Wademeister

Progress again! Installed the side dots. I put pearl side dots in the first bass I built and I can't see them half the time so nothing fancy here. Just the white plastic 2mm rod from lmii. Proud of my scarf joints

Also spent about 8 hours sanding today and put a first coat of Rustin's on. I still have a little work to do before It's really ready for finish but I wanted to see! I can't believe how much darker the mahogany is with finish on it .

STILL thinking about cutting those pearl inlays out and replacing them with blacklip pearl. They look pretty good but when I get it next to the paua inlay... man, that paua is outstanding. I'll probably leave it but I have some black lip on order. We'll have to see how that ends up, right now I just don't know!

Very cool guitar. Looks great!

I haven't seen those pickups before, what are they?

I have continued searching for more guitar kit sites. Guitar Fetish seems to have a pretty good reputation for fit and quality, maybe even better than Saga but it certainly doesn't have the reputation of the Warmoth or Carvin kits. I like GF's Mockingbird kit and it may be the one for me. My only concern is the potential lack of contours for the arm and body. I will contact them in the next few days to learn more about their kits.

-- Boris

Pretty interesting! Since their kits are unfinished it looks like a great opportunity to add the contours you want and headstock shape the way you want it.

Let me encourage you with one I built not really as a "kit" but almost... I used a Carvin set neck that was complete, ready to glue in and all Carvin electronics. Made my own body out of hard maple, later covered with veneer.

Sorry I don't know about any of the kits out there but my experience with Carvin (in about 1981 or '82) was great and the one you linked looks like it has a lot of potential. Looks like the hardware is probably reasonable and I've read quite a few good reviews on GFS pickups so you may not feel like you need an upgrade once you get it all together. Best of luck, I hope you get into it and enjoy!

Pardon my ignorance, but how did you cut those fret slots only part of the way? I always thought a bound board had to be slotted first, but I guess I am wrong (never done a bound board myself). By the way, builds are looking fabulous.

I think traditionally you would slot the board and then bind but I'm using a different set of tools so my methods and order of operations may not be the same as what most people are doing.

I cut the fret slots on the CNC router at the same time as I cut the inlay sockets. Here is a good view of the slots and inlay fit...

Thanks for the nice words guys!

Pearl inlay on maple. Whatta ya think of it? Was pretty bland looking when I sanded everything flush but before buying black lip shell and cutting the inlays out I decided to see if the Rustin's would make much difference. Yep, it did...

Before

After

pretty darn cool!

NO KIDDING!

Progress!

No more boring pix of the thing on the machine, just results today =)

Cut electronics cavity, fret slots, inlay sockets and paua inlay for one of them. I wasn't too sure about that paua abalam when I first got it, but it seems to really look good on my fretboard. Just laying in the sockets for the pic, I'll glue them all in after the other sisters' inlay is cut...

The other one is getting white pearl. Pretty sure at least, since I have some really nice looking stuff left over from my knife making days about 15 years ago... I've seen a lot of white pearl blocks on maple boards and really liked them but if I drop them in this one and it doesn't look right I'll order some black lip. I'll have that figured out in the next few days.

Im using oak and im getting the overall shape down but there are variations in the thickness because of the grain. The grain looks like this on the back, with the headstock to the left [=]>>>>>>>. the hardness difference of the two stages of wood makes it feel lumpy or wavy and I cant seem to get it nice and smooth. Can grainfiller or bondo be used to fix this? (so far I plan on a painted neck) otherwise what would you recommend?

Thanks, TJ

I wouldn't recommend filler TJ, you really should get that surface nice and flat. A nice flat block and fresh sandpaper will flatten that out. When you first put the sandpaper to the wood you can feel it really cut, and after a few strokes it will start to slide more and cut less and that's when you need to get fresh paper on there. Use up a lot of sandpaper, the end result and effort saved are worth the expense.

You should try to get as much natural light for a pik as possible. Blue sky & bright, never fails to produce a good pik.

Not that I ever see a blue sky, Im in Ireland. Land of the perpetual cloudy - overcast day

Still cool lookin, kinda has a corugated sheet steel look to it. Should be realy sweet when its done.

I usually work on the things until I'm pretty tired and the sun is long gone. When I get them finished I'll be sure to get some good natural light pix, I think that's a great idea.

Got the binding on! I hadn't planned on binding the fretboard but the moment I saw it on top of the neck I knew what I had to do.

As for my photo's, i was a bit too obsessed to get a true indication of the colour of this guitar instead of good focused pics . I thought about editing the post but stuck with them in the hope people would check out the build thread. Looks like i lost a vote because of this, so moral of the story... post good pics!!!

Chad.

Yep, I picket Seth in spite of the pics in this thread not being as good as some of the others I had seen already. I'm really a fan of the top carve on this guitar. That shape along with the color and grain is "just right" to me. Excellent job!

