My First Bass build - Short scale (30") and a bit of experimentation with the fretboard...

[JGTay]

Whilst waiting on the parts for Dan's guitar, I am getting on with a project for myself.

I have been wanting to add a bass to my collection of guitars for a some time, so I did a bit of research and decided on doing a short scale (30") Jazz Bass. May need some help along the way with pickup placement and wiring details, will see how I go.

The experimentation with the fretboard -

Going with a dual wood, Panga Panga with oak and using some leftover dust from sanding Dan's fretboard as a dark fill line.

 

Got started on the fretboard yesterday, made an oak fretboard to the same thickness as the Panga Panga offcuts I had from a previous build, then cut a piece of the Panga to shape, followed the cut on the oak and then glued it in place (didn't think beforehand how much of a ball-ache this would be). once it was dry I then marked out for the next piece following the same shape.

Cut and glued in place (again cursing myself for such a stupid idea, clamping two 9mm boards together like this is a pain!!)

I made sure to keep straight edges along both sections to allow for marking out the fret cuts. Marked out the frets and cut the slots. Still need to straighten out the bottom edge (I keep on looking at it and thinking the fret slots are wonky, which they aren't!! ) 

Next up was the neck. Going with a Through neck using mahogany and poplar (both from the piano)

Cut to length and thickness, then glued.

And after it had dried, planed it flat on both sides, glued on some extra mahogany for the headstock width and then got on with cutting the headstock angle at 9 degrees.

 

Then glued on the offcut to the reverse side to give the headstock enough thickness along the length.

 

Then roughly marked out the string and machine head locations so that I could get a rough headstock shape cut. (will wait until I have the machine heads to do the locations properly)

And last thing today was testing how it would look with a Mockingbird body (not decided on body shape yet, but this was to hand from doing Dan's guitar ). 

  

Still need to work out what wood to use for the body, need to go through my stock piles and see what I have.

Sorry for so much in one go, two days work in one hit... 

 

 

[JGTay]

500mm double action truss rod ordered and it should be here tomorrow. Can get that in place, then get the fretboard on and cut the edges of the neck to size. Then it will be on with the radius. 

Can't decide between 10" or 12" radius (which are the two blocks I have), reading through some bass guitar forums a lot of people say a flatter radius is better on a Jazz bass? 

[Bizman62]

I know absolutely nothing about bass playing... The upright basses have quite a tight radiused fretboards but that may be because they can be played with a bow as well. Aren't some of them even partially faceted???

And if memory serves me right, on a guitar a tight radius makes strumming chords easier while a flatter fretboard enables heavier bending. You don't usually strum more than two strings at the same time on a bass, do you? Nor do you bend them. Then again classical guitars have a flat fretboard and they are most often fingered just like basses. Would that mean that a semi-flat fretboard would be ideal? In your case 12" (that would be my choice just because)

 

 

[JGTay]

43 minutes ago, Bizman62 said:

I know absolutely nothing about bass playing...

I am in the same boat. This will be the bass I learn on. The only bass I have tried has been a U-Bass.

Thanks for the input , I agree, think the 12" will be the best bet. 

[mistermikev]

2 hours ago, JGTay said:

I am in the same boat. This will be the bass I learn on. The only bass I have tried has been a U-Bass.

Thanks for the input , I agree, think the 12" will be the best bet. 

oh snap... it's a bass.  ok!  i like what is going on with the fretboard if I'm seeing that right... is that 3 pieces joined together?  

bass... now you can officially tell folks "you slappa da bass mon".  I learned to play bass somewhere around my jr year high school.  Our band instructor... "you can't play guitar in jazz band"... mr bader was his actual name.  jackwagon... but thankfully that got my moms to buy me a yamaha motion b (32" scale) and so that's how I learned the bass.  guitar players are a dime a dozen... but bass players... all sorts of bands will hump your leg and try to get you to join lol!  kind of nice for a change!!  anywho, looking good brother!

[JGTay]

49 minutes ago, mistermikev said:

if I'm seeing that right... is that 3 pieces joined together?  

Yes, the cuts are mirrored so that it follows the wave pattern from both sides (if that makes sense) and it was a real pain to do... Didn't think too much about the actual process beforehand, just went for it and found that trying to clamp the pieces without them folding in on each other was something I should have realised and worked out before applying the glue.

 

1 hour ago, mistermikev said:

Our band instructor... "you can't play guitar in jazz band"... mr bader was his actual name.  jackwagon

Wow... Eddie Lang must have turned in his grave at that one. But at least it gave you another instrument to play and your mom supported you in it.

[mistermikev]

1 minute ago, JGTay said:

Yes, the cuts are mirrored so that it follows the wave pattern from both sides (if that makes sense) and it was a real pain to do... Didn't think too much about the actual process beforehand, just went for it and found that trying to clamp the pieces without them folding in on each other was something I should have realised and worked out before applying the glue.

 

Wow... Eddie Lang must have turned in his grave at that one. But at least it gave you another instrument to play and your mom supported you in it.

right on.  nice work on the fretboard!!

yes, george benson, pat metheney, and about a hundred other jazz guitar players said a collective "are you daft"?  all worked out tho!

look fwd to your next steps.

[JGTay]

Managed to get some time on this today. Started by positioning the truss rod and drawing round it, then lined up a straight edge and used a Stanley knife to score along the lines.

Then checked the truss rod fell in the lines correctly.

And started chiselling out the channel.

And then put the truss rod in place.

Then made a start on cleaning up the fretboard edges and tested it in place.

Hopefully I will get some time tomorrow to glue it in place and then I can get on with the radius. Probably should find some time to tidy up a bit as well... 

[Bizman62]

Thanks for reminding that you really don't need a noisy router and all sorts of jigs/fences/templates to carve a perfect truss rod channel! And I guess it may actually take less time! You just clamp the neck and the ruler to the table. Minor adjustments are much easier as the ruler weighs much less than a router. Also you don't have to worry about the clamps stopping or reguiding your tool.

The only negative I can figure in chiseling is to keep the bottom of the channel flat. But even that can easily be addressed by adding a depth stop to the chisel and use it as a scraper for the very last passes.

[JGTay]

Have been busy working on the fretboard the past couple of days, so a few updates on progress.

Got the fretboard glued in place and then did the markers.

Then got the radius started using a piece of wood to keep the block central, worked out very well with the laminated wood being the exact size for the centre position of the block. 

Next up I cut some 2mm wide strips of mahogany and glued them to the outside edge, leaving an overhang for the nut.

And then put the nut in place to measure for the end piece.

Cut the end piece and glued it in place.

And then tested the nut in place again. This way the nut doesn't need to be glued in place and can easily be raised if needed with pieces of wood underneath. Was considering putting magnets into the bottom of the nut and then I could just use thin pieces of metal to adjust the height if needed, but will see how it goes.

I then sanded the radius up to 1000 grit (highest I have until my delivery gets here later today)

Then took it outside in the sunshine so I could see how well the wood grain shows up.

Need to recut the fret slots as they are no longer deep enough after doing the radius. Then when the delivery gets here I will continue sanding up through the grades and hopefully get it all polished up ready for trimming the neck edges to size so I can get the frets in.

[mistermikev]

looking good brutha.

[JGTay]

Sanded the fretboard up to 10,000 Grit, then did 3 coats of Danish oil on it, with a small amount of sanding and buffing in between each coat. Did a final sand after the last coat with just the highest couple of grades. Still needs a final buff and polish, but will wait until I am ready to do the frets.

Next up was taking the excess wood from the edges with a Shinto rasp. (Really need to spend some time and clear up my work surfaces!)

Started getting some shape into the headstock, needs a bit more work yet, but it is beginning to look more like the final shape.

Tried it in place with the Mockingbird template again, it is looking like I will go with this shape body, the neck goes really well with the shape and the wife really likes the one I have made for Dan.

Considering going with a mahogany body if I have enough left in my stockpile, need to have a dig around and see what I can find.

 

[JGTay]

Went through my wood stocks and didn't have enough mahogany for anything close to the sizes needed, so called round to my dads house and raided his wood stock. Found some pieces that would be big enough for the shape with a bit of work, but not thick enough, so brought them home and set to work on another way of doing it.

Had a big enough piece for the lower section, but had to cut a couple of pieces to size for the upper section. After squaring up the edges and joining the pieces for the upper section (hopefully the join will not be too obvious afterwards), I cut them to their basic shapes, leaving clamping points and then set about halving them... times like these I would appreciate access to a band saw. 

Upper section first.

I then glued and clamped the first piece of this onto a piece of poplar and then cut round the shape. Didn't take any pics during this, was too busy and forgot.

Then got on with halving the lower section.

Need to glue and cut the other sections with the poplar yet, but this is the progress so far.

Next up will be to glue the bottom piece on, square up the side section for joining to the neck and level it off top and bottom, then do it all again with the lower section.

But the poplar sandwich is looking good so far to me.

(Get that BLT out of your mind!)

Hopefully the green poplar showing through with the bevels afterwards should be a nice feature against the mahogany.

[ScottR]

Boy, you are working your ass off on this one.

SR

[JGTay]

2 minutes ago, ScottR said:

Boy, you are working your ass off on this one.

SR

Thanks Scott. Said that to the wife yesterday, keep finding new ways to make it more difficult.

[JGTay]

After gluing up the bottom piece of the lower section I moved on to doing the control cavity.

First cut the cover to shape (straight lines on this one to make things a bit easier)

After drawing round it cut the cavity to size within the area.

Then scored the lines with a Stanley knife and followed up with the chisel around the lines.

And then set to work removing the wood down to the poplar.

Cover in place with a bit of sanding to level it off.

And then setup a sanding area to level off the whole piece.

Chiselled out the cable access for the pickups.

Glued the top piece in place and then checked how much needs taking off. (lots of squeeze out that is taking a while to dry)

Cavity after gluing,

And then glued the upper section pieces together and checked the height.

 

Couple of mm to be taken off top and bottom, shouldn't take a lot.

Need to square up the edges, but happy with how it is coming along.

Will start shaping the neck profile, headstock and volute before gluing on the wings.

[Bizman62]

14 minutes ago, JGTay said:

(straight lines on this one to make things a bit easier)

You think so? Straight lines are the most difficult ones! Any mismatch with an adjacent straight line will pop out. The human eye can be painfully accurate at times!

I can already see a couple of less than straight lines in either the cavity or the cover but I won't tell you about it just to make you feel happy about your success.

 

 

 

 

[JGTay]

1 hour ago, Bizman62 said:

I can already see a couple of less than straight lines

I did mean easier on me for chiselling out , but I haven't done any clean up yet, still got more sanding to be done and hopefully it should look right by the end.

[Professor Woozle]

5 hours ago, JGTay said:

Thanks Scott. Said that to the wife yesterday, keep finding new ways to make it more difficult.

The simple "pleasure" of resawing slabs by hand with a ripsaw... I'm slowly turning a rosewood table top piece into two guitar tops by that means, when I can summon up the energy!

[JGTay]

9 minutes ago, Professor Woozle said:

I'm slowly turning a rosewood table top piece into two guitar tops by that means

Ouch... Good luck with that, took me around 2 hours for each piece, my arm and shoulder were aching a bit last night.

Look forward to seeing the guitars you are making, the rosewood tops will be nice to see. 

[Professor Woozle]

I haven't really started yet, but one half will be going on a LP when I eventually finish off some of the other ongoing projects and find time to start another!

 

[JGTay]

After getting a couple of jobs done for family this morning, I managed to get some more time this afternoon on the neck.

Started getting some of the excess off the back and bringing in the shape of the heel and volute.

When it is getting close to the line I move on to a radius block to level it off and use a piece of wood clamped in the right position to keep it central down the length.

Still got plenty more sanding to do to level it off and need to work on the transitions between the heel and neck, as well as the volute and neck. The headstock still needs thinning out a bit as well, but I will do that once the volute has taken shape fully.

[JGTay]

I have been working on a few different things today and jumped around between them as I went, so in no particular order...

The headstock shape is near enough finished.

And it is close to thickness all around.

The volute is close to finished.

Just need to take a bit more off the underside on the right.

And the neck profile is almost done. Will need a bit more work around the heel once the body is on.

Should be able to get on with cleaning up the fretboard and getting the frets in next. Need to go pickup some fret wire, just need to decide on size.

 

[Bizman62]

That's an interesting volute! It looks like there's enough space for all chord shapes despite the lip.

[JGTay]

14 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

That's an interesting volute! It looks like there's enough space for all chord shapes despite the lip.

Thanks Bizman.

It works well, doesn't get in the way and I really like the shape.