciate it.  have been practicing with the manual focus... works so much better but still a bit hard to see on the screen... I'll get there yet!!

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something on my mind as I post this moch up... keep making a mental note that I should do my finish sanding way ahead of time and let my wood sit and age... because it brings out the flame better than anything else I know!  this flame hardly shows at all right after it's sanded... and I'm doing a osmo poly x raw finish on this so I can't darken the wood at all prior... I just hope I can retain this much pop!

 

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18 minutes ago, ScottR said:

My experience is the finer you sand it the more it pops and moves.

SR

well I s'pose that it could be that the body got 'buffed' by being handled... but it is so evenly spread that I really think there is something happening afa ageing that is bringing that flame out.  that said... I'm sure sanding it up really good and then ensuring all the dust is gone... will also bring out the flame well.

thank you for your input sir!!

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3 hours ago, mistermikev said:

well I s'pose that it could be that the body got 'buffed' by being handled... but it is so evenly spread that I really think there is something happening afa ageing that is bringing that flame out.  that said... I'm sure sanding it up really good and then ensuring all the dust is gone... will also bring out the flame well.

thank you for your input sir!!

The handling also adds skin oil transfer. The higher sanding also increases reflectance, and the light scattering enhances the figure.

SR

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