Also loved the headstock detail in particular on Johnny's nylon guitar. That's a very handsome piece and was really close to getting my vote.

these things are coming along realy nice. cherry never fails does it, slightest carve & its freaky grain city

What kind of finishes you thinkin of ?

Looks like it's going to be Rustin's. It seems to show off the redwood grain better with less darkening than any of the others I've tried as well as being the quickest and probably easiest to use as well. I brushed two heavy coats, gave a light sanding with 400 grit and brushed a 3rd coat. Didn't take very long at all and very little effort to get this so far...

Without flash...

With flash, that's just nuts!

What I am thinking is I will route one access cavity for all three from the rear and then three openings from the front for the pickups to project through. I could run bolts through from the front and use either tubing or springs to keep the pickups at the right height. I would then cover the opening in the rear with a plate.

I guess my questions are: 1) Is there any reason I can't do this with fender single coils? They have that triangle type tab, but I can't see how that is a problem. 2) How much thickness do I need to leave? I would like to leave as much as possible but if I leave too much then the pickups will be to far from the strings....

Any insight would be appreciated!

Thanks!

Sure, why not? You're basically making a pickguard of wood built right into the body so it should all go together fine, pretty much as it was designed in the first place. I wouldn't route the whole back out though, just what's needed to get the pickup in there and a single rectangle route just deep enough for a cover plate. I'd start with about .2" face thickness and see if the pickup seems to mount ok or not. I'd try to stay at least .125" final thickness depending on the wood you're using. You could also see if the pickup will mount in a pair of pickguards stacked up and measure that for reference... Better yet, do a mock-up with some scrap wood and you'll know exactly what to expect when you get ready to cut the actual body.

Wow, it's been wood-MANIA for me this weekend. Started off by getting the tops and fretboards glued up... The tops were sanded flat to .160" thickness and clamped on the pre-shaped body. I used 1/4" MDF plates with packing foam top and bottom to pull the top down nice and snug all over. It worked pretty well. No gaps around the edges, no hollow spots that I could hear by knocking and no voids visible where I cut through the top.

Then put the shape on the fretboard and routed for pickups etc. This is one dead true neck

The easy way to cut the binding channels...

Won't be too long now before I get to see this wood with some finish on. Getting especially excited about it now since it's become more guitar than lumber

Ready to start binding. Pretty tired so I'll wait to start this step. Maybe after the pizza arrives I'll be ready to go at it again. I'd really like to get this wrapped up since I have the heat gun borrowed and this redwood is so fragile the edges practically chip at will.

so is this an "oh ****!!!" moment?

Oh yeah, that qualifies for sure!

Buuut... it's maple and you could leave the fretboard a little thick. Probably would be ok but I wouldn't expect it to survive much abuse. While checking out the pics looking for the grain I did notice one thing though...

If you look close you can see it right there above the volute in your pic. It appears it may even be pluggd in, which would be a really good thing right about now

And I'm done.

Had a massive tear out with the router, the plunge router was very stiff and I kept eating into the template anyway, then it tore out the wood and template.

In case you're wondering I had the router set on the highest rpm, and it was a brand new amana template routing bit.

So I am officially done with this. Not gonna go through the expense of more wood and templates just to mess it up again.

I tip my hat to all that can do it, because I just don't have the heart for it.

Man that sucks! But you seem to have a good eye for detail, good aptitude, a good selection of tools for it and obviously the interest.

I'd encourage you to take a break, think about it a bit, but not too hard, and give it another shot when you feel ready.

Think of it as tuition - you're just paying for an education with your time and materials and you won't have a school loan to repay

Beautiful work decadentjon, love those. Especially the black bass. I don't even like black guitars but that one is STUNNING .

... of course right after I posted that I looked at the superglue sample again and it's looking pretty good. Much brighter since the last sand and recoat. That will teach me to post incomplete results

I've been going around and around about the finish for these and decided that no matter how much I read I'm going to have to see it for myself. So far I've tried one sample with Minwax wood hardener and hated it. Looks so dark for some reason and the figure is overly accentuated. Tried superglue and it's nearly the same but not quite as bad. One sample has Formby's Tung Oil finish on it and is looking pretty good. Nice depth and movement to that finish but I kind of got pissed at Formby's when I learned that there's no tung oil in this stuff. Not that I care so much about tung oil or not, but why lie to me? If it's thinned varnish without tung oil, put it on the label! Might be great stuff but I'm put off because of the name now =P I have one redwood sample being prepared by the shop near my work. They do some great finishes on corporate jet interiors and they'll do my whole finish for free if I want. On one hand I'd like to do the finish myself but on the other, a professional job for free is pretty nice too!

As if that isn't enough, I've also got some Waterlox Original high gloss on order and plan on ordering a kit of Rustin's Plastic Coating ( http://www.conservationresources.com/Main/...ection35_03.htm ) today as well. After I have finished samples of everything I'll go with whichever one looks best to me.

I got all that ugly bondo off there at last!

Cut quite a bit of thickness off the top and put the radius on...

Love those action shots with the chips flying. I can't believe my camera snapped a still shot of that endmill at 12,500 RPM!

Hand drilled the hole for truss rod adjustment. I'm hoping this will finish out well enough to not need a cover. The headstock face will have a nice radius all around the access cutout when it's all done.

Got the truss rod channel a bit too tight and had to sand and scrape the inside a bit but it's still a nice snug fit. The first neck I built had a rod rattle so I've been careful to get everything good and tight since then. Got the allen wrench in there to be sure everything is lined up right. Also the slots on the body are for the wiring. Ground wire to the bridge and a channel for each pickup. And a location hole to keep the top from slipping around when I glue it down.

Starting to take shape! I've got the tops trimmed to fit around the neck but oversize all around the body. They're just posing for the pic right now, hope to have them and the fretboards glued on in the next few days.

Mmmm, fretboards... I like this piece of maple. Not over the top but somehow seems happy.

Love those guitars! I used to want one sooo bad. But I've been playing bass for the last 5 or 6 years and Parker's bass design is disgusting to me. ***? Couldn't make the bass like a larger version of the guitar?! Maybe one day I'll build the bass I think Parker should have made =)

Got the headstock binding on! I like these tuners a lot but they're a little heavy. Got the Res-O-Lite gotoh's in chrome for the maple/bloodwood neck bass.

Upon doing some final sanding and giving it a quick wet-up-look-see-what-we-got, we're back to edge-burst.

I think that's the key Drak! cover the whole dropped area as part of your burst and I think you'll have it.

Spent another quality Sunday working with wood in the machine shop. Didn't get a whole lot done but I did finally resaw my redwood and got the headplates glued on. Doesn't look like much at this point but it's showing a hint of what's in store.

Resawing on my Roll-In saw. Took a lot of patience but did a good job eventually. That saw will blow right through this stuff but I was very careful to keep it right down the center.

One down, one started. I think I took over an hour each, I didn't have a lot of wiggle room here.

There they are glued into tops with fretboards between them. I'll probably use the maple for both but I may use the morado in the middle for one of them. That's a really nice looking board...

Head plates in place! Got a lot of material to take off still but it's starting to show some promise. Next step will be to trim and bind the headstocks.

looks like you might end up with some nice grain on the back of that neck.

I think you're right!

Happy father's day to me, I got to work on my project all day and I loved it! Got a lot done.

Started the morning by finishing up some 3D modeling and making the CNC toolpaths, then got to cuttin some wood...

First I cut a couple pieces of MDF and stuck the blanks down with bondo. Several reasons for this. For one, I don't have to be particularly careful gluing up my blanks or flattening them out before cutting. Since bondo is so thick it fills any gaps I might have. Also, since I stick them down with minimal pressure they won't spring when I let them go. I just put some blobs of the stuff on, lay the wood down and kind of skate it around a bit to spread the bondo out some. Here you can see some bondo squeezing out in a couple places and you can see some pretty serious gaps that aren't a problem.

Two blanks, ready to cut... Since this is a CNC build, I stuck my blanks down to pieces of MDF so I could vacuum them down to my router table. Works great. I just take a small drill or other tool and visually line up one of the glue joints. When it's nice and straight, I turn on the vacuum, find my part origin and let er rip! Well not exactly. I watch it pretty close and keep the scrap pieces out of the way, keep the shavings more or less swept up etc.

Holds securely through the cut...

The bondo breaks easily when the cut is done. I lay the project on the edge of a work table and flex the MDF down carefully until it cracks loose. My pry a bit with a putty knife here and there too if it's stubborn.

NEXT!

This one's mahogany maple and bloodwood. The pic gives just a hint at how nice that maple really is. MMMM! I'm liking that one.

And the cherry is looking mighty fine as Paulie suggested

Google a bunch of bass images or look through bass listings Ebay or something. They come in all flavors! Offhand I can think of the tele bass, Ric 4001/4003 and EB-0 that have pickups close to the neck. Sounds like you're already aware of the tone difference pickup placement can make so best bet would be to look at placement of pickups on basses you like the sound of. For reference, a Ric 4003 has the pickups at the 24th and 36th fret locations (or so I've read, I've never measured it!). In the case of Geddy Lee, technique seems to trump pickup placement since he can make a Ric 4001 and a Fender jazz sound almost the same so I guess you can pretty much do whatever you want and it will be ok!

For the record, I prefer not to be real close to the neck OR bridge and am very happy with the tone I'm getting from this bass with DiMarzio Ultra Jazz and Split P pickups..