gpcustomguitars

A small update, inlays (still 12th to do), tapper, some shaping, deciding on neck/body join place.

Thanks a lot for the advice! So basically, high E all the way towards the nut, and the low E sort of a to the middle or a bit more?

Just great! BTW an excellent method for locating the bridge, will have to try it!

Got the new blade, 1790 x 9.5, by the color of it I think (hope) it's not as ...good as the previous one. Anyway, all alone at work today, nothing at all to do, so I took my Dremel with me, and routed out the fretboard markers. They are all 3 x 6 mm, and will be plugged with walnut to be cut off fm the sides of the neck. I'll try to align the inlay grain with the neck. Only the 12th is 7 x 6mm, and I'll inlay the inlay with a 3 x 6 mm piece of rosewood later. The Allman Bros have provided the soundtrack, coffee is hot, and it's raining like it'll never stop...

I kinda want to use the slots since they are already there, so I'm thinking about adding a few triangle shaped cherry lams in between theese rosewood strips and getting one weird fretboard. Perhaps it's just too much work to justifie it... I'm curently very fond of bass players since they seem to have a very open mind regarding the design, so weird is good. I used to keep every little bit of wood, but nowadays I just use them firewood if they are too small to say, bookmatch a headstock face out of it. This blade I bought some time ago, and it did the same then - came apart at the weld, so I gave it to be re-welded, and it did the same again, but after a lot of sawing. It's cheaply made, perhaps the alloy is wrong somehow...I got a source for some german-made blades now, so that will probably be a good solution. Good thing I don't have any sawing planed that I can't do with an jig saw.

While sorting the junk around the shop I found a few of these, all rosewood and all the same scale - any ideas other than just glueing them all together into one? On outter sides and the middle a lam of something else? Can't just throw them away, I'm a packrat... What do you guys do with your offcuts? By gpguitars at 2012-09-17

All went well, I've cut off the protruding portion of the neck lams (and broke my #$%^& bandsaw blade - poor welding obviously, came clean apart at the seam). By gpguitars at 2012-09-13 By gpguitars at 2012-09-13 By gpguitars at 2012-09-14

Sawn the tapper of the fretboard on the bandsaw, sanded to line on the sander, and glued on. A few drops of silicone and a few clamps later, it's all glued together. Tommorow I can start on the radius. By gpguitars at 2012-09-12 By gpguitars at 2012-09-12 By gpguitars at 2012-09-12 By gpguitars at 2012-09-12

Getting ready to glue on the fretboard! I later realised that my phone ate one pic that explains what I did in the first pic - I made a notch in the down side of the face plate that sort of a serves as a stop for the truss rod. Its under the same angle as the headstock itself. By gpguitars at 2012-09-12 By gpguitars at 2012-09-12

Looking forward to more pics, great job and a great bass!

And the face plate is on! Tommorrow I'll glue on the fretboard. By gpguitars at 2012-09-11 By gpguitars at 2012-09-11 By gpguitars at 2012-09-11 By gpguitars at 2012-09-11 By gpguitars at 2012-09-11 By gpguitars at 2012-09-11

Well, it's outta clamps, everything is in order and fits properly. I had another pic of the headstock, but I think I took it too close to my desktop neon light, so it came out as TV noise...didn't realise it at the time. By gpguitars at 2012-09-10

Not on this workboard on it currently, but I rarely use it anyway, most of my templates are made for flush-cut router bits, so i don't have to do any alignment. Thanks, Thunderjazz is something I'm very proud of - its my own personal bass, although I'm a guitar player. I had an idea in my mind of what I wanted it to do , and it came out just like that. Another pup for a more versatile sound would have been nice, but it works fine as is... Its not done yet, it's supposed to have an ashtray cover over the bridge.

Some more progress. I've routed the truss rod channel, and glued the first part of the scarf on. I liked the speed and ease on doing the routing for channel on the overhead router, so I will definitely do it this way for now on. For angled headstocks I made a sort of a sled to elevate them, and if it works as planned (to be tested soon), with it I can also route angled straight channels for classic truss rods... Truss rod was wrapped in teflon tape, and scarf glued with no jigs - I just waited for the glue to start pulling and slowly added the clamps. I waited for about 20mins, while setuping the bandsaw... Now I have to clean the headstock surface and glue the 5mm face part on. By gpguitars at 2012-09-08 By gpguitars at 2012-09-08 By gpguitars at 2012-09-08 By gpguitars at 2012-09-08 By gpguitars at 2012-09-08 By gpguitars at 2012-09-08 By gpguitars at 2012-09-08

I'm very happy with this - he never did this kind of thing before, and it went completely right! He forgot to put the sleeves on, but I can solve that with 3 drops of silicone between the bars, and wrapping it all in plumber's teflon tape. Now I can continue with this! The dimension is standard - 24" length, with 6 x 11mm channel. By gpguitars at 2012-09-06 By gpguitars at 2012-09-06

Good work so far! And a very nice shop

Well, after an looong wait, I'm finally getting the truss rod tommorrow. My friend wanted to save some money, so he had an other friend make a hotrod at his metal shop, but he really took his time...we'll see what he did tommorrow morning - fingers crossed!

Again, a small update. Just had all the neck parts cut and sanded the contact surfaces. Waiting for the truss rod, and some vacation this week By gpguitars at 2012-08-19 By gpguitars at 2012-08-19 By gpguitars at 2012-08-19 By gpguitars at 2012-08-19

...and another 15min session, preparing the neck pieces. I've milled the neck blank to 20mm thickness, I need to mill it to 15mm for the scarf area, headstock piece is thicknessed, and today I plan to thickness the headstock face to 5mm. I'll probably cut the truss rod channel prior to glueing the scarf, to make use of the flat stock of the neck blank. By gpguitars at 2012-08-15 By gpguitars at 2012-08-15

Nice and clean work!

A really small update, my month and a half old daughter is a big competition to this bass for my attention This is the shape of the headstock, we decided on all the details I think, and I've resawn the stock for the scarf, and the headstock plate. Next I plan to thickness it on my overhead router, and start glueing. By gpguitars at 2012-08-14

Here's the first real mockup, GFS pup arrived 2 days ago, quick as always! It's a pity they don't offer truss rods... By gpguitars at 2012-08-05 Thanks, it's not a new idea, but works fine. I wanted to try it, and also since everything on the guitar will be either oiled, matte, aluminum or black, I wanted to have custom straps out of aluminum to tie it with the bridge, ferrules, etc... BTW, I took the alu stripes off the bridge, cause the alignement was a bit off, will re-glue. After the taking of this pic, I shaped the elbow relief which is drawn in pencil. Had the friend-customer actually standing by to try it, seemed like a lot of fun for him

Here's the fretboard we chose, and my drawing of how i plan to construct the headstock. By gpguitars at 2012-08-03 By gpguitars at 2012-08-03 Also, I patched up any irregularities with a mix of epoxy and walnut dust. By gpguitars at 2012-08-03

Well, I got an OK for the neck, we decided on some more fineses on shaping the body, turning the ferrules, neck profile, GFS MM pup has been ordered, hot rod will be soon, and decided on a rosewood fboard that I had! Since I'm making the neck, I can shift the scale upwards, and get some more distance between the body edge and the bridge, and also shape the heel freely, since I don't need to limit myself to fender-style neck . Freeedooommm

Started turning the strap buttons, didn't have more time today for anything bigger. Still, this looks nice. I'll polish them to 2000, trim then to length, and thats it. By gpguitars at 2012-07-28 By gpguitars at 2012-07-